Voice over IP

[RugerRog]

Any one using VOIP at your home? I'm looking to ditch the land line, but the wife would like to keep a phone for emergencies, even though we have cell phones...anyway. I've been looking at Google Voice, Ooma and Vonage. Anyone have experience with any of these services? I would like to hear the good the bad and the ugly.

• Google there is an approx $50 piece of hardware to purchase but their service is free, no 911.
  
• Ooma - $110 for hardware, free service, but pay local taxes <$5 a month includes 911
  
• Vonage - $40 for hardware, $10 a month for 1 year. Not sure after that.

Currently, I have ATT phone and on the TV/Internet side we also have Uverse. If I cancel my phone are they going to further shaft me by raising my Uverse rates? So tired of these guys.

 

[t-squared]

The vast majority of the Uverse circuits I work on have a VOIP line "attached" to them. If you have a separate "regular" line working at your house you can easily have it ported thru the uverse gateway which spits it out as a VOIP line....and it's usually really cheap to boot...

 

[AngryRooster]

I have a Magicjack set up here at the house and it's been doing fine. Once you have an account with them you can spend an extra $10 for a one time fee and get a second number to use with androids. You can also forward the number to a cell phone or use your assigned number on the androids if you don't want to get a second one. The androids and home phone will all ring. They have 911 service as well if you want. It's a set fee of .98 cents a month I think. You can get 5 years service for $99

 

[squidvt]

Any one using VOIP at your home? I'm looking to ditch the land line, but the wife would like to keep a phone for emergencies, even though we have cell phones...anyway. I've been looking at Google Voice, Ooma and Vonage. Anyone have experience with any of these services? I would like to hear the good the bad and the ugly.

• Google there is an approx $50 piece of hardware to purchase but their service is free, no 911.
  
• Ooma - $110 for hardware, free service, but pay local taxes <$5 a month includes 911
  
• Vonage - $40 for hardware, $10 a month for 1 year. Not sure after that.

Currently, I have ATT phone and on the TV/Internet side we also have Uverse. If I cancel my phone are they going to further shaft me by raising my Uverse rates? So tired of these guys.

I dont have experience with OOMA. Google voice is not bad, but it can be pretty annoying at times and I would not use it for a Landline VOIP.
I have used Vonage.. I would go with broadvoice over Vonage. It's cheaper and gives you more services IMHO. I have had Broadvoice for over 3 years with out issues.

 

[bluewraith]

What kind of emergency [STRIKE]are you[/STRIKE] is your wife thinking of that a cell phone would be second to VoIP? I've never seen the draw to it myself. Just another bill to pay and another number for telemarketers to call.

The only use I can think of VoIP would be a business line going to a desk phone.

Granted, I also hate talking on any kind of phone so my thoughts may be skewed. If it wasn't for family and pizza, I wouldn't even have a phone. Sure could use that extra $86 each month.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Ditch the home line altogether. I'm not sure what viable emergency scenario she's envisioning where the cell phones are dead but internet phones are still working.

 

[Cameramonkey]

I had vonage for a while and it was good. It included 911 provided you registered your service properly with an accurate street address (not good for you tinfoil types) . And if you hook it up right, you can use your existing house wiring to run multiple phones off the one vonage box.

Not to hijack... but speaking of VOIP. If you have a monitored alarm system (meaning if it goes off it dials the police/fire for you through a call center like ADT) and the following describes you, you could have a problem. Please PM me so we can discuss (I dont want to air this issue where google can crawl it for your safety):
-No dedicated POTS line for your alarm panel (old fashioned phone service for $20+/mo, etc)
-You have VoIP (phone service via a non-RBOC like comcast, time warner, etc) that your alarm panel uses to dial out
-no internet communicator on the panel
-no cellular communicator on the panel

I'm not interested in selling you anything if the above is true. I want to make sure you are asking your alarm provider the right questions because that scenario above doesnt always work properly when the rubber meets the road.

 

[AngryRooster]

Ditch the home line altogether. I'm not sure what viable emergency scenario she's envisioning where the cell phones are dead but internet phones are still working.

What kind of emergency [STRIKE]are you[/STRIKE] is your wife thinking of that a cell phone would be second to VoIP? I've never seen the draw to it myself. Just another bill to pay and another number for telemarketers to call.

The only use I can think of VoIP would be a business line going to a desk phone.

Granted, I also hate talking on any kind of phone so my thoughts may be skewed. If it wasn't for family and pizza, I wouldn't even have a phone. Sure could use that extra $86 each month.

I had vonage for a while and it was good. It included 911 provided you registered your service properly with an accurate street address (not good for you tinfoil types) . And if you hook it up right, you can use your existing house wiring to run multiple phones off the one vonage box. ...

This is what seperates it from cell service. IIRC a call to 911 from a cell phone will only yield the phone number. With a VOIP you can sign up for the 911 service as an additional option and you will have to list your street address as part of that sign up. It would probably be much quicker to get help to you with a VOIP 911 call than a cell call if for some reason the caller cannot speak.

 

[NavyVet]

Obihai makes a box that do Google Voice for a little less than $50. After that, no cost (other than your internet service)...

