 Jwobot
join:2002-08-14
Sterling Heights, MI | whats the advantage bewtween voip vs a phone line im trying to figure all this stuff out and too me they seem to do the samething. |
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craigg
join:2001-06-04
Princeville, HI | Re: whats the advantage bewtween voip vs a phone l The reason most people switch to VOIP is because it can be less expensive than your standard telephone service. This assumes that you already pay for broadband service and that you do make a fair amount of long distance calls. The features for both services are basically the same. The downside is that VOIP is not as reliable as POTS and for some users it may end up being more expensive. |
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Tom867
join:2004-05-25
Edison, NJ | reply to Jwobot
Re: whats the advantage bewtween voip vs a phone line Well, since I have had both I'll tell you a few things.
Some of you may disagree with what I say, but it's all from first hand experience.
After all of the problems I've had with VoIP providers I would not recommend it to some one who's going to use heavily or for anykind of emergency situation. I've subscribed to three different VoIP providers and all three had problems with sound quality, being able to dial out at peak times, and just working or not.
In about the 15 years I've used a land line I don't think I ever had to call the phone company to complain about a problem. Their 911 service has to work and a plain regular phone line is considered a life line. It's also monitored in a way by the public board of utilities. VoIP is not.
So, as I jumped into VoIP because I save money and have all these great features (thats why I did it) I forget how good the landline really was because actually there were never any problems or issues with it, EVER.
Last thing...electric goes out. Cable modem goes out. VoIP line is dead. This is a huge issue...specially for some one that does not have a cell phone.
Good luck!
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 vonsenJust BecausePremium
join:2005-01-06 | reply to Jwobot
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. The great majority of people with voip, cite reduced cost as the largest benefit. If you already have broadband, it can be a real cost saver.
In addition, voip offers a lot of cutting edge call control features that you usually can't get with a conventional phone line. And things like being able to choose phone numbers in area codes that you don't live in.
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Hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllp, I think that the broccoli is after me |
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Re: whats the advantage bewtween voip vs a phone l I was an early user of VOIP. I lived in Calif., my mother lived in SC and was widowed. I called her at least twice a day because it was important to her. So my land line phone bills were always HUGE! Usually over $200/month. Initially, I used P8 and with it's unlimited USA calling, I saved an enormous amount of money. Later, I switched to Vonage and after trying a few other VOIP providers, have stuck with Vonage which works for me.
So if most of your phone calls are local or inexpensive, VOIP probably isn't for you. However, if your long distance phone bill is over $50 a month, I'd certainly recommend that you give VOIP a try. If your long distance charges are over $100/month or up to $200/month as mine were at one time, then it's definitely a "must have" which I now regard my Vonage line as being.
Today, my mom is gone and I really don't have long distance charges. I have a cell phone with unlimited USA calling that I use a lot but I have 3 teens who call all the time. Sacramento has "zone" charges left over from Pacific Bell and they can add up. I find using Vonage continues to save me money because of our unique local calling system which charges you according to what "zone" you live in. Few people would suffer under this system, I think but it might be a consideration depending on where you live. With Vonage, there are no zone charges and I continue to save $, just not as much as I used to. |
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nert
join:2004-08-26
Bellevue, WA
1 edit | reply to Jwobot
Basically, voip comes down to price (and maybe features). I'm going to use my bill as an example. I use to pay $120 a month for my one phone line (I make a lot of long distance calls). Over the last six months my bill has come to a grand total of $82 (not a month but for all six months combined). It will be going up to $30 a month once my referrals get used up in the next few months.
Others, like all the features that get thrown in for the price. Meaning, you get voice mail, Caller ID, Call Waiting, Voice mail to your email and through a web site, etc. (each Voip provider offers all these features but some have more than others).
So, to help you figure it all out, you have to do some math.
- Do you already have a broadband connection that you are going to keep anyway?
- Do you make a lot of long distance calls?
- Does your local phone company offer a local/long distance plan that is already cheap?
- Do the included features make or break the deal?
Add these up and compare to what you have. Are you saving money?
Now, after your math, you'll have to consider a few things.
1. How important is 911 service? Voip 911 isn't the same as it calls a local emergency service..not the regular 911 operator.
2. If your internet connection goes down, so does your phone. Can you live with that for a few hours? Do you have a cell phone as a back up?
I have AT&T Callvantage and it has worked great for the last 6 months. Two times, for about an hour each, the service was down on AT&T's end. Other than that, the service is the same as a regular phone. To me, living with an outage or two isn't a big deal as I'm saving $1000 a year. If I had a family, I might be thinking different because of the two concerns above.
Take a look at the whole picture and you'll be able to figure out if its right for you. If you have any more questions, just let us know.
Edit: The guy who posted above about voip having bad quality. It's a %99 chance he has something funky going on with his broadband connection. There are many of us that have perfect quality 99.9% of the time. Try out Vonage or AT&T...I'm betting one of them will work for you.
