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| Moderated by: Saida.M, safetyblitz, Raven, Miss Brighter Days, LadyDay, Kunjufu, Kibibi, Happiness, Dillinger, Breadfruit, Backatya |
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Apedemak
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Posted: Wednesday June 21st, 2006 21:08 |
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lol
What do people think of it?
Its got British telecom and other phone line companies and exchanges paranoid with fear. Mobile phone providers are squirming as their phones are turning into PDAs with VoIP capabilities cutting costs on calls internationally AND locally.
Heard about it ages ago, long before it was semi hype in domestic circles. Its been used in business facilities for a good while now. Kinda a piss take that its not been leaked to the general public until recently, even then its still not hit as bit as it should/could but does anyone here have a VoIP account?
Skype is the blatant one, everyones heard of them since EBay bought them out but does anyone use them in replacement of their normal phone lines?
Got myself a Vonage account the other day, just hooked up a normal phone to it a few hours ago and the sounds quality was WEAK! I'm dissapointed but for £8 a month and with FREE calls to numbers beginning with 02 and 01 it might be worth hanging around. Not sure. The box they gave me for it looks well cheap and if it keeps crackling I'm gonna have to go back to a standard line.
Anyone got any info on VoIP?
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SoulRebel
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Posted: Wednesday June 21st, 2006 22:48 |
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Been a Skype user for about eighteen months. I bought a phone that allows me to make SkypeOut calls and BT line calls from the same handset.
I'm a light phone user (receive way more calls than I make), so the main benefit of Skype for me is for making calls to landlines at cheap rates (1p a minute). Would not use it to call a mobile as it's more expensive than BT. Sound quality is generally good. I save a little on my BT phone bill - I can make £5 worth of Skype credit last me three months.
I think you get the best of Skype if you make lots of calls to other Skype users, as they're free. Problem is that most people aren't Skype/VoIP users - those I've come across are either techies, students, or people here calling 'home', wherever it is in the world. The other limitation is incoming calls - someone calling my SkypeIn line (if I had one) from a landline might as well call my mobile, as it will cost them as much so no point. This may not be true for other providers.
Don't know whether BT have much to worry about yet (they also sell VoIP), because not that many people have really caught on - someone has to demonstrate a clear cost and convenience benefit of switching, and I don't think that's happened yet. Maybe Vonage will do it, though there are plenty of other providers. I heard that something like 60% of UK homes have broadband now, so maybe that will speed up the process. VoIP for mobiles is interesting, but sounds expensive at the moment - I might be wrong.
Eventually VoIP will catch on in a big way - and anything that brings down the cost of phone calls is fine by me.
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Apedemak
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Posted: Thursday June 22nd, 2006 18:29 |
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Yeah, I thought it would've taken off by now really. Businesses have been on it for a good while but it just isn't domestic yet, guess you're right abuot the cost and things... the technicality of it all must put some off as well, not that theres anything technical about it but its something that has to be brought across in the right way to appeal to people.
BT will probably survive the fall out but VoIP by passes their hold on the telephone exchanges, normally line providers would have to buy their lines from BT but with VoIP its all broadband. Not sure about the technical side of BTs involvement with phone lines is but if VoIP takes off offering good rates it'll give them a good kick, even with their VoIP packages and Talk Talk service. The mess of companies looking to get in on it will keep people locked in with normal lines for a good while though. It'll be the whole, ''free if you're calling'' thing like the mobile services.
Vonage are crap... thought it was my battery but the line is bitty, I can hear it being downloaded and sent through the line... its a bit like watching digital TV when it goes all weird and jutters or when MP3 players make that screeching sound. Might have to cancel the line if they can't sort it out. Got a 24MG boradband service for it as well hoping it'd speed up the process but even thats limited cause I'm a bit far from the telephone exchange, probably only getting 15MGs for £24 a month. lol. Might try and find out about forcing the line to get full speed.
Whats the sound quality like on Skype?
---Eddit----
Its the phone, seems like certain phones are no good with VoIP my fax phone line seems A ok... new and snazzy philips phone = crap sound quality. Threw the box away as well.
Lame.
