2talk First Impressions

Have just signed up to the 2talk VoIP Service, thought I would make a post of my initial impressions.

Have been tinkering a little with VoIP for a while. I have used iTalk a fair bit with no troubles, but its a fairly basic service. Am interested in the WxC VFX service but I need and want to be able to use a softphone so for now they are not a contender. Have also used skype extensively for both PC - PC and PC - PSTN calls, and use Skype, MSN and GTalk for text chatting.

The signup process was fairly easy. They make you call them to confirm your details (although this may just be because I signed up a Canadian IP using an NZ physicql address, not sure). They allocate you an 028 number which is a mobile network number. It means you can get a free account, and they make money out of terminating calls from the PSTN which are charged as cellphone calls.

You can also get a local number from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier, Whangarei, Pukekohe, Kaikohe and Kaitaia, and they say they are looking to add more regions within a few months. You also get a seperate fax number to use with their Fax-Email/Email-Fax service, or to use with their seperate T.38 SIP Faxing gateway.

Number ports are available from the regions that they currently have local number ranges, however initially they allocate you an 028 number and you contact them seperately to arrange the port.

Once you have signed up and called them to activate the account, you receive an email with the login details which you can use with any SIP-compliant device including softphones, IP Phones, ATAs and IP-PBXs. For the latter they have a specific SIP trunking service.

The web based management portal is very extensive. It offers LocateMe (ring up to 3 alternative numbers at once untill I answer), and 'OneNumber' which allows multiple SIP registrations for a single number. This is on top of standard forwarding, call waiting, answerphone services. There is also the ability to assign extension numbers if you have multiple lines on the account for quick dialing the other lines. This essentially turns it into an IP centrex system. There are also business plans that allow DID blocks and multiple simultaneous calls and so on.

There are also some nice features such as the remote call back service that allows you to call your number, hang up, and you will be called back and then you can dial an number and it will be charged at the normal 2talk rate for both the call to your remote number and the outwards call. There is also a built in 'Group Room' feature which allows people to either call a 2talk number and enter a pin, or just call your number if you have it set to go straight to the room, and they are entered into essentially a Voice Chatroom.

There are also date/time services like wake up calls, and you can control the LocateMe, Call Forwarding (forward on no answer, busy or unavailable) and Call Screening based on up to 3 schedules. There is also the ability to reject anonymous and/or blacklisted caller IDs.

On top of that there are address book and calender modules as well as the ability to add credit and add additional lines from the portal. A screen shot of the settings part of the portal is here

To test it out I downloaded Conterpath's Free X-Lite SIP client and plugged in the settings and used a basic Logitech analogue headset through the onboard sound card on my laptop. Made one call to a landline in Tauranga for around 30 mins, one to a lower hutt landline for 1hr and one to a Vodafone cellphone in Auckland for a couple of minutes. All of them said they could hear my even better than they usually do for calls, and I could hear all 3 extremely clearly. There was the occaisional slight fade, but thats not surprising seeing as I am in Eastern Canada. My ping rate is fairly stable from here to 2talk.co.nz - sits mostly on 210ms with the occaisional spike to 220 - 230ms. Am looking forward to testing it out back in NZ, and also plan to set it up on my father's PC to test calling between PCs which assumably should be excellent quality.

It's hugely better than using Skype for PSTN calls, and about the same price per minute but there is no connect fee. An inbound landline number is slightly more expensive than Skype, but if you make a lot of calls its far cheaper seeing as the $15/mo plan includes 500 minutes to 40+ countries. Of course you can just use the free plan and give people your 028 number, although this will cost them the same as a cellphone call. EDIT: Turns out you can buy a local number with the free acount for $7/mo with no included minutes.

So far I am very impressed by the feature set and pricing structure. Will continue to use it and see if I run into any issues. Will be looking forward to getting an IP phone to hook up to it, and would ideally like to try it from a Wifi SIP handset as well as from a Smartphone using the data connection as well as Wifi.

I think they could set up quite a good business if they decided to become an MNVO - could provide a single number for landline and cell calls as well as texting. If they could charge the same rate, with perhaps a fixed surchage for calls from the cell that reduces for a monthly contract, they'd be onto a winner.

They also have a customised version of the Open Wengo softphone client. It also connects to MSN, AIM, Yahoo, Gtalk, and Jabber. It has the advantage of built in SMS and a balance display, but functionally it isn't particularly complete compared to X-Lite and others. Its nice that you can do all the IMs in one, but as a softphone its a bit basic. It allows conferencing, but only if initiated without a call in progress (ie, you can't add a 2nd caller mid-call). It also doesnt seem to offer many codecs.

Only downside so far is that they don't 'support' emergency calling. That doesnt mean you can't call 111, but they are just shielding themselves from the liability and hassle of reliable connections to 111 and the physical location problem.

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