italk, on TCL cable... is it good what do I need to know.

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › italk, on TCL cable... is it good what do I need to know.

djpaubes

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#22700 5-Jun-2008 21:16

So I cant get a TCL phone line where I live and want to get a cheap VOIP option and was looking at italk.

I'm on a cable TCL plan and was looking at getting the voice box. I'm running dlink DI-524 router off the standard TCL cable modem.

Can it be replied on to work consistantly? Whats the quality like? I notice they have a money back 10 day option but thats not long enough to give it a good test.

If anyone could offer some advice or an alternative I'd be happy to listen.

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#135784 5-Jun-2008 21:25

I'm currently using 2talk, which is great. There has been once billing issue since I have been with them, that was quickly reversed.

djpaubes

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#135785 5-Jun-2008 21:33

looks pretty good just having a look at the website. Can you get a home phone number with 2talk? And do you need to buy a box?

Glazza

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#135794 5-Jun-2008 21:59

Yup, there regions are pretty limited tho - Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier, Wellington and Whangarei.

Yes, I have a linksys SPA-2102, and subscribe to there 2talk 500 plan - where I get two local (Napier) numbers, unlimited local calling (within the Hawkes Bay region) and 500 minutes worth of tolls (national, and 50 international countries)

Having previously been a VFX customer, the quality is the same, 2talk is more feature rich - however generally lacking 'how to' documents, where VFX features were always well documented.

2talk support is generally via email, where VFX have a helpdesk - however in saying that, the 2talk support via email is generally pretty good - the person dealing with the emails has a good understanding of how to do things etc.

For me the killer was faxing, I need a fax line, and I had mixed results with VFX (who at the time were using G.711, this might have changed now) and 2talk were using T.38.

With VFX, a certain number my partner needed to fax around 5 pages to each day would fail every day if she tried to send the 5 pages - reducing this to a single page at a time and it generally worked. Using 2talk with T.38 everything works, first time, everytime...

One big difference would be the device configuration, VFX configure and control your device, and everything sounds like you standard Telecom phone, and works pretty much the same. 2talk, well, you configure it yourself, so how it sounds, works etc it up to how you configure it - they have limited documentation on this, but there is a bit of information around on how to configure the SPA-2101 for NZ tones etc.

Hope that helps

freitasm

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#135830 5-Jun-2008 23:52

djpaubes: So I cant get a TCL phone line where I live and want to get a cheap VOIP option and was looking at italk.

I'm on a cable TCL plan and was looking at getting the voice box. I'm running dlink DI-524 router off the standard TCL cable modem.

This is strange... You can get a TelstraClear cable modem but can't get their phone service?

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nate

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#135837 6-Jun-2008 01:21

djpaubes: Can it be replied on to work consistantly? Whats the quality like? I notice they have a money back 10 day option but thats not long enough to give it a good test.

To answer your queries: No, rubbish, and 10 days is plenty of time to adequately test a service.

You'd be better of going with 2Talk as Unison has pointed out.

mushion22

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#135843 6-Jun-2008 06:44

Read this if you want my thoughts on 2talk. Some people around here suggest that WorldExchange's VFX VoBB service is higher quality. However it has less features than 2talk and only supports a relatively small number of ATAs and IP Phones (although the supported devices are the more popular and decent ones anyway).

I agree with nate and the others - iTalk is rubbish. You can get a free 2talk account to try it out (you will need to load some credit using your credit card if you want to test extensively). You can add a local number to the free account for $7 a month with no included minutes (cheaper than iTalk and WxC) or pay for a monthly plan and get the included minutes.

PS: If you are a heavy net user you could benefit from getting a router with support for QoS to make sure your voice quality doesnt get hammered by other traffic. I would reccomend an Asus 500g Deluxe/Premium or a Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT or Sveasoft Talisman (note the GL, as opposed to the G model).

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gehenna

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#135857 6-Jun-2008 08:17

freitasm:
djpaubes: So I cant get a TCL phone line where I live and want to get a cheap VOIP option and was looking at italk.

I'm on a cable TCL plan and was looking at getting the voice box. I'm running dlink DI-524 router off the standard TCL cable modem.

This is strange... You can get a TelstraClear cable modem but can't get their phone service?

Not so strange to me - considering their Astute engineers. Took them 2-3 weeks to properly connect the phone at my house in Karori on the main road because they didn't understand the way the lines were spliced etc. Even when they connected me I only got 2 out of 8 phone jacks working, another couple of weeks got the rest working except for 1. Granted, that's most likely a different issue to the OP.

freitasm

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#135862 6-Jun-2008 08:33

gehenna: Not so strange to me - considering their Astute engineers. Took them 2-3 weeks to properly connect the phone at my house in Karori on the main road because they didn't understand the way the lines were spliced etc. Even when they connected me I only got 2 out of 8 phone jacks working, another couple of weeks got the rest working except for 1. Granted, that's most likely a different issue to the OP.

Thse are not "engineers". These are installers, and third party. This issue is probably different from the OP as stated.

I am still interested to know how TCL could provide data but not voice to a location.

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djpaubes

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#135864 6-Jun-2008 08:40

I'm in a body corp situation so I've been going back and forth between them and TCL trying to find out why there are no phone connections. Turns out they cant run the aerial phones lines due to wgtn city council regulations so they have to dig. And they have said to me its not worth there while doing so, (this is the bottom end of Onslow Rd). So the majority of poeple in my complex have TCL sky/cable and a Telecom phone line... crazy! They will not allow statilite dishes in the complex hence having to get saturn.

mushion22

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#135865 6-Jun-2008 08:41

freitasm:

I am still interested to know how TCL could provide data but not voice to a location.

I have no idea and dont know much about their phone network, but possibly they they didnt built UTP in his particular street, or all the pairs are used, or all the ports at the cabinet are used?

mushion22

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#135866 6-Jun-2008 08:45

Thats weird. They trenched and layed coax but not UTP? *headdesk*

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Glazza

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#135867 6-Jun-2008 08:45

out they cant run the aerial phones lines due to wgtn city council regulations so they have to dig. And they have said to me its not worth there while doing so, (this is the bottom end of Onslow Rd).

Common problem.... we are facing it with some of our network, were we have existing aerial cabling, and we need additional cabling, the additional has to be put below the ground.

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#135868 6-Jun-2008 08:48

djpaubes: I'm in a body corp situation so I've been going back and forth between them and TCL trying to find out why there are no phone connections. Turns out they cant run the aerial phones lines due to wgtn city council regulations so they have to dig. And they have said to me its not worth there while doing so, (this is the bottom end of Onslow Rd). So the majority of poeple in my complex have TCL sky/cable and a Telecom phone line... crazy! They will not allow statilite dishes in the complex hence having to get saturn.

They have obviously had to dig underground to get the CATV coax into the building so it seems really strange that they didn't run multipair copper at the same time as this is fairly typical. It sounds more like a stupid decision made by the developers at the time!

djpaubes

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#135869 6-Jun-2008 08:52

yep I'd say it was another developer stuff up by the sounds.... and theres always more than a few of those.

If I just want something to plug in that will work and require bugar all setup is italk the way to go with the voice box?

Glazza

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#135871 6-Jun-2008 08:54

If you want something with bugger all setup, VFX - they do it all for you....

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