fran1942: Hello, I am considering ditching my standard telecom landline and moving to a VOIP system to save money.
Having never used VOIP before, I want to ask some basic questions.
I want people without voip to be able to call me eg (skypeIn or similar).
Which voip company/plan do you guys recommend. ? (we dont make many calls per month)
Will I be saving money each month compared to a telecom landline account. ?
Will the call quality be good ?
Is there any reason why VOIP would not be a good move ?
Thanks kindly for any advice.
Hi there. First up, most if not all voip providers here in NZ provide you with a local dial in number or as someone pointed out you can port your existing number over to the voip provider if you choose to.
2) There are not many companies that do voip but the main ones are 2talk, Xnet VFX, and italk. It depends on what your calling requirements are as to what may be best for you. Some offer a small few cents a minute for national calling while the others have a fixed monthly price to make as many national calls as you like. Local calling is free.
3) Next if you are planning to fully ditch your Telecom landline you need to find a naked dsl provider. These once again are few and far between Main ones here are Maxnet, Xnet, Snap and slingshot. Also, depending on where you live Orcon have a naked dsl and voip package as well (mainly Auckland and some parts of Wellington at this stage I believe).
4) Yes you will save money. When I first ditched my Telecom landline my savings were between $20 and $25 a month. You will no doubt by looking a the companies I have listed find out where you are going to save.
5) Call quality is just as good on voip but as someone pointed out if you are on a overloaded exchange or you are downloading on youtube it may play havoc on the call although in saying that I have had internet radio going here my son doing something on the internet on his computer and have been able to make calls no problems and also I am still on adsl1 speeds so you dont necessarily have to be on adsl2+.
6) I dont know what modem/router you have but some have an inbuilt Analogue telephone adapter built into them. If yours doesnt then you will have to buy a separate analogue telephone adapter (ATA) The best one in this instance would be the Linksys SPA 2102 which ranges (I think) between $80 and $140. Also depending on which voip provider you go with some will provision your ATA for you and others will give you instructions on their website on how to do it yourself.
Lastly the only reasons for voip not being a good move has already been stated. If the internet goes down or if you have a powercut your voip service goes down too but in saying that both these instances are few and far between and it would pay to have a cellphone handy in case you have to make an emergency call in the time this did happen. I have enjoyed having a voip service myself since it first came to be just over 3 years ago now and I would never go back to a landline.
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