VoIP phone.

[mookydooky]

I just got my VoIP phone adapter from Vonage. I have cable internet service so I don't need to use traditional phone lines for my internet service. I took the plunge and signed up for VoIP to see what the fuss is all about. Here are the current features that are available with Vonage's VoIP.

1) Unlimited domestic calling for $30.
2) Make calls from anywhere that has a broadband connection.
3) Virtual phone numbers.
4) Caller ID, Call Waiting, Call Fowarding, Call Return, Voicemail, 3-Way, Call Transfer, etc., etc.
5) Softphone.

The most interesting of these features are the softphone and the ability to make calls from anywhere with a broadband connection. The latter basically means that if I take my phone adapter with me, I can make and receive calls from any location that has a broadband connection. For example, if I have a broadband connection in a hotel room in China, I can take the phone adapter there and make and receive calls as if I was in the USA. No one would know.

The softphone is an extension of the previous idea. You can sign up for a new number and use software to create a virtual phone on your computer. Again, the idea is that you can make and receive phone calls from anywhere in the world with a broadband connection.

I just made some phone calls with Vonage and I have to say, voice quality is on par with regular wired phone service. According to the documentation, Vonage's VoIP uses about 90Kbps of bandwidth. Since my cable service tops off around 2.5Mbps, I should have plenty of headroom. I'll see how the service is over the course of a month and see if it's all it's advertised. I'll report back here as to how good it is.

[mookydooky]

Another interesting feature that I didn't detail is virtual phone numbers. You can sign up for multiple phone numbers to ring on a single phone. The advantage of this is if you have friends and family that live far away. For example, I live in NJ, but my brother lives in Atlanta. I can get a virtual phone number with an Atlanta area code. That way, if my brother calls me, he calls a local number. Apparently, you can sign up for as many as you want and the charge is $5 per number. Not a bad deal if you have a lot of friends and family who live far away. You can save them some money on phone charges.

[Aedan]

I've not used Vonage, but I'm using BT's "Broadband Voice" product, which offers broadly similar things. As the whole telephone system in the UK is different, the number offered is a non-geographical number. For those not familiar, the UK has different classes for numbers. Geographical numbers are your standard landline. Non-geographical include devices such as pagers and cell phones, as well as tollfree and special rate numbers. This makes it easy to differentiate between different classes of numbers.

BT provide a Cisco ATA186 device as the VoIP to analog interface. BT's product uses MGCP however, rather than the slightly more common SIP, H323 or Skinny. Do you know what Vonage use, as it might be handy to have a number in the US...

[mookydooky]

Vonage sent me a Motorola VT1000. I believe they used to use the Cisco and they recently switched to the Moto VT1000.

[SteveI]

Can you use a regular phone?

[mookydooky]

Originally Posted by SteveI

Can you use a regular phone?

I guess I didn't mention that part. The answer is basically yes, but you have to plug the phone into the adapter. Instead of plugging your phone into a wall jack, you plug it into the adapter. I believe it's possible to plug the adapter directly into the main phone lines in a home, that way, it would be indistinguishable from POTS.

[SteveI]

Originally Posted by mookydooky

I guess I didn't mention that part. The answer is basically yes, but you have to plug the phone into the adapter. Instead of plugging your phone into a wall jack, you plug it into the adapter. I believe it's possible to plug the adapter directly into the main phone lines in a home, that way, it would be indistinguishable from POTS.

That may be a good solution for me...
I've been thinking about getting a cordless phone set that has 4 phones, a single jack to connect to a wall outlet and extra bases for charging... I could place the charging bases throughout the house, and have all 4 phones receive their signal from the main base station connected to the adaptor... Now I just have to convince my wife to dump verizon. I gotta remember to show my wife when we come up to visit sunday.

[mookydooky]

I've now had my VoIP phone for about a week. During that time, I've made several dozen phone calls. I haven't had a single problem during that time. I've had phone conversations that have lasted over 100 minutes without a hitch. I haven't experienced any dropouts or lost connections. Voice quality is surprisingly good. Truth be told, if I didn't know, I wouldn't know I was on a regular POTS. There is an option to reduce bandwidth usage in exchange for voice quality, but I haven't tried that out yet. I haven't had a problem with my internet service so I haven't had to reduce bandwidth usage. It's currently set for 90Kbps, but the other options are 50Kbps, 30 Kbps. I'll report back if I have any other problems.

[Gizmo]

Be interesting to see how pure POTS compares to the 50Kbps mode, since pure POTS is 56K voice bandwidth.

[Aedan]

I've suffered some issues with VoIP with both my own implementation (to my server at home) and a commercial implementation. The biggest issue I've come across is dropout either caused by saturation of the local link (think hotel connection here), or poor international links.

Using the GSM CODEC, some low data rates are possible at fairly good quality, á la GSM cell phones.

