Best VOIP provider suggestions?

chasroberts

chasroberts

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After an early dabble with Skype which was to say the least unsuccesful I am once more looking at VOIP suppliers and would appreciate any feedback which can be given on the best and which to avoid.

My internet connection at the moment is nominally broadband but in actuality slightly less than that. Looking for a method of calling family at home for long chats (SWMBO) and quick catch ups with mates (me). SMS messaging would also be a plus. Pretty much what Skype used to offer but never in my experience managed to achieve. Lots of echoes, we can't hear yous and the like.

Any advice, as always, would be greatly appreciated.

Chas
 
Not sure when you last tried skype bit it is improving all the time.

I use it for both business and pleasure calls and regularly talk and video call America, South Africa and the Far East. Botswana remains a voice only / Instant Messaging option only because of bandwidth.

Google now does an add in to their email and desktop services but TBH I think skype is streets ahead of them.

A lot is dependent on your web connection and especially the contention ratio on your line.

From Greece to the UK the connections are very good.
 
Other voip providers will be the same or worse than Skype = that is why Skype is so successful as it is very good quality. If your broadband is bad then changing your voip provider will make no difference. Skype works and if it doesn't then you need to look into improving your broadband by trying the following...

Fitting an iPlate for your master socket
moving your adsl modem/router to the master socket
disconnecting the bell wire
getting a high quality, screened telephone wire

Checkout out broadbandbuyer for help and products. I know that even for my 6Mbit line I nticed that all of the above made incremental improvements to connection speed and reliability.
 
I agree with Mark. Sort your broadband. I use Skype frequently with video from Mauritius to speak to Swmbo. Yes occasionally it goes flakey but thisis probably issues in Mauritius. Even worked from Rodriques which is pretty remote. Even if you have bad connection doing a computer to home phone using Skype saves a fortune as it is local call charges. I bought £15 worth of calls months ago and still have half left after numerous calls.
 
I generally use Skype with few problems. In some parts of the world Skype is unavailable (blocked), in which case I have found voipbuster (voipbuster.com) to be good and it only costs coppers.


Alisdair
 
chasroberts said:
After an early dabble with Skype which was to say the least unsuccesful I am once more looking at VOIP suppliers and would appreciate any feedback which can be given on the best and which to avoid.

My internet connection at the moment is nominally broadband but in actuality slightly less than that. Looking for a method of calling family at home for long chats (SWMBO) and quick catch ups with mates (me). SMS messaging would also be a plus. Pretty much what Skype used to offer but never in my experience managed to achieve. Lots of echoes, we can't hear yous and the like.

Any advice, as always, would be greatly appreciated.

Chas
Click to expand...
Skype have the resources to make their VOIP as good as you're likely to get as a consumer, without paying significant amounts of money.

It will always depend on the bandwidth available.
Having said that, you can make things as good as possible - use headsets at both ends, not built in microphones and speakers on computers, as these will help give echo effects - headsets are much better.
If your computer is slow, turn off everything else, such as web browsers etc, as you need the computer to run quickly as possible.
Etc
 
chasroberts said:
After an early dabble with Skype which was to say the least unsuccesful I am once more looking at VOIP suppliers and would appreciate any feedback which can be given on the best and which to avoid.

My internet connection at the moment is nominally broadband but in actuality slightly less than that. Looking for a method of calling family at home for long chats (SWMBO) and quick catch ups with mates (me). SMS messaging would also be a plus. Pretty much what Skype used to offer but never in my experience managed to achieve. Lots of echoes, we can't hear yous and the like.

Any advice, as always, would be greatly appreciated.

Chas
Click to expand...

Skype works well enough for me. Sounds like you might think your broadband connection is the root cause.

Try running a test using www.myspeed.com.

There's a couple of obvious possibilities. Broadband uplink bandwidth is sometimes a lot lower than the advertised downlink bandwidth, which can affect VOIP connections badly.

The other is that you might have lots of contention (i.e. your bandwidth is actually shared with lots of other people) which makes the performance variable.
 
Test like myspeed are very limited. They only show the speed at a moment in time, on a particular time, day of the week, and that can vary considerably, so need to be used with some care. They also use only one server. Far better are tests which run multiple tests across multiple servers in multiple zones. Even then, they are limited.
Far too many people, put far too much trust in such tests.

To obtain any reasonable results, you need to run the same test several times a day across many days, weekday and weekends, evenings, early morning, for several weeks.
Then you can see what you are getting, but only if you are doing just email and web browsing. If you do youtube or other highbandwidth, or iPlayer or other video, viewing or downloads, music downloads, games etc, you might find your usage is 'shaped' or 'throttled' depending on your provider.
A one off run of a simplistic usage tool like myspeed is not going to give you that information!
 
Any advice, as always, would be greatly appreciated.

Chas[/QUOTE]


Skype normally works well and when it doesn t t is often the fault of the installation and not Skype.

Skype will work using a desk mike and normal floor speakers however this is an invitation to echoes and feedback etc. It works very well with headphones and boom mike or as I use when travelling a corded handset which looks like those modern cordless thingies.

Skype like many other comms programs can get confused when it is used with some mobile phones and ceases to be fully duplex. This means there are times when it is pointless taking over the other person.....You just have to wait till hey stop to get a word in....Can be a long wait at times :D,
I use Skype frequently and must say I give more good/excellent reports than poor ones. The vidio links are good also and must be easy to use as my 4 year old grandson and same aged cousin can call the UK with little help.

MSN Messenger also works well.
 
chasroberts said:
After an early dabble with Skype which was to say the least unsuccesful I am once more looking at VOIP suppliers and would appreciate any feedback which can be given on the best and which to avoid.

My internet connection at the moment is nominally broadband but in actuality slightly less than that. Looking for a method of calling family at home for long chats (SWMBO) and quick catch ups with mates (me). SMS messaging would also be a plus. Pretty much what Skype used to offer but never in my experience managed to achieve. Lots of echoes, we can't hear yous and the like.

Any advice, as always, would be greatly appreciated.

Chas
Click to expand...
Latest Skype is version 4.2.0.169.

It's a lot more sophisticated, powerful and user-friendly than its competitors. It is, however a generalised system and uses any broadband supplier.

For phone-calls it's not the cheapest.

Alternative suppliers (who tie you to their broadband) are, in UK, Vonage, BT and plus-net.

Which is the "best" for you is highly dependent on yours needs and usage - I'm afraid you'll have to do some modelling before getting an answer to your question.

PS I think you'll find that they all default to simplex, which is why a conventional phone is still the communication medium of choice for most people, especially as prices are tumbling.
 
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Skype is very, very good indeed. It has improved by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. If it is not the cheapest for calling landlines, it is, at least, so cheap that you don't really have to think about it. And it has by far the largest installed base of users, so you are much more likely to be able to have a free Skype-to-Skype call.

I get good connections on Skype even using a mediocre mobile phone internet connection.

You have to keep in mind that no VOIP service will give you a perfect connection every time. Sometimes you have to connect several times and sometimes you just can't get a good connection. But these days if both sides have a reasonable Internet connection, Skype gives me a connection which is equal to or even better than POTS about half the time, perfectly acceptable another 25% of the time, and less than good maybe only 25% of the time.

I find it perfectly satisfactory, although for time-critical business calls I definitely keep other means of calling in reserve just in case.
 
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