[nflug] Which VOIP provider to use?

[wpos2 at adelphia.net]

A few months ago I (naively, perhaps) chose Vonage, and here's why:
1.	They were the cheapest provider I had heard of.  Well, technically, 
the cheapER, since the only other one I had heard of was Verizon, and Ma 
Bell in sheep's clothing didn't seem to offer as good a deal.
2.	They offered a device gratis.  I know (now) that the device could be 
better in allowing compatibility with other providers, but consider what 
I had before.  The AP I had before (that I had bought for 7$ after 
rebate) lost the ability to be configured.  After attempting to reset it 
via the pin-hole reset button, I exchanged it for another one, and that 
one did the same damn thing.  It did its job, but what if I for example 
wanted to change the encryption key, which should probably be done from 
time to time?  The antenna was also permanently bolted on so I couldn't 
bolt on a better one, but that is a minor issue to the eventual 
unconfigurability.  At least now I have better reception which can only 
get better with a stronger antenna.  (Any suggestions for an 
omnidirectional SMA antenna, anyone?)  As a side benefit, one of the 
conditions of the rebate on the device is to send in the old AP.  This, 
aside from facilitating a rebate, gave me a chance to completely wipe my 
hands of the inferior AP, which was good psychologically.

So now I'm committed to a year-long contract and paying more than I 
could be.  But overall I'm satisfied and paying less than I would for 
POTS, plus getting free long distance service and a slew of other 
features for the price.  The sound quality is definitely acceptable.  I 
don't normally transmit live Pink Floyd concerts over the phone, and I 
don't do serious psycholinguistic research, so 30 kb/s voice is ok for 
me.  The biggest problem I have is that caller ID rarely works.  I've 
already called their tech support.  They know of this problem, assured 
me that they're working on it, and gave me a ticket number.  (I'm not 
holding my breath tho.  I have a feeling that it's an issue with 
bandwidth anyway.)  Their tech support is a bit unprofessional.  The 
last time I called, I could hear witty banter in the background.  I 
don't have a problem with that actually, as long as I get what I ask 
for, and I'm not insulted, but some people may.  Their Web site is 
pretty decent: I can access the features I need to, and it's laid out in 
a way which seems logical to me.  The big issue here is latency.  I want 
better rt given my broadband access, 100 Mb/s network, and Athlon 64 
processor, but them's the breaks.

So I'm not going to officially recommend Vonage over other providers 
which are cheaper and lend themselves to more tinkering.  But, as long 
as your broadband connection isn't diluted by other machines and is 
otherwise sufficient (and you're not passionate about caller ID), then 
you'll be better off than with POTS both in features and price.  My only 
serious recommendation is a backup phone (like a cell phone or your next 
door neighbor's phone) because broadband connections fail more often 
than analog phone lines, and how do you handle a catch-22 like that?

Użytkownik Joshua Ronne Altemoos napisał:
> Now That we have dryloop at home we do not need out home line. Which VOIP
> provider is the best to use?
> 
> Vonage looks good and is well known and it uses linksys products.
> 
> Boardvoice uses Sipura and BOYD, it is cheaper and i have heard good
> reports also on them also.
> 
> Verizon is more expenisive but is discounted if you have VZ Dsl (the
> higher package not 700kbps) and looks like they use cisco also.
> 
> What do you all use?
> 
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