Reviews:
 ·voip.ms
| reply to MissSherlock
Re: Inexpensive Home Phone Plan Here this issue that the OP has to decide is what are the risks / benefits to each option and what they are willing to accept for themselves (and for their aunt, who may have a completely different set of wants / needs / comfort levels)
I'll give my own example of why I went to VoIP:
I had determined that I had a backup (cellphone)
POTS through Bell was expensive ($52/m) and not 100% reliable. I suffered outages because I live in a condominium and in the space of a year my POTS service had been cut off without warning four times and the only reason I realized it was the lack of telemarketer calls. Meanwhile my internet through Bell was rock solid.
Based on the above, I decided that VoIP could do no worse and the savings were large enough that it was work taking the leap into VoIP.
But again, this was my experience and you may have a different outcome than I did.
NefCanuck |
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 StewyPremium
join:2007-12-12
Kitchener, ON | said by NefCanuck:I had determined that I had a backup (cellphone) If you were to calculate the risk with VoiP up at 97% on a backup UPS with one cell backup up at 99% what are the odds of needing all the services up at the same time while they are all down. It would probably come up to something like 0.0001% for the 99% of the population living in modernized urban areas.
Environment Canada says lightning strikes kills six to twelve people every year in and seriously injures another sixty or seventy people. I fear lighting strikes way more than making an emergency call.
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Telecommunications Act PART III s.27.(1) Every rate charged by a Canadian carrier for a telecommunications service shall be just and reasonable.
IPP:W1:11.8:W2:5.4W3:3.6W4:6.2T27 |
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PX EliezerPremium
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River
kudos:12 Reviews:
·voip.ms
·callwithus
·Callcentric
·Vitelity VOIP
·Optimum Voice
·Gizmo5
| reply to NefCanuck
said by NefCanuck:I'll give my own example of why I went to VoIP:
I had determined that I had a backup (cellphone)
POTS through Bell was expensive ($52/m) and not 100% reliable. I suffered outages because I live in a condominium and in the space of a year my POTS service had been cut off without warning four times and the only reason I realized it was the lack of telemarketer calls. Meanwhile my internet through Bell was rock solid.
This brings up a good point.
POTS is becoming less reliable, and VoIP is becoming more reliable.
This trend of POTS becoming less reliable is further along in the US than Canada, but it is real.
Here in the US, the leaders of the two biggest phone companies (AT&T and Verizon) have publicly stated that they want POTS to die.
Here:
»bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/1···usiness/
»gigaom.com/2009/12/30/att-to-fcc···edburner
They see their future as wireless and internet.
This is why maintenance and support are going to hell.
It's in Europe too. Denmark plans to close down POTS by the end of this year.
It is coming more slowly to Canada (as Canadian broadband is slower too) but the "status quo" will not last forever.... |
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Mangowww.toao.net
join:2008-12-25
Alberta
kudos:8 Reviews:
·voip.ms
·Anveo
 ·Shaw
·FreePhoneLine
 ·TELUS
·Callcentric
·callwithus
·LINGO
| I don't think I have anything to add to the debate, but those who know me probably know what my opinion is 
I will say this: if your router or VoIP equipment requires constant - or even occasional - reboots in order to function, then something is wrong. Feel free to make your own thread about your issue and we'll try to help you.
I ended nearly a year's worth of router uptime by moving house. I wanted to hook the UPS up in the moving van but decided it was too expensive to get a car adapter, that was compatible with my UPS 
m.
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Recommended ATA Settings | e164 - make your DID accessible via SIPBroker! |
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 TOPDAWGPremium
join:2005-04-27
Midland, ON | reply to dillyhammer
said by dillyhammer:said by MissSherlock:Hi Folks,
Looking for an inexpensive home phone service with long-distance.
I currently use Rogers for home phone and Teksavvy for internet.
Any suggestions?
Thanks, MS
Are you technically inclined? » voip.msI rarely spend $20 a month, with family and friends in Scotland, Brisbane, Sydney, and spread out all over Ontario, every conceivable feature then some, with 5 phone numbers and 1 toll-free number for my business. My voip adaptor: » www.canadacomputers.com/product_···d=014833Whole thing took 15 minutes to install and configure. You're already using voip. Tale control of it. Save your money. Mike What he said I got this same set-up even got that ATA device. It's really easy to set-up I spend a monster 25 bucks on my phone every couple of months. I hardly use the phone as I hate talking on it and call my parents in the states time to time so the low price fits my needs well. |
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| Just thought I'd share my very recent experience.
After looking at various options, one of which included dumping the landline for a cellphone, I decided to try VoIP for the landline, and keep my prepaid cellphone (now that I know I can fill it up with $100 good for 365 days, which cuts my annual cost by a little less than half). Currently using Rogers Internet (Extreme) and Home Phone.
