Why is VOIP not more popular?

[mike557]

Letters are being sent out by BT saying that from 1st of April, they will be increasing call charges and connection charges. Do you realise that a 1 second call during the day will cost you 16p !!!

They are also changing the free evening call period from 6pm to 7pm and I bet that will catch a few customers.

Now is the time to look at voip....

VOIP is excellent and I cannot see why everyone is not using it. I understand that there are packages from landline companies and many people feel that they get a good deal from them. The point is they dont !!!

I run Asterisk (a voip PBX) and now have friends connected by it in Malaysia, Spain, Greece as well as the UK. Our calls are completely free to each other and they have UK telephone numbers so anyone can call them directly.

All my calls go out using one of the betamax/finarea companies during the day and in the evening & weekends the calls go via my landline as they are 'free'.

The call quality is really good and I end up paying less that £20 for ALL calls for a year.

I now have a fantastic Android phone which runs sip and when at home it uses the wifi and when out it uses 3G so I have an 'extension' anywhere. I do not pay for mobile incoming or outgoing calls as everything is done through the PBX.

My friends use a PAP2 (or spa-3000) and just plug in an ordinary phone or cordless. To them they have a landline (although it is actually an extension).

If you need help then get posting, and lets get voip moving - You can save so much money and it is real fun getting it all working.

As the cable scene is going to go very quiet, you are going to need another interest.....

[PaphosAL]

Thinking about it Mike, we've never had any real solid feedback from SatSearching as to how much brass he's saved over the last 6 months on VOIP, have we?

[renwich]

Is there a cheap option to get started,

I currently pay less than £40 per month for the phone including unlimited calls 24x7 and 20meg broadband,

But I see Voip as the future, but the wife wouldn't not have a fixed land line as we get a lot of power cuts where I live, and the mobile signals are poor and unreliable

[mike557]

SPA-3000 about £28 and a UK incoming number with finarea/betamax. Pay about £20 for a years worth of calls.
Broadband with O2, £7.50 if you have an O2 PAYG or contract (although it will probably be free for the first year).
Telephone line for broadband (if adsl) about £11.50

So yes you can save a lot of money although this is not on cable :-(

Appreciate the move is a pain and often easier to pay more because you are happy with what you have - which is probably the real reason why voip is not taking off.

Good point about power failure - solution - move ;-)

[PaphosAL]

Mike- you're advocating us to stop using BT / VM, but like Renny, I'm reluctant to do that until betamax tie in 999 UK Emergency calls to their system. This can't be rocket science to do, surely?

Else one's left with just the mobile left on 24/7 to handle this eventuality. And if mobile reception is poor as in Fatty's case (he lives in an old coal mine shaft, btw)- then the existing landline is a must, as this is unaffected by power cuts...

Can you enlarge a little (?) on this one, please:

I run Asterisk (a voip PBX) and now have friends connected by it in Malaysia, Spain, Greece as well as the UK. Our calls are completely free to each other and they have UK telephone numbers so anyone can call them directly.

Are these all on their own voip contracts? And do 'in house' calls between extensions still affect your 700 mins / month voip cap?

Cheers- AL

[mike557]

@AL
Unfortunately we still need a landline or cable for voip which will allow our 999 calls. The spa-3000 allows dialplans to 'breakout' to landline when necessary.

Calls should not be made on the landline unless free e.g. I have free evening & weekend calls with BT for standard line rental (£11.54 per month).

The PBX routes the calls based on the time.

As for friends in other countries, some are registered with sipgate directly in the PAP2, by dialing 9 it speed dials my PABX which gives them dialtone. This means that even if my PBX goes down (which it does not) they still receive incoming calls.

Alternatively the PAP2 is registered directly with the PBX which saves them dialing 9.

Sipgate to Sipgate calls are free so it does not matter if they are connected directly or indirectly.

[lincsat]

We still need a landline for the ADSL service but have a solution to the power-cut problem - everything is connected to the UPS

[PaphosAL]

I want to nominate Mike's post #1 above as 'Post of the Week' but can't see how to go about doing this.

Someone please put this old geezer out of his misery...

[mike557]

Thanks AL.

The post is something that I have been mulling over for quite a while now. The voip section on here and other forums is very quiet. People that have voip are very happy and even though people like me shout about it, it still is not moving.

I posted this on another forum :-

We really need to get people to realise that setting up voip need not be a big task.

All you need on most devices is to enter 3 bits of information :-
A/C (normally extension number on PABX)
Password
Domain (ip address of PBX/server)

There can be problems with certain routers but most modern devices work, it is only when you build your own pbx and have external extensions that configuration becomes more complex.

People thinking they have free minutes on the mobile (when they pay £20+ a month) are just being stupid. The calls are NOT free !!!

Yes you need to make calls when you are outside so yes a mobile is necessary but with modern smart phones you can do voip. So instead you just need a data service or use wifi. Data services need not be expensive, £5 on 3 or free with giffgaff at the moment.

All in packages (virgin) are not the value they appear and I think the legality of saying we will charge you more or not alter your price if you drop a service is a con.

By going over to voip you can drop BT, Virgin or even the mobile number (although you will still need a mobile/landline number ). People calling me on my mobile just ring my landline and as the mobile is an extension it rings. Mobile calls are so expensive unless you have a contract or add about £10 per month on PAYG - why? So that having a contract/free minutes appears good value - it is not.

Voip gives you mobility - people do move and unless locally, they have to have a new phone number. With voip your number is wherever the phone is, which can just as easily be in another country.

Voip allows you to have more than one telephone number e.g. daughter/son/business.

Voip calls are low cost or free including international calls.

Suppose the bottom line is it appears too much bother for something that appears low cost anyway. Sorry guys but if you think that you are just being like sheep following each other. Get playing and you will be amazed at what you can do.


phew, I feel better now :-)

[renwich]

Originally Posted by PaphosAL

I want to nominate Mike's post #1 above as 'Post of the Week' but can't see how to go about doing this.

Someone please put this old geezer out of his misery...

must be just you AL, I managed, do you need new glasses..????