Voip

[brown_wall_street]

Hi , anyone use VOIP instead of rogers , bell. I was thinking of making the switch and just wondering what a good solid provider is or if it is even worth it.

[SinCron]

From my experiences, avoid Magic Jack. It's alright for occasional use if you're a yank (you can get local numbers in the states but not here) so it would be useless as a call in phone. They use it at my work and they constantly have problems with it and customer service are idiots who will tell you to do a set list of things even after you told them you already did. Sorry I can't really suggest anything, just wanted to spend less time contemplating one option.

[ItemFinder]

I use Acanac. Cheap and reliable. I use it mainly for the follow me feature, so I can always get my calls to my cell in the event I'm not home.

[morglum82]

I've been with acanac for 15 months, then I left because the call quality was so bad. I would hear people fine, but they would hear me with a lot of jitter.
Another issue, probably even worse, is the fact that the other person would completely stop hearing me after some time. REALLY BAD FOR IPROFESSION AL CALLS...

That would happen even when I'm not down/uploading anything.


I switched both ISP (Rogers- -> Uniserve) and voip provider (Acanac --> Unlimitel) and all is good.


Unlimitel's calls are crystal clear The fact that I pay by he minute with their voip-a-a-carte pricing scheme may help. I currently pay 2.50$ a month for a DID, + 1.1 cents / minute for incoming/outgoing calls. I've set up an asterisk at home to do everything.

Their customer service is perfect, as you get to speak to them really quick and they are *all* bilingual. they are located in Casselman, Ontario.




The big plus of Acanac is you can set up many useful options on their asterisk server without having to run one at your place(email your voicemail, call forwarding/following, etc..) and you also get unlimited local and long distance calls for 10$ a year. But being unable to rely on it killed the deal.

[granto]

I've been with Babytel for 2 years. I'm very happy with their service.

[Deton8]

I second Unlimitel. Been with them for over a year and never had any issues. Calls are crystal clear.

[toalan]

I have 2 voip lines, magic jack and vbuzzer.

Magic jack Pros:
-probably the cheapest Voip service you can find
-hardware is included
-Free calling to the US and Canada (not sure about other countries)

Magic jack cons:
-quality is not that great
-All the servers are in USA, the best ping I got was to detroit, ~60-80 ms ping.
-You have to use their hardware which requires it to be connected to a PC, lots of people say the magicjack software is almost like spyware. I never really had any problem with the software.

I have not had vbuzzer for long and I never use it. $50 a year gets you a 416 number and unlimited service, calling to the US is not free. The price does not include hardware, so you either have to buy your own or use a pc app to make calls. Quality is better than Magicjack, they probably have servers in Toronto.

I bought an unlocked Linksys PAP2 voip to phone line adapter, it supports 2 voip services at the same time. So I run MJ and VB on the adapter, it works very well. It was a pain to get the sip info for MJ because MJ does not give it out and they take measures to hide the sip info so that you have to use their software which displays ads. I did a memory dump of the MJ process and found the sip credentials that way.

Overall if you want dirt cheap, do not care; much about quality, getting a local number, and leaving you computer on all the time then MJ is great.

I do not have enough experience with vbuzzer to reccommend them, so far it is good.

[ppcli]

I've been with acanac for 15 months, then I left because the call quality was so bad. I would hear people fine, but they would hear me with a lot of jitter.
Another issue, probably even worse, is the fact that the other person would completely stop hearing me after some time. REALLY BAD FOR IPROFESSION AL CALLS...

That would happen even when I'm not down/uploading anything.


I switched both ISP (Rogers- -> Uniserve) and voip provider (Acanac --> Unlimitel) and all is good.


Unlimitel's calls are crystal clear The fact that I pay by he minute with their voip-a-a-carte pricing scheme may help. I currently pay 2.50$ a month for a DID, + 1.1 cents / minute for incoming/outgoing calls. I've set up an asterisk at home to do everything.

Their customer service is perfect, as you get to speak to them really quick and they are *all* bilingual. they are located in Casselman, Ontario.




The big plus of Acanac is you can set up many useful options on their asterisk server without having to run one at your place(email your voicemail, call forwarding/following, etc..) and you also get unlimited local and long distance calls for 10$ a year. But being unable to rely on it killed the deal.

Explain this a bit more if you don't mind? Am in Trenton ontario and will like to call Hamilton regularly and vice versa, how much am I looking at and is there a hardware involved?

[morglum82]

Explain this a bit more if you don't mind? Am in Trenton ontario and will like to call Hamilton regularly and vice versa, how much am I looking at and is there a hardware involved?

Unlimitel Info

I dont know if you can get a local number for Trenton (look here for available DIDs) as I simply dont know where it is.


Basically with unlimitel you end up paying 2.50$ / month to get a DID (that's a phone number, for the rest of us)
+ 1.1 cents a minute for incoming calls
+ 1.1 cents a minute for outgoing calls on their network (see my first link, hamilton is on it)
+ 2 cents a minute for calls outside their network in north america.
----
For example, 10$ you'll get 11 hours of talk a month.

You'll have to pay 50$ up front, from which they will deduct you "minutes fees" every day, so this isnt isnt a good provider "just for trying" as you lose your 50 $ if you dont use it. I can tell you they have the best sound quality I've tried.

All you'll need for VOIP is an ATA (an Analog Telephone Adapter, which is a device that plug into your router and to which you plug your normal phone to.). A popular example is
Linksys's PAP2. , which usually cost around 55$.

Hope that helps.






*********
I also want to add a comment about netfone.ca. 2 months ago, I applied for their service and unlimitel at the same time. I wanted to get out of acanac, and try 2 providers so I could pick the best one. Well, they charged me 10$ and have YET to provide me with any information (server, login, passworD) ... I've writing lots of emails and even chat with their online support but didnt get any result....

[woof]

I also want to add a comment about netfone.ca. 2 months ago, I applied for their service and unlimitel at the same time. I wanted to get out of acanac, and try 2 providers so I could pick the best one. Well, they charged me 10$ and have YET to provide me with any information (server, login, passworD) ... I've writing lots of emails and even chat with their online support but didnt get any result....

I signed with netphone.ca a few weeks ago. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed at the lack of startup information/help (the lack of info on their web site is an indication of what to expect). However I contacted their online chat and they walked me through configuring my Linksys PAP2T and everything works fine now. I went with a new phone number which made everything simple.. Very pleased with them so far.