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vonsenJust BecausePremium
join:2005-01-06
4 edits | reply to Tom867
Re: whats the advantage bewtween voip vs a phone line said by Tom867:Last thing...electric goes out. Cable modem goes out. VoIP line is dead. This is a huge issue No, I don't disagree with your experience, after all, it is what you have experienced. But a few comments on expectations. It is not reasonable to expect a new technology to be a stable or reliable as a 100 year old mature technology. The appropriate question is whether it is good enough? This is usually weighed in the context of cost savings. E.g. If I can save 40% on my phone bill, is it worth putting up with a few hiccups and maybe the occasional short outage? If you blanch at the thought of ever being without a dial tone, then voip is not for you and you should pay the premium price to stick with POTS.
911. This seems to be a huge issue for some people. VOIP usually doesn't come with mature 911 service and even if you can get it, voip does not yet have 5 nines reliability that some telcos do. I couldn't care less. I've called 911 twice in 40 years and neither situation was truly life or death. Why would I worry about something I never miss i.e. I need it once every 20 years? If I need to call 911, I can use a cell or whatever. Of course, you may not view this the same way and if so, then you need to have backup access to 911 e.g. a cell or don't touch voip at all if 911 is that important to you.
As to losing service when the power goes out. VOIP rides on top of your broadband service. So expect to lose dial tone if your isp tanks. Not an issue for me. I log my uptime and my isp is "telco" reliable with essentially no downtime. Not everyone has that experience. A UPS (battery backup) would probably keep your voip going during a power failure. And if not, then the real problem is your cable co. In any event it your expectations that should drive the decision to get voip or not. If you don't have a modest tolerance for hiccups, then pay more & stick with POTS rather than tar and feather VOIP for it's growing pains.
YMMV
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Hellllllllllllllllllllllllp, I think that the broccoli is after me |
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| Re: whats the advantage bewtween voip vs a phone l I also have ATT CallVantage and love it. I say try it no matter what because almost all of the VOIP providers give you a free trial of 2 weeks to a month. See what you think about it...do you like the sound quality? Does the connection with the VOIP company stay up and running? Is it not eating up your bandwidth and such? The big reason as others have said is the much lower cost of VOIP. You can save some big dollars and get practically the same services and sometimes more with VOIP for 50% less or more. Give it a shot...
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»www.talkaboutvoip.com |
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 usa2kBlessedPremium,MVM
join:2003-01-26
Canton, MI
kudos:3
 ·VOIPo
 ·WOW Internet and..
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Re: Advantages of voip said by Jwobot:im trying to figure all this stuff out and too me they seem to do the same thing. And you use WOW Cable like I do.
I've been two years without SBC. The old land line used to run around $120 a month due to many calls to Canada, and local toll calls.
You don't even need to have a number local to where you live if you wish. My phones are part of near by Livonia MI. This area code seems to be local to all that call me, and my unlimited calls to 50 states and Canada makes things real nice.
Features, cost savings, added virtual numbers, ...
VoIP is not for some who critically depend on E911, or have no back-up like a cell phone. Or an ISP that is down all the time. I would allow 90K bandwidth per line plus what upload computing needs you may require. For me, faster is better, so I have WOW Ultra at the 4.0 Meg down and 0.5 Meg up. The higher the bandwidth, the less concern about the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor  )
I suggest you take your time and read up here. There are multi-year providers available, new start-ups, and many inbetween that may even be part of bigger organizations.
Bigger is not always better. New may make you feel like a beta tester. Different people have different needs too. Everyone here is helpful. We all have opinions. take your time
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Jim -- USA2K
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IGGYNo Guru Just Here To HelpPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL | reply to craigg
Re: whats the advantage bewtween voip vs a phone l "The features for both services are basically the same."
I would have to disagree with this. I think you get more innovative features depending on your provider. I have many features that I couldn't get with my POTS provider. And some of the features I could get are much cheaper than if I'd gotten them through a POTS phone company.
"The downside is that VOIP is not as reliable as POTS and for some users it may end up being more expensive."
My provider has been almost 98% in uptime for dial tone. Yes they have had feature related issues. Yes it would be wise to have a UPS in your setup in case the power goes out. But some providers - such as the cable companies. Are addressing this by having a power backup built into the VOIP adapter.
So the disadvantages are becoming less and less.
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| yes...VOIP has a lot of features that traditional POTS lines cannot. Practially everything about your service is interfaceable via the web with call logs, do not disturb, safe forward numbers and such. I know for a fact these settings can also be easily accessed from the phone itself as well. I think the do not disturb function is grand. Who wants a wrong number call waking you up at night? Not me...that is why I have do not disturb set for 12-6:30 am everyday. Now the person can still get through if it is an emergency, but if it is not important they can leave a message or wrong callers will just hang up. So far ATT Call Vantage has had and uptime of 100% for a month and a half for me.
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»www.talkaboutvoip.com |
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Jwobot
join:2002-08-14
Sterling Heights, MI | thnxs for the comments and clearing some stuff up for me. |
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