Review by Stewart 
UPDATED: 153 days ago
member for 4.4 years, 1409 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Reno,Washoe,NV
 $11 per month (24 month contract)
 about 11 days
 "Excellent voice quality, free cloned line"
 "SIP credentials not provided"
 "Awesome for those who use the phone a lot"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Phone power claims "Try our top of the line call clarity, reliable network and top notch tech support ...". In voice quality, my tests definitely support that claim.
Basic quality measures (level, tonal balance, distortion, noise, etc.):
I made test calls from a Linksys SPA-2102 registered to Phone Power, and from my at&t POTS line. The attached pp1.wav consists of three clips. Each clip has a few seconds of a call to 775-825-0020 (a milliwatt test tone local to me) and to 800-437-7950 (answered by a high quality recorded male voice). The first clip is a capture of the voice packets received by the ATA (what an ideal IP phone would sound like), the second a recording of the ATA output, and the third a recording of the POTS line. The recordings were made at the earpiece terminals of a standard "2500" corded phone. All clips were normalized to about the same volume.
IMO, the ATA output is slightly more intelligible than the POTS, though a bit harsher. pp1.png shows the comparative spectra, purple = PP, green = POTS. I'm in a rural area and more than 12,000 feet from the CO, which I suspect is responsible for the rolloff of the green curve.
Some reviewers have complained that PP is too loud. Indeed, it's about 8 dB above POTS, measured at the 2500 set earpiece. I have a bit of hearing loss, so I'm happy with the result. If it's a problem for you, just turn down the "FXS Port Output Gain" on your ATA, or your phone's volume control.
Many VoIP providers have packet loss or excessive delays on their network (or their upstream carrier's network), especially during heavy traffic times, resulting in choppy voice. PP is excellent in this regard. pp2.png shows the RTP analysis of a ten minute call. As you can see, only one packet out of >30,000 was lost. This is typical of what I would see pinging my BRAS (at&t basic DSL, interleaved profile), so it's likely that PP was not responsible for any loss. Jitter is also very low; no packets were discarded due to late arrival.
Echo is very well controlled. When only one party is speaking, it's inaudible. When both speak at the same time, some echo is heard, but no worse than on a long distance POTS call.
Long latency is a problem with many providers. On a call from PP to my POTS, acoustic latency was 190 ms outbound +170 ms inbound = 360 ms; my DSL connection is responsible for about 50 ms of that.
Though I did not do any objective tests of outbound voice quality, I did call several knowledgeable friends with POTS lines and corded phones, and asked them if there were any impairments. None were reported, and I've received several compliments about the quality.
I'll be adding to this review in the next day or two.
Attachments:  pp1.wav 473,362 bytes
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Awesome Review