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SoulRebel
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Posted: Thursday September 7th, 2006 23:44 |
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This looks like an interesting development on the VoIP scene.....I signed up with Babble a while ago, though I don't currently use it.....but that might change - this 'Babble Stick' looks interesting:
http://www.babble.net/portal/store/store.php
btw call quality on Skype is usually OK to a landline - best if you're talking to another Skype user - apparently it's crystal...
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Happiness
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Posted: Friday September 8th, 2006 01:54 |
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I use Vonage as well over here in the US - which offers unlimited calling in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico....plus Free calls to landlines in the UK all for only $24.95/month. Can't beat that!! I love it! Line quality for me is good...and I get voicemail/call forwarding/call waiting/caller ID/3-way calling all included in my monthly charge! (bye bye verizon!)
only thing I hate about vonage is their cusomer service....yes, you've got it: they're from India!!!! I can't tell you the headache I have had dealing with 4 indian reps until finally I called back and I actually got a US rep and she did in fact resolve my problem. Customer service for Indian reps is about reading scripts and finding a way to transfer you to another department.....Anyway, that's another topic!
Back to VOIP....I know some people here who use skype and broadvoice and they are happy with their service - but I think vonage is by far the better known service, probably because they offer you the free router so you can use your regular phone and existing phone number to call anyone, anywhere.
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Apedemak
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Posted: Friday September 8th, 2006 17:57 |
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Yeah... 3G the mobile phone service use Indian reps, well annoying, you can hear the scrpit, ''hows the weather?'' etc etc... lol.
Funny though cause I was with Vonage and their reps were American. Their box didn't work and they kept charging me fees so I phoned them ready to cuss and drop some law jargon but I could tell the rep was a sister so we were chilling had to ask her to pass the phone on so I could sort it out and cuss some BF but she passed it on to a next breddah so he could talk it was jokes, he was like, ''Yeah! Whats going on Shaun!'' (my name) all rhyming and stuff, it was like hearing from fam overseas. .lol. Shame I had to swap lines to BT after that, I couldn't make any calls from their box and they wanted to charge me £70 to disconnect it when it didn't work in the first place, they put in a word for me and sorted it in the end so it was cool.
So yeah, I'll take back what I said about Vonage just for that.  Funny you say they have an indian call center though. Definately American when calling from the UK.
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Happiness
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Posted: Saturday September 16th, 2006 03:11 |
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well, after I posted this, my beloved Vonage just had to go and piss me off by charging my credit card $79.00 for overage time. What?!!!!!!
anyway, went through the whole indian rep thingy....spoke with Sreenesh who passed me on to....KEHINDE! Oh glory be..a naija sista who surely will understand my pain in being charged an additional $79.00. NO JOY. she was as much a zombie as the Indian reps.
Anyway, from Kehinde (who was so Americanised that she couldn't even pronounce her own frigging name) I ended up with Gregory in corporate offices in New Jersey who was great. Well, he did not give me back my $79 but he did give me 1 month free, and wondered why I wasn't offered that from the beginning. (me too)
Anyway, I initially said no, but hubby said "take it, you've been on the phone trying to resolve this for over an hour and your time is more valuable than that."
so I took the 1 month free service and I got gregory's direct number in NJ and I told him that if I have any more problems I am calling NJ because I am sick of Indian reps. He said that vonage was working on that issue....which means they are getting rid of the cheap labour? 
Hope springs eternal....
(btw - the $79 overage was for calls to business numbers in the UK which I thought was under "landlines' and therefore free, but was advised by stupid Kehinde that landlines refers to residentials numbers only. Yeah right. If that was what they meant they should have said so)
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If you think that the only way you can survive is in the misuse of people,
then you haven't even begun to think about what it means to be human" ~ Dr C.T.Vivian
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Apedemak
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Posted: Saturday September 16th, 2006 17:20 |
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Didn't think it'd be free from US to UK either. Thought they'd have to have a vonage account for that.
U.S customer service is always cool. You lot are diffrent when it come to stuff like that a lot more cheery than us dreery UK people.
Really odd its a US call center from the UK and an Indian one when calling from the US... unless the Asians have really developed their US twang and tricked me.
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