Landlines

[Dude111]

We have had VOIP in our house here for awhile now and i gotta tell you,I MISS OUR OLD LANDLINE LIKE CRAZY!

Better quality,no dropped calls,etc.........

We have a plan for UNLIMITED CALLS to USA and CANADA that we could also get WITH A REGULAR POTS LINE and the quality would be MUCH BETTER!

Anyone else agree with me with LANDLINES (Analog) is MUCH BETTER than this VOIP stuff out now? (More secure also,VOIP goes over the internet and can be sniffed easier)

[SMG]

Absolutley. Most of the time my VOIP is echo`y, time delays, poor ringing, & generally crap. Some times the quality is as good as a landline, but not all the time.

[Pushkar]

It's cheaper, you can't really complain.

[m419]

Virgin Media offer Talk Anywhere, which offers calls as equivalent of 4p per minute to call ALL international mobiles and landlines as well as UK landlines,UK mobiles and 0845 and 0870 numbers. You are given a set bundle of minutes each month for a monthly cost which includes line rental, 200 minutes cost £20,400 minutes cost £27 and 800 minutes cost around £36.

Alternatively, you could try Talk International.

Thats the cheapest you can get for international direct dialled calls from a ordinary landline.

[Dude111]

Thats pretty good for a landline to overseas locations!

[AndyCambs]

or if you have a BT line - check www.yourcalls.net
Gives a "Golden Destination" so calls are reduced to that destination even further.

[m419]

Yes but you have to pay seperate bill ect....and to be honest I got ****ed off with all those indirect access codes and seperate bills coming and going!

Oh by the way, Virgin Media do not charge call connection fees if you are on Talk Anywhere.

[jcw00]

I have been using Vonage for 6 months, and I don't have any of the problems mentioned. However I must say my Virgin connection is 99.9% stable. If you have a connection that goes up and down then any VOIP will have problems.

[Dude111]

Yes thats true!

However our VOIP service is 99% stable and still it drops calls (And the audio level is slightly lower than it was on our POTS line)

Yes its cheaper but it shouldnt be LESS QUALITY (But seeing how everything IS LESS today,im not surprised)

[haydnwalker]

The reason VOIP is crap at the moment for consumers is that there is no Quality of Service (QOS) or priority given to the voice traffic on consumer broadband connections. We have a VOIP solution at work that connects sites miles away and because our net connection has QOS prioritising voice traffic the quality is brilliant.

---------- Post added at 19:53 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

I believe there are a couple of ISPs that do offer QOS options (PlusNET sticks in my mind but I might be wrong there)