[mookydooky]

Originally Posted by Áedán

I've suffered some issues with VoIP with both my own implementation (to my server at home) and a commercial implementation. The biggest issue I've come across is dropout either caused by saturation of the local link (think hotel connection here), or poor international links.

Using the GSM CODEC, some low data rates are possible at fairly good quality, á la GSM cell phones.

I haven't tried it at a hotel yet. I'll give it a go on my next trip abroad. I haven't had any problems with international calls however. I've been on the phone with Hong Kong and China for up 100 minutes at a time and I haven't had any any issues. Occasionally, I get silences that I think are dropped connections, but that's not what they are. They're just silences. I've asked people to repeat themselves, and they repeat the last thing I heard. I have no idea what CODEC they're using for Vonage, but it seems pretty good. None of the people I've called have complained about call clarity. I've also called my phone to see if there are any latency issues with the phone ring. Not a glitch yet on that front. I'm sure I will have some issues in the future. I'm not sure what they will be. My internet connection at home is not 100% reliable. I typically get an outage of several hours every two months or so. Vonage offers an automatic call forwarding system though, that will forward calls to another number (my mobile) if the adapter cannot connect to the internet. As long as the forwarded number is a US number, there is no charge for forwarding the call.

[Aedan]

I should have been a bit more explicit about the international links! What I meant was I have had problems when international internet links have been underperforming, and my data has hit queues on the internet highway.

International calls in the form of telephone calls overseas have never caused me problem with VoIP.

[mookydooky]

Originally Posted by Áedán

International calls in the form of telephone calls overseas have never caused me problem with VoIP.

I was a little puzzled too since once the VoIP phones leaves the internet, it's exactly the same as a regular phone call. The connection on the other side would be the same whether it was a POTS phone or a VoIP phone calling it.

[mookydooky]

Originally Posted by gizmo

Be interesting to see how pure POTS compares to the 50Kbps mode, since pure POTS is 56K voice bandwidth.

I set my phone for 50K to try it out. I'll see how the sound quality is at that speed. If I notice any difference I'll put it back to 90K. According to Vonage, most people can't tell the difference even between 90K and 30K. They also report that 30K and 50K links tend to have fewer dropouts although I have yet to experience one at 90K.

[Aedan]

To be honest with you, most of the world runs their POTS at 8KHz by 8bit. That means the typical POTS connection runs at 64Kbit/sec. Yes, I know the US has a wierd ISDN system in some parts (robbed bit signalling means that it's only 56Kbit/sec), but the rest of the world isn't!

Hence, running your link at 90K isn't likely to make the blindest bit of difference, as the weakest link is elsewhere. Just as a comparison GSM runs at about 13Kbit/sec when operating in full rate. The GSM AMR CODEC runs at up to 23Kbit/sec (AMR is used in 3G/UMTS cellular networks)

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Áedán

To be honest with you, most of the world runs their POTS at 8KHz by 8bit.

Actually, even the US runs 8KHz by 8bit (but it is µ-Law companding instead of A-Law). It's that robbed-bit signaling that you spoke of which is the problem. Europe went to Q931? ISDN for everything about 15 years ago, as I understand it. This means no robbed-bit signaling, just a couple of missing data channels on the E1 for framing and error correction. In the US, though, we still steal bits from the actual data stream because the entrenched telcos don't want to go to ISDN. North American T1 protocols are the bane of my existence, some days. The number of telco people who don't have a clue how T1 works but are still trying to support it astounds me. Trying to set up B8ZS ESF w/wink start when the idiot on the other end is trying to use AMI/D4 with CO Loop Start is a real PITA. And of course nobody will believe you when you tell them the telco has the configuration screwed up, so then you have to pull out the T-Berd and prove it to them. And then magically, three days later, everything starts working though no one will admit to having changed a freaking thing.

[FLAME ON]
AUUUUGGHH! I HATE TELCOS!
[/FLAME]

[Daniel ~]

Someone please define "POTS" for us tag alongs.

[Aedan]

Indeed, Q.931 appears to be the standard in Europe. Given that channelised E1 provides 30 channels vs a channelized T1 which provides 24 channels, the two missing channels on E1 isn't really significant.

Just because Europe has a standardized ISDN doesn't mean that screwups don't happen frequently. Typically it's the telco not disabling loopback somewhere on the line, or connecting the end to the wrong circuit rather than getting the protocol wrong.

[mookydooky]

Originally Posted by gizmo

[FLAME ON]
AUUUUGGHH! I HATE TELCOS!
[/FLAME]

Tell me about it. I had to use dial-up at work for 2 months because stupid Verizon couldn't figure out what was wrong with my DSL service. Finally, it just turned back on with no one knowing why it was working again all of a sudden.

[mookydooky]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Someone please define "POTS" for us tag alongs.

POTS = Plain Old Telephone Service.