Comments on: Making VoIP Work For You

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:46:49 +0000

Hi,
i agree voip is frustrating sometimes.
I suggest you try vephone. its similar to skyoe.
Gives a local uk no.
so good for uk residents. Also, a good option is to use voip phones. Check out http://www.panateldirect.com

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:40:27 +0000

After a year of frustrating VoIP service (due mainly to Comast’s horrible internet service), I’ve given up and spent $20 a month for a local landline. It’s sure nice to be able to talk to clients without choppy words and dropped calls. $20 is a small price to pay for voice that actually works.

I am, however, using onsip.com to route my 800 and other extensions to my landline.

By: Joe Werzinske

Joe Werzinske — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:43:41 +0000

I’d also like to add VoIP Your Life to the list. I have been a customer of theirs for almost 2 years now. I have only had to contact customer support twice, both by email. I received a quick response and my issue was resolved ASAP.

They offer a lot of featured for $23.97/month. Features include everything from e911 to music on hold. They also have the ability to take and make calls off your computer, no additional charge. I have this set up to pop up the caller ID of the person calling.

they are at http://voipyourlife.com/

By: randulo

randulo — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:16:10 +0000

@Larry Keyes, yes, I've been with VoicePulse for a few years and ironically, I had a small problem with my Siemens phone mentioned above. I phoned them and got it solved, at my own tech level (not dumbed down to "reboot Windows") within minutes. VoicePulse is a great choice.

By: Larry Keyes

Larry Keyes — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:46:45 +0000

I’d add VoicePulse to the list of providers. We have used their Asterisk service. Their tech support is great, and generally it seems to work quite well.

However, I would caution people about using the VoIP providers above for inbound and outbound business calls. The quality can be quite poor; much worse than a cell phone, and it projects a terrible image to your customers and clients if they are struggling to talk to you over the phone.

Better to maintain a minimum of one “real” landline for business calls and supplement it with something like Voicepulse or Skype for overseas long-distance calls, and casual calls with friends.

Videoconferencing:
Add me as a fan of SightSpeed. It is outstanding for videoconferencing, and allows three or four connections for multi-point. For point to point video calls on the Mac, iChat is great.

Finally we’ve had excellent results with the Polycom PVX software for connections to conventional multi-point business videoconferencing units using either H.323 or SIP connections. This is a very mature application which has outstanding results. and terrific audio. We’re using it with multi-point connections with 12 external sites on a regular basis. Costs $120.00 per seat. Windows only. (boo hoo). Works very well with “home” DSL and cable broadband.

By: Dan Reese

Dan Reese — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:04:20 +0000

ViaTalk was an absolute nightmare for me, and I’m not exaggerating. Horrible service, inept and rude tech support that I waited literally hours for, and a draconian refund policy. I had to get the NY department of consumer affairs involved to get a refund. BBB delisted ViaTalk over all the complaints.

STAY AWAY FROM VIATALK!

–Dan

By: J.A. Watson

J.A. Watson — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:57:30 +0000

There are several excellent alternatives to Skype:

ooVoo (www.oovoo.com) – excellent multi-party video/audio/phone chats, outgoing calls to all U.S. and Canada numbers are free until mid-June.

SightSpeed (www.sightspeed.com) – very good business features, multi-party video chat in subscription version.

Gizmo5 (www.gizmo5.com) – Excellent phone in/out service, unsurpassed IM text chat, can include MSN, Yahoo and others.

All three of these offer one significant thing that is missing in Skype – customer support. Just try contacting Skype support with even the most trivial of questions, and see what kind of response you get (if any).

By: J Lane

J Lane — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:54:59 +0000

Vonage is also available in Canada (FYI)

http://www.vonage.ca/

I’ve been a customer for at least a couple of years now. It’s not bad, the quality suffers sometimes (but that’s mostly the fault of my ISP). I’ve got local numbers in two different cities, so my favorite part is getting phone calls trying to sell me local services (I’m not local to either city). It’s always a blast asking the telemarketer if they’ll deliver….

By: jopincar

jopincar — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:39:24 +0000

I forgot to mention that going with a wireless phone set makes the transition to VOIP a snap.

One thing I’d like to see is the ability to place and answer calls using my vonage numbers directly from my computer.

By: jopincar

jopincar — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:36:45 +0000

I’ve been with Vonage for many years now and have been completely satisified with their service. I checked into VOIP much earlier than most people thanks to the motivation provided by the monopolistic local phone provider’s horrible service and high price. Somehow, unlike all the rest of suburban Houston, they were the only choice I had for local service and I could tell by how they treated me. Vonage is just flat out a better service (VOIP or not) for much less cost.