Internet Phone Service Results In Cost Savings And Many Additional Benefits Big – Technology – VoIP.
This is a Packet 8 review and overview of one guy’s experience with using internet phones as a replacement for a home phone
Mobile VoIP – VoIP Represents Strategic Questions.
Europeans use VoIP phones at twice the rate of Americans…probably because their landline costs are so much higher.
Giving priority to MJ traffic Qos, Tomato firmware – MagicJack | DSLReports Forums.
This is an advanced how to on