Greetings,

So who is using VOIP on here and how are you finding it? I'm very curious about the call clarity etc.

Awaiting!

Yep
Lingo at the mmoment
call clarity = cell phone +
reliability = cell phone ++
price = scottish
customer service politeness = american
customer service efficiency = american

There's a few...

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...9&page=1&pp=15

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...2&page=1&pp=15

I use a combination of Gossiptel and Free World Dialup with Xten softphone (headset on my pc) with Cox 4Mbs Cable Internet. I struggle to remember having any bad calls, I must have had some, so I reckon 98% of my calls are perfect. It will only be as good as your Internet connection.

I haven't needed any customer support yet, so I can't comment on that, potentially if you had a problem with call quality, the telephone service provider (Gossiptel, Lingo etc) could blame it on the ISP or vice versa. You could try before you buy, visit Free World Dialup, download X-ten's Softphone and make a few 1-800 calls using a pc headset.

Lingo for me at home and its fine.

I have skype on my ipaq and can quite happily use it whereever theres free WiFi access...which is pretty much everywhere round here.

We use Vonage via Comcast in PA. Sometimes I've had to stop downloading something on the computer when a call comes in (really big files). Other than that we've had no problems - would recommend.

Do you let the ATA maintain quality by putting it straight after the modem or have you plugged the ATA into your router/gateway? If the latter, does your router/gateway support QOS?

I was going to sign up with Vonage today for our new house. After being asked 3 times how to spell my name I got pissed and hung up, then went online only to find there were no numbers in my local area. Guess I'll get a regular phone for a few months and then port the number over.

I can't think of any domestic router that does QoS. In any event it wouldn't be worthwhile, because you're routing the packets over the internet where QoS headers wouldn't mean anything anyway. On top of that, these Linksys ATAs don't put out QoS headers anyway. We're not talking about multi-site enterprise toll bypass setups here!

The only reason I'd plug it directly into the modem would be if the router is causing significant latency. 40 milliseconds of latency end-to-end is about all VoIP will really tolerate. If the router is causing any appreciable latency, I'd buy a new router anyway.

Most domestic networks don't generate enough internal traffic to come even close to overloading the router or the four-port switch you typically find in them. The bottleneck comes at the service provider connection. For that reason, you won't want to be doing much internet downloading or anything like that while you're on the phone.

Dunno -- my networking skills are a bit ancient in today's world -- yonks ago when Queen Maggie ruled, I used to install Novell Netware systems. Haven't worked for my living in computers since.

However, had awful initial problems when initially trying an ATA in an older router when there was virtually anything else happening on the network, and had to leave it after the modem. Had one of those spending fits @ BestBuy and got the latest Linksys all-singing-and-dancing box 'o flashing lights. ATA now works a treat when plugged into it -- no problem with even with Limewire sucking hard!

Welcome to my world. My name's Gaelic and I spend half my life here telling people how to spell or pronounce it. Most of the time they refuse to believe me and I end up passing the phone to Mr Sibsie.

I've had people having problems with my name and both first and surname are as common as muck...just don't get it...they keep expecting it to be spelled weirdly or something, so spell it weirdly...

I use Vonage. Accept it for what it is, a "best effort" service, and you'll be impressed 99% of the time -- assuming your internet connection is decent.

If you want the reliability and consistency of the plain old telephone, you'll need to go with something like TimeWarner's telephone package. Naturally, you pay more for it.

I've been using Lingo for two months now. It was alright for a while. The sound quality was as good as a cell phone or better. I just had to deal with rebooting the adapter once or twice a week. A pain in the butt, but I wasn't complaining for the amount of money I was saving. But then the past couple of weeks Lingo has been having outages and for several days I had only an intermittent connection. It has been fine for the past 3 or 4 days, but I just hope that's the end of their problems or else I will be looking for another company to switch to.

Currently I have it after the router (an MN-700 with no obvious way to adjust QOS) and your question prompted me to look into the setup.. I found this link http://www.vonage.com/help_knowledge...o81avp6n61838p and I'll set it up this way (with the ATA after the cable modem) and see what that is like.

Thanks for the prompt.