I have that setup at my house and it works great, although we rarely use it....

 

[bluewraith]

This is what seperates it from cell service. IIRC a call to 911 from a cell phone will only yield the phone number. With a VOIP you can sign up for the 911 service as an additional option and you will have to list your street address as part of that sign up. It would probably be much quicker to get help to you with a VOIP 911 call than a cell call if for some reason the caller cannot speak.

Related, but not a solution for all scenarios. Some 911 centers are able to receive texts now. Little podunk Miami County has the option available, and they can even reply back via text.

 

[dmazzio]

We ditched our landline and then our VOIP line years ago and only have cellphones. Have not had a problem.

 

[skydelta34]

Obihai makes a box that do Google Voice for a little less than $50. After that, no cost (other than your internet service)...

I have that setup at my house and it works great, although we rarely use it....

+1 I have this setup also. (Obihai 200 to be exact). No problems. I have used it for calls that lasted around 90 minutes without issue. They have an option for 911 service which is $12 a year I believe. So $1 a month for phone service is pretty good to have just as a backup. With the cell phone service that I choose to have, it saves me calling minutes anytime I can use the phone from home instead of my cell.

I used to have Magic Jack and my only complaint is that the MJ equipment never seemed to last a year.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

My wife and I are keeping our land line, without long distance. It's for those people or businesses who we just don't want to give our cell numbers to.

 

[Hop]

I have been using Ooma over Comcast (speed tier package) internet for a few years now. It had a few glitches at first but call quality is great now. I ported the land line number to the Ooma & have one of the Ooma premium packages. It saves us a little bit of $ per month.

 

[Ericpwp]

I have been on VOIP for years. My evolution started with a t-mobile service that was offered from a mall kiosk. It was $10 added to my cell bill, and they transferred my AT&T landline number for free. I had that for a few years until I changed carriers.

At that point I transferred the landline number to google voice ($20) and bought a magic jack usb version. I setup GV to ring to the MJ number (as well as my cell#). This worked well, the issue was that my MJ appeared on peoples caller ID when I called from the LL and it was confusing for them.

When my free year of MJ ran out, I bought the v2 model. It was stand alone, and I didn't need to have my computer running 24/7 to make and receive phone calls. This was a big plus. I think I bought a couple of years of MJ in this config.

I believe MJ increased their pricing or something. So the next move was the obi100 in 2013. I set it up with my google voice account (ringing to cell and LL#s). It was a one time hardware purchase of $39. I set it up and haven't looked back. The only issue I have had was the voice mail of my cordless phone was prematurely answering, but I don't think it was the obi's fault.

I have since bought (but not setup yet) a set of Panasonic cordless phones w/ link to cell.

Google voice is great in this setup. It is free and invisible. I believe there is a 911 charge if you opt for it. A big plus is with telemarketers that use a single number. You can block them through GV, and they will hear a number disconnected message.

 

[Ericpwp]

Also, you can just plug your voip hardware, MJ whatever, into a wall jack instead of a phone. This will activate all of your wall jacks with whole house phone access. I had at&t remove the line from the poll to the house as well (it was an eyesore).

 

[Cameramonkey]

Also, you can just plug your voip hardware, MJ whatever, into a wall jack instead of a phone. This will activate all of your wall jacks with phone access. I had at&t remove the line from the poll to the house as well (it was an eyesore).

Yes. This. If you want to activate the whole house network, go to the outside box first and unplug the little cord from the jack to disconnect your house from the street. Once you isolate the house, you can plug in your magic jack, etc into the house wiring.

 

[CindyE]

My wife and I are keeping our land line, without long distance. It's for those people or businesses who we just don't want to give our cell numbers to.

We have a landline without long distance, too, and a corded phone. A few years ago we had an ice storm and lost power, as well as cell service. The only thing that would work was a corded phone. I know things like that rarely happen, but it's something to consider.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

In the classic comedy skit with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, the 2000 year-old man says that the greatest invention in his lifetime was Saran Wrap

I'd have to say it's Caller ID.

 

[MadBomber]

We've had VOIP for years and I can't see us ever going back to a landline. We had T-Mobile for years, until a couple months ago. The T-Mobile router crashed and we decided to check out other options. After researching Ooma, Vonage, and others, we decided to go with Magic Jack. The unit itelf was $42 from Walmart and install took about 3 minutes. For that $42, we have 1 year of home service. We also chose the 911 service. You pay for that after your new number is activated and for Hendricks Co. it was $10.50. You also have the option to keep your original number but that is an additional charge of $35. We chose to go with a new number.

So, for a total outlay of $52.50, we have a year of home phone service with free nationwide long distance. Next year, we pay $35 and continue on. We've used Magic Jack for a couple months now and the call quality is fine. We have Xfinity high speed internet so YMMV. Another nice feature is the smartphone app for both Android and Iphone. I use a Note 3 so after downloading the free app, I now can get calls to my home number on my Android, including voice mails. Also, when I do get a VM, Magic Jack sends me an email listing who the call is from and a WAV file that allows me to listen to the VM from my computer.

All in all, we're pretty happy with the price and the function of the Magic Jack.