dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
922
Bink
Villains... knock off all that evil
join:2006-05-14
Colorado

1 edit

Bink

Member

Hangouts Voice Calling as a "Daily Driver"

So, due to a poor cell signal in my basement home office, I’ve been using VoIP on my cell phone to make/receive calls and this has worked quite well. The only time it doesn’t is when I have occasional Internet connectivity issues, echoing issues or latency issues and this doesn’t happen often.

However, now that Google is allowing voice calls, any reason I should stick with my VoIP plan? While my VoIP plan has more features, I don’t use them often and I have yet to have the echoing or latency issues with Hangouts and the call quality is pretty decent. Is anyone here doing voice calling with Hangouts regularly?

For what it’s worth, it appears Hangout calls only use ~25Kbps compared to ~80 for my VoIP calls, but one drawback I have found is Hangouts appears to use far more battery life when I’m in a call compared to my VoIP calls.

Cheers.

brg
Premium Member
join:2001-01-03
Chicago, IL

brg

Premium Member

Re: Hangouts Voice Calling as a "Daily Driver"

You can have it both ways, I'd think.

Battery first: either keep the phone plugged in or -- better yet -- invest in a wireless "Qi" or Powermat or similar charger (if possible with your phone) to set the phone on when not in use when in your basement office.

If Google calling has been effective, and customers/colleagues/clients aren't troubled by the CID of the Google calling, get them -more- used to that number and see if you can spoof your Google number with your VoIP provider. Then cutomers will always see that number and will call it as well.

Both Google calling and your VoIP aclling will, in the main, require good internet connectivity, so that's not a discriminating factor.

If possible you could downgrade your VoIP plan (fewer minutes?) and save some money while keeping it as a fallback for those times when Google calling sucks, or for when Google decides to (1) discontinue the service, or (2) charge lots for it.
Bink
Villains... knock off all that evil
join:2006-05-14
Colorado

Bink

Member

Re: Hangouts Voice Calling as a "Daily Driver"

said by brg:

Battery first: either keep the phone plugged in or -- better yet -- invest in a wireless "Qi" or Powermat or similar charger (if possible with your phone) to set the phone on when not in use when in your basement office.

I have one and these and f*cking love it—screw the iPhone. As such, battery life is only a concern when I’m away from the charger.
said by brg:

If Google calling has been effective, and customers/colleagues/clients aren't troubled by the CID of the Google calling, get them -more- used to that number and see if you can spoof your Google number with your VoIP provider.

I’ve done something related—mainly getting family I talk to often to use the Google number for now.
said by brg:

Both Google calling and your VoIP aclling will, in the main, require good internet connectivity, so that's not a discriminating factor.

Agreed.
said by brg:

If possible you could downgrade your VoIP plan (fewer minutes?) and save some money while keeping it as a fallback for those times when Google calling sucks, or for when Google decides to (1) discontinue the service, or (2) charge lots for it.

I might look into my options here.

Thanks.
BinaryTB
join:2008-08-11
Rockville, MD

BinaryTB to Bink

Member

to Bink
said by Bink:

one drawback I have found is Hangouts appears to use far more battery life when I’m in a call compared to my VoIP calls.

Since this is for your basement home office, get a good headset/mic for your PC and you can make/receive your calls that way. You don't have to use the Hangouts app on your phone, the official Chrome Hangouts extension should work fine as well.

I don't know if that requires a Google Voice number though. The GV number is my primary and landline, PC, tablet, smartphone all can make/receive calls via Hangouts (or pots/cell service) for me if I choose. No caller id issues either since nobody important has my real cell or landline number.

bitseeker
join:2014-03-05

1 recommendation

bitseeker to Bink

Member

to Bink
I've started using the Hangouts app for making calls using my GV number. The sound quality over WiFi has been really good so far.
Bink
Villains... knock off all that evil
join:2006-05-14
Colorado

Bink

Member

I have this configured to ring for Incoming phone calls, but, more often than not, when I answer the call the caller and I cannot hear each other. Anyone else experiencing this issue?

brg
Premium Member
join:2001-01-03
Chicago, IL

brg to Bink

Premium Member

to Bink
That's usually a NAT issue...
Bink
Villains... knock off all that evil
join:2006-05-14
Colorado

Bink

Member

said by brg:

That's usually a NAT issue...

I figured as much, but I assumed Google would have expected NAT. Regardless, I’ll have to review further—appears Google is using XMPP.

cb14
join:2013-02-04
Miami Beach, FL

cb14

Member

unrelated to the issue: I tried to download hangouts in order to test the P2P video calling and i could not dowload, getting error 613. Any clue why?
Bink
Villains... knock off all that evil
join:2006-05-14
Colorado

Bink

Member

said by Bink:

I figured as much, but I assumed Google would have expected NAT. Regardless, I’ll have to review further—appears Google is using XMPP.

FWIW, I reviewed this by capturing packets and couldn’t readily see any NAT or packet dropping issues with incoming calls that experience the issue—though I did see my mobile client doing look ups for stun.l.google.com, so I would say Google is doing NAT traversal and related. Of some minor interest though, at the end of the connection, it appears the Hangouts client might be a bit aggressive in closing ports as I can often see the mobile client sending UDP port unreachable replies to Google’s STUN gateways.

So, anyone else having difficulties on occasion with incoming calls and callers having issues hearing one another?

Cheers.