Voip who has it and which service do you youse to make calls

[neptunenet]

I have been using voice over IP for a year it has saved me a small fortune on telephone calls, I use it in the marina that I live in I have wifi on my boat which gives me Internet access . What I would like to know is which service and the rest of you are using and what other benefits have you found. One of the major benefits which I found recently was I was able to take a UK telephone number in London and all my friends and business acquaintances are able to ring me at the UK prices of the call actually arrives on my boat via the Internet please give me some feedback on the subject . Paul

 

[kcrane]

We use Skype and have done since it started. We have SkypeIn (ordinary telephone numbers that people can ring and it comes up on the PC as an incoming call). The incoming numbers appear to be London numbers (0207) for the UK, and we have one in Cleveland, Ohio, USA for customers to call. We also buy credits on SkypeOut to call out from the PC to ordinary phones. This isn't used much for UK calls, but it is used for internaional calls. An added bonus is the ability to set up conference calls through Skype.

We have a "DualPhone" (about £70) which is an ordinary DECT phone that also plugs into the computer via USB and receives Skype calls, so that Skype feels like a common phone.

As an experiment we bought a Draytek Vigor Router, which has VOIP built in (you can plug two ordinary phones into it). The upside is that you don't need a computer switched on to use it. Draytek provide the service that switches calls between the internet and the public telephone network. It worked well, but I think is quite confusing to set up (especially as everyone is used to telephones being plug&play).

Personal recommendation would be to try Skype (including SkypeIn and SkypeOut) and see if it works for you. If it does you could consider other options.

 

[JeanneP]

VOIP is a new concept for me. Can you explain, briefly. How do you get your Internet connection in order to use this? Is it WiFi on the boat? Does this mean only when you are at your normal marina berthing?

A little info. would be greatly appreciated.

 

[PembrokeshirePromise]

If you want to integrate with normal phone system using
VOIP - Draytek have just launched this:
http://www.draytel.org/index2.html

Not used it myself - just thought it looked interesting - basically a cut down router as I see it.

 

[LadyStardust]

I'm currently using Skype at home right now, and have installed it on the boat, but without WIFI in our marina it's obviously not much use yet.
Skype seems to work very well. I had a vigor router but was dissatisfied with the product and sold it. I also have Cisco IP phones, and Cisco routers with VoIP and Pots interfaces which works very well, however this costs about a fortune and does not give a massive benefit over skype. I noticed that Draytel are offering very cheap breakout calls, I think 1p/minute, however, it's so low on Skype I'm not tempted to change. My gf uses it for UK-Italy calls all the time and rarely has problems.

 

[Its_Only_Money]

Skype for business and Googletalk for some family and friends. Skype has the advantage of having the conference facility for work usage. Running both side-by-side at the same time on the same machine doesn´t seem to cause any problems either - although I haven´t had to receive calls on both at the same time!!!

Saved a small fortune /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[temptress]

[ QUOTE ]
VOIP is a new concept for me. Can you explain, briefly. ........
A little info. would be greatly appreciated.

[/ QUOTE ]

Difficult to explain briefly but basically you can use this when and wherever you have an internet connection....

Look at http://www.skype.com/ for more info - SKYPE are not the only people to offer this.

As with most things comms lreated it not just pluyg and play.

 

[neptunenet]

wifi Can be used even at anchor but it depends on the transmission range of the base antenna, normally you get 1km range line of sight .we have been providing wifi for two years in spain but it is only since voice over IP properly came on the market that it has increased in the demand .I believe that's skype will become the dominant player in the marketplace because most of the products are now compatible with skype but not necessarily with all the other voice over IP providers and when you consider that they have had 150 million plus downloads and normally you can see 4 million people using it at any one time you must put it to yourself that they are far ahead of the rest!There are plenty of other voip suppliers that offer some very effective deals but it does come down to which country you are phoning I sometimes use one of the other providers if I am making a young telephone call to a German line I might use voipbuster but all my day today calls for incoming and outgoing are generally on skype as a lot of these programs I have used are not compatible with each other paul at NeptuneNet

 

[david_bagshaw]

have used voipfone for the last few months with ntl broadband on a cable modem. (so have no land line)

also use sipura ata to enable the use of ordinary telephones


service been excellent so far with 2 lines, one which i use for faxes. cant recieve fax directly however the down load system is reliable.

 

[temptress]

[ QUOTE ]
wifi Can be used even at anchor but it depends on the transmission range of the base antenna, normally you get 1km range line of sight ......

[/ QUOTE ]

Be very carefull setting these sort of expectations. To get this range you need dedicated outdoor antenna at both ends and perfect conditions. The distance and speed at which a WiFI performs depends on many things, from the efficiency of the wired network to the configuration of the equipment, the space the signal must cross (masts cause an exponential drop in distance and throughput) to the type of WiFI equipment employed.

As a general rule for all Wireless applications, data throughput decreases as the distance between the access point and the wireless client increases.

 

[neptunenet]

i am now in the marina but i was at anchor for three months and i never had a problem there are a few people still out there and i can give you there skype name if you want them, they are over half km away and i speak them more now on skype than the vhf, there is only one down side and thats when they swing on the hook they have to place the antena in a new place