VoIP (internet phone service): An Initial Review

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Well, I did a lot of research.Lots of asking questions to the techy guys at Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, etc. I compared providers of land lines and VoIPs.
I signed up last week for AT&T Call Vantage. Got my equipment today and got it all set up.
For a $30 activation fee, you get a Lynksys broadband router with dual phone ports. I checked the price and it runs about $100-$120 depending on the store. I can't receive any calls till they cancel my regular phone service on Monday, but I can make calls.
So far, I would have to say I am fairly impressed.
I had a little trouble installing the router. I called Linksys' tech support, they were useless. The person didn't know anything, she just asked for keywords and read from a book. She had me doing the same thing about five times and then said I had to send back the router. I went back to the set up on my own and in checking out some other tabs, found and solved the problem on my own in less than ten minutes. Go figure.
AT&T's service is very helpful though. And, they know what they are doing, at least the people I've talked to do. I had the whole thing set up in under an hour, including installing an ethernet adapter I needed. You need an ethernet port on your computer.
I'm paying 20 bucks a month and I get unlimited local calls, incredible support from AT&T and a ton of features. To get all this on a land line, you would probably have to spend about $40 or more. If I go up to $30 a month, I get unlimited long distance too, but I have a cell phone for that.
You can access your voice mail from any computer, set up and control all of your features from any computer, and its totally portable. I can bring my equipment with me anywhere that has internet access and call my neighbor and it will still be a local call.
A very nice feature is something called a virtual number. Say I have a relative living in New York City. I get a virtual number from that area code. Now when my relative wants to call me, they dial that virtual number, which would be a local call for them. Even when I am living in California!
I'm still exploring and learning all the more features, so I'll add more as I discover it!

 

Sounds good, but I think it needs to become a bit more widespread before I would jump in.

 

Yes it does look good. But...we have intermittent blackouts here; lasting from a few minutes to a few hours. That means no phone in case of emergency unless you have a cell phone. I'll wait too.

 

We're deploying VoIP at work now and it's defintely cool stuff. We're using these Cisco phones which are pretty slick. They come with these software phones that basically allow you to use your laptop as your desk phone, wherever you are. Sitting in the airport checking email over a wireless connection, someone calls your work number, it rings on your laptop. Caller ID and all.

 

Well, we've had it for a couple weeks now.
The sound quality is amazingly clear. I've tried using the phone and surfing the web and watching cable at the same time. Never noticed any loss in quality. i'd say it rivals if not beats the quality of traditional phone lines.
I gotta admit, doing all of my account maintenance from my computer is pretty cool.
I can get a full call log that lists every call that was made and every call that has come in. you can filter them any way you want.
A really cool feature is the "do not disturb." You can turn this on for any length of time and when someone calls, they get sent immediately to your voicemail. Of course, you can specify certain numbers that can still get through.
This could be a great thing for families. Schedule a do not disturb time to reoccur at dinner time. Then don't even have to worry about it.
Another nice feature is the "locate me." When someone dials your number, it will ring you home, cell, etc, whatever you specify.
Tech support is very good. They seem pretty knowledgeable and its fairly quick.
There are a few minor glitches here and there. For example, I tried calling my friend's cell phone and it sent me to some other number. I had to try three times before finally connecting to my friend. Even though I dialed the exact same number every time, my call log said it as three different numbers.
AT&T said they were not aware of anything like that and asked ot be notified if it happened again.
Occassionally I've been playing my playstation, which is hooked up to the same modem as the phone is. Twice when the phone rang, I heard a very faint phone ring through my speakers on my sound system.
Still though, I wouldn't reccomend it for everyone. If you are not familar with computers and a relatively good knowledge of techno-stuff (technical term lol) you might have some probs getting started.