freebo

Any recommendations for the best/cheapest VOIP providers, iiNet will give me all of my local/national calls but don't look to great value for international, like about 20c/min. I can use Skype but fancy a new VOIP router and using a normal phone for incoming/outgoing calls.

harrip

You may find this of interest - https://www.mynetfone.com.au/whirlpool/VoIP/Plans

I use their $4.95 per month Neosaver plan which includes 60 international or local untimed calls and 20 SMS messages.

ozzieeagle

I'm with IInet and I didnt like their voip costs one bit... Hence I configured my modem to run Pennytel and it's brilliant.

18.88 gives me 100 pct freecalls to anywhere including 150 mobile calls per month or 500 minutes. Saves me worrying about teenagers making mobile phone calls. We actually went over last month... and because I didnt have any credit in my Pennytel account they couldnt make the calls. I was pretty damn happy about that

I could easily have stuck some credit on there, but figured nah I'll make them think about it for the 3 or 4 days left in the billing cycle.

freebo

Thanks both, I'm now looking at Pennytel's free/untimed option as we don't make many calls, its mainly for ringing the UK 8c per call sounds good. We both have mobiles with a calls allowance so will use them to call mobile numbers, and may move to Pennytel for that too.

What didn't you like about the iiNet VOIP?

Also found how to route a UK based DID to pennytel so folk back home can call us for a UK local call cost, at least in theory; line doesn't get activated until Weds.

ozzieeagle

Simply that iiNets Voip was too expensive. I was getting around 30 to 40 dollar per month phone bills on their Voip service, mostly because of Mobile calls.

Cheetah7

I too have been researching good deals for phoning the UK. I am with Optus at the moment and its quite costly - $120 per month, that is free calls to any phone landline/mobile in Australia, 50gb of internet a month.

I dont know what the international call charges are as I usually buy a $20 phonecard to call my friends/family and that has worked out well.

We did actually reduce our plan a while ago with Optus so it didnt include free calls, it was only then I realised just how much I called my mates on their mobiles

Guess I will stick with what I have, I was going to go with iinet but decided against it.

freebo

My plan is to do this...

1) iiNet for all Aus landline calls as its included free

2) "Pennytel untimed" for calls to UK 8c per call for landlines and cheap for mobiles with no time limit and no monthly charge

3) Use our mobiles call allowances (possibly on Pennytel sims too) to call mobiles in Australia

I'm going to use a VOIP router to automatically select the best provider for 1 & 2 and have local UK numbers in various families towns for our friends to call, from sipgate.co.uk so anyone can call us for a local UK call, this will be routed through our pennytel account to our router and onto our phone here.

Expect that this will cost about $30 per month for 120 mobile mins and all landline calls.

Only downside is the basic router will cost at least $100 but I need a new one anyway, and will end up buying a more expensive one for additional features.

Its not just about being tight, I'm a techie & enjoy this kind of thing.

Cheetah7

Ive got my old Westnet router which isnt very old, you are welcome to have that - I can post it to you if you like.

ozzieeagle

Hmm be careful with the router though... personally I'm waiting because Fetch Tv figures in my plans and IInet say that you can only get Fetch TV Via BoB. I reckon that will change over the next year.

Which router do you plan to get, I'm only just working out now after years of computer owning how important they are. Reason being I need a 1 gigabyte one to stream media around my house, to kids bedrooms etc, if I go down the media over the net route... and BoB isnt fast enough for that.

Get the right router and you will never have to pay for Cable TV. I'll see what happens after Fetch TV has been going for a month or so to see what direction I'm going in.

I suppose it's only a 100 buck router at the end of the day though. Although the routers I was looking at were more like 300 bucks. There is some kind of dual signal that is needed for the TV broadcast and there are routers out there that can do this.

freebo

Wow, thanks for such a kind offer, but I'm after one with a specific set of fetures (especially VOIP). But really thats so good of you and appreciated pop it on ebay and you're sure to make a few quid .

freebo

I was amazed to find you can get a basic VOIP router for about $100 but I actually plan to get a Billion 7404VNPX, which is near the $300 you mention. The 802.11g version is less than $200 and only lacks 802.11n wifi and gigabit ports. Thing is, I also do media streaming via my NAS and in the UK used homeplugs, which I could get a pair of 200Mbp/s ones for less than $100, different story here; they seem rare and expensive so I'm hoping N class wireless will be good enough to stream HD and will save me the money on homeplugs. I already have a gigabit switch so no issues there.

As for Fletch TV, it looks a fine idea but proprietory to iiNet (a bit like Bob, the Tot Cost of Ownership seems a bit steep), I think most content will be delivered via the internet in the very near future but in the meantime I'll just use the various free web streaming protocols and have also signed up with Foxtel for now. Lastly I'm a huge fan of usenet and my NAS is set up accordingly .

None of this has anything to do with phonecalls but hopefully the whole thing will knit together and for not much money (after the router extravagance).

Thanks again for the replies, for VOIP the best option I've found so far seems to be Pennytel for the UK calls.

steve_kelly_and_boys

also with iinet

voip calls to the u.k are only 5c a minute

well worth it in my opinion

GarryP

A few pointers.

1) Get a Voip service for Aus and another for UK. I use Sipgate from UK which means I have a geographic DID UK number that I can be called on. Faktortel will do a DID in Aus, with the usual 10c untimed calls and no monthly charge.

2) I use the Zoom x6v router with VoIP that will do 4 providers, etc. Only issue is the wifi doesn't like my smartphone, but in general use it will be fine. When I got it it was £35, but the price went up.

3) If you want to route media around the home you don't need gigabit equipment, just 100Mbit. Even Blu-Ray is capped at 50Mbit rate. However don't try to stream HD video over wireless, it doesn't work. Instead for for powerline networking, or plain old cat 6 wires.

ozzieeagle

I want to be capable of streaming two or three media files at once... thats my issue.

I may go for one of these Zoom modems though.... Apparently I need a modem that can handle Multicast. Whatever that is..... As discussed here.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum...m/1469152.html

freebo

My setup in the UK was to use 200Mbp/s powerline and I could stream 2 1080p HD video files at once, although when transcoding on the fly my Mac was maxed on one 1080p file (one of the clients plays everything native, the other is a PS3 which needed transcoding) the resolution makes a huge difference, 720p is much lighter in bandwidth requirements.

I was hoping that 802.11n would be sufficient for my streaming requirements and save me buying powerline adapters over here.

I'll check out the zoom modem thanks, if it covers all of the VOIP requirements cheaply I'll just go homeplug, I can also go the next Billion down, save $100 and use homeplugs (still a more expensive route but prob more reliable).

I already have a sipgate account for a UK number so just need that to route that to my modem in Australia.

My main issue is the cost of homeplugs over here, $200 per pair