I looked at many providers and especially the reviews, forum discussions etc. and decided to give voip.ms a try, as it was the one that had - by far - the most positive feedback. I signed up last night, ran the echo test using a softphone. There was an echo when it repeated what I was saying, so I was a bit worried. I was in contact (e-mail) with support at the time and they told me it's not uncommon, but using a phone should be fine. That turned out to be true.
Today I bought a Cisco Linksys PA2T-NA ATA at Canada Computers and plugged it in and started configuring it. Beside the basic configuration information from the voip.ms wiki, I also followed the information on this page: »www.toao.net/25-linksys-ata-configuration so it took a bit longer than just the minimal setup.
Roughly 45 minutes later (which includes looking all over the place for another phone to plug into the VoIP gateway) I was making an outgoing call to my landline. I then made a long distance call and it sounded just like my landline. I then requested a phone # and after experimenting a bit and setting up voicemail and e911, I set up call forwarding on my Rogers landline to go to the VoIP line. I'll be testing this for a month or so to see if all is fine, but so far it's near perfect. I did hear a beep during my long distance call, but there was mention of that possibility in the aforementioned web page, so after the call I made the changes to the configuration.
The technician made a change to the wiring when he installed the Rogers Home Phone (is that what they call a dry loop?), and by plugging the line from the VoIP gateway into the wall instead of the Rogers "phone modem", I can use the VoIP line using any phone.
I was a bit worried at first since voip.ms is filled with technical terms (I'm a programmer, but I knew next to nothing about VoIP and its terminology until 2-3 days ago), but this turned out to be a relatively pain-free experience. Still too early to praise this - time will tell if it holds. Also the support was e-mailing me outside of their advertised support hours, which is cool.
I'm not a heavy phone user, so I estimate that voip.ms will cost me roughly $5-6 per month on average. Compare that to nearly $47 for Rogers Home Phone (got some features and a 1000 min. LD plan which costs next to nothing), an amount that's about to go up $2+tx per month. The Linksys gateway cost me $61, so assuming all goes well and I make the switch, I'll have recouped that in less than two months. |
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StewyPremium
join:2007-12-12
Kitchener, ON | said by MichelR:I'm not a heavy phone user, so I estimate that voip.ms will cost me roughly $5-6 per month on average. Compare that to nearly $47 for Rogers Home Phone... I'll have recouped that in less than two months.
Yeap and now use that to subsidize a SMART-UPS 1500VA and you'll have that paid off in a year and half or 9 months for a 750VA.
I've had my 1500VA ( »www.ncix.com/products/?sku=53187···NVERSION ) now for like 7 years but I paid like $350 on sale new at the time and it's still going strong. I've been testing it monthly.
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Telecommunications Act PART III s.27.(1) Every rate charged by a Canadian carrier for a telecommunications service shall be just and reasonable.
IPP:W1:11.8:W2:5.4W3:3.6W4:6.2T27 |
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| said by Stewy:Yeap and now use that to subsidize a SMART-UPS 1500VA and you'll have that paid off in a year and half or 9 months for a 750VA.
I've had my 1500VA ( »www.ncix.com/products/?sku=53187···NVERSION ) now for like 7 years but I paid like $350 on sale new at the time and it's still going strong. I've been testing it monthly.
I already have a large UPS - though it's already full. I'll first check if there's something that doesn't *really* need to be on it, and if not I was thinking of getting something smaller for the VoIP and the network switch (which both don't use much power), something like this: »www.cyberpowersystems.com/produc···slg.html |
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StewyPremium
join:2007-12-12
Kitchener, ON | It's all your decision, and you have to choose between cost, benefit, function and risk.
Those are what's called "stand by's" it gives you clean power and very little backup, but the other problem is that if/when the battery in the unit dies you can't replace them and the unit then loses it's battery backup function but it will still give you clean power. In the event of a blackout you won't realize that the battery had died and everything plug into it goes dead.
On my unit for example, you can see the battery load, it also has replaceable sealed lead acid / or gel type batteries and by doing that the unit can last 50 years. The risk of me losing power to my VoiP in a blackout is very low. Even then I have a 1400 Watt portable generator on stand-by. »www.p3power.ca/gg_gs2000s.html
All of this has already been paid for by the money I save from pots to VoiP. But it's upto you.
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Telecommunications Act PART III s.27.(1) Every rate charged by a Canadian carrier for a telecommunications service shall be just and reasonable.
IPP:W1:11.8:W2:5.4W3:3.6W4:6.2T27 |
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| OK - I wanted to look more into that "stand by" thing since I wasn't sure exactly what it meant. I'll look for some other alternatives, including that UPS you provided a link to. I've been thinking of replacing mine eventually. |
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