VoIP

[Ljuboja]

Anyone on these boards, or forums for that matter - use VoIP?

Include details of supplier and what you think. Im unsure if there will be many users to be honest since its more commonly found in companies with networks rather than in the home environment, well anyways back to the question.

Anyone?

[TheAnimus]

yup, was a thread about it in GD a while back

www.voipcheap.co.uk for outgoing via my PC.

www.sipgate.co.uk for incomming, its free, and they give anywhere in the UK geographical numbers.

[darrensen]

yup, was a thread about it in GD a while back

www.voipcheap.co.uk for outgoing via my PC.

www.sipgate.co.uk for incomming, its free, and they give anywhere in the UK geographical numbers.

But the only downside to that is you need 2 VOIP apps running...is that right?

[ajones]

Or there's the ole favoiurite - Skype

Free for Skype > Skype calls which does require the Skype client running on both machines. In this regard, it's like Messenger (or similar), only you can communicate using voice rather than just text. Latest version also allows Video call if memory serves.

Alternatively, you can Skype > PSTN and be charged for a local rate call (and there are different rates for different countries).

[pak000]

But the only downside to that is you need 2 VOIP apps running...is that right?

Some, if not most allow you to have different sip accounts on different lines, therefore only one app needed, one example being xlite.

If you go the hardware route, then one of the decent ones will enable multiple accounts. The sipura will even determine which is the cheapest for the call you are making and route it that way automatically

[TheAnimus]

if you have a spare box lieing about you can even run
http://www.asterisk.org/

make a PBX, put in some old modem cards and apparently you can put ur old phone system on it, make it so that outgoing calls are made via SIP, incomming from your BT line is still aviaable and incoming from SIP, you can give mailboxes, connect it up to each person in the house's phone..... i've yet to play with it yet, but i've heard good things about it

[DavidM]

Anyone on these boards, or forums for that matter - use VoIP?

Yes ...

[TiG]

Use it for work as i develop applications for both PSTN and VOIP technologies, be it sip/h323 or pretty much any other IVR technology our customers want/need.

TiG

[limpduck]

for business use swyx
for home use a sip provider (loads of these about)


and either use a softphone, xlite etc or grab a usb phone or linksys analogue phone adapter. My local neto store has some usb dect phone for £30 which is very cheap so keep a look out there if you can.

[eloquence]

I've given it a test run - some of the good ADSL modem routers around now have VoIP capabilities built-in which you can plug a standard phone into to connect it up to a SIP provider like Sipgate.co.uk (who offer free incoming telephone numbers unlike anyone else I've seen).
Skype is undoubtedly one of the easier to set up and use, but it is proprietary, so it can't link in with other VoIP providers, and has limited extensibility. Ditto Google Talk. MSN Messenger supports voice chat as well, and can actually be worth using if you're using MSN anyway, and that tends to work pretty well (although it doesn't have the links to real phone numbers).
Sipgate is my recommendation, as you can try it out for free, and as the owner of my offices discovered, if nothing else you can use it to set up a number that people can phone to leave you a voice message, which then gets emailed to you, and even if you don't end up making much use of the full telephony functionality, that function alone can come in handy...

I don't think it's true to say it's not common outside office environments, not any more... people have set up XBoxes as VoIP/SIP exchanges, ADSL routers are getting VoIP capabilities, companies like Vonage are widely advertising their services, and the home market is really taking off - firstly for cheap international calls, but also to have a second number without a 2nd line rental, to chat for free with friends, and so on.. Skype's the leader in the home (non-techie) market, I'd recommend trying Skype alongside a more open SIP-based provider like Sipgate, and see which is most suitable. I prefer the increased options that open standards can provide, but it is generally a little harder to get set up.