Saving a heap on your phone bill...

[AV Elec]

For every person who cannot get VOIP working, there is someone who is happy to take a small quality cut in their landline calls to save $50 per month.

I liken the quality to a mobile phone call. They are not perfect, but it is a quality I am happy to live with for the savings.

For best results you need 256k up stream broadband bandwidth (128k works ok, but not ideal), and a router with quality of service.

And no, you don't talk using your computer, you use your normal telephone which is connected into your router. You don't actually even need a computer to use VOIP.

[prozac]

I have been using VOIP for around 15 months. I pay $9.95 pm and calls cost 10c anywhere in Australia. O/S calls are around 3c per minute.

I am a bit lazy and use my normal landline (pstn) for local calls, but my ISP only charges $19.95 pm for this service. All up I am paying the same per month as I would have with Telstra ($29.95), and I have 2 lines, 2 phone numbers and cheap calls.

I found that when I was on the internet I sometimes got a bad line. This will be overcome this week when I buy a new modem with QoS or Quality of Service. Put simply the modem allocates packets of information or more bandwidth to the telephone connection over the internet connection. Those of you with bad connection, check to make sure your modem supports QoS.

With the new modem my calls will automatically be directed to either VOIP or to PSTN (landline) depending which is cheaper. I will also be able to make and receive 2 calls at the same time using just my normal Telstra phone.

But back to plain VOIP. I call friends in Europe and they ask "Where are you?". "I'm downstairs in the cafe" I tell them, and they believe me because VOIP is so clear.

I like it.

prozac

[Terry B]

I have only recently got decent broadband-HOORAH and haven't looked into the VOIP thing but I have a question.
When using the VOIP does it add much to the total downloads and uploads?
I have a big allocation but it is not unlimited. Would I run out of internet allocation?

[Groggy]

Terry, info here.

[Binary]

Apart from having the net connection and hardware the VOIP provider will make a big difference in call quality and service reliability. I am onto my third of fourth provider and have found the current one is much better then previous ones. Currently enjoying 8c untimed calls, daughter even made a $0.004 call some time ago (yes less then 1/2 a cent). Wife made a 17min call to the UK for 8 cents. What I am saving in "normal calls" pays for the line rental, VOIP and the fast internet.

Also watch what cordless phone you buy! I was blaming the VOIP for poor voice quality but then noticed using a wired desk phone it was fine - the Oricom cordless phone was to blame.

[adamtas]

A bit has changed since the first link I posted in this thread, so I thought I would see what's going on.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum....cfm?t=1126714 is the current link. In any case, the deal I was suggesting was the Whirlpoolsaver, you can read about it on the Whirlpool site from that link. I won't update again, but check to see if you are looking at the latest link by searching.
Benefits of Whirlpoolsaver =
No ongoing monthly cost
10 cent untimed calls anywhere in Aus
As low as 1.9 cents a minute - see previous posts for examples of what can be achieved with VoIP.
15 cents a minute to mobiles, charged by the second.
Voicemail, with free voicemail to email redirection, so your email is your answering machine...
Lotsa other things.
Many VoIP companies out there, as suggested the Whirlpool forum link has all the goods and discussions.
Whether you go for WhirlpoolSaver with MyNetFone or any other plan / provider, I strongly recommend you consider VoIP to save money on your home phone bill. Have a look at some of the plans to see whether as monthly charge and lower call costs suits you better than no monthly charge and a slightly higher call cost. Either way, still cheaper than Hel$tra.
In short, you will need at least a 512K broadband connection. Data transferred is negligable - about 2Mb for a 20 minute call from memory, but good idea to check. I know it's not much. And if you can set up QOS as mentioned earlier, an excellent way of improving the quality of calls.
We have a wireless network over 8 houses sharing one 1500 plan broadband, and it has 3 VoIP services on it as well as the broadband for the computers - some houses have more than one computer.
Satellite broadband is no good for VoIP due to the latency (too long a delay for the data packets to get thru = too long a pause between speak and listen, meaning you end up talking over each other, or perhaps it won't even work).
All this has been said before, on Whirlpool.
Hope this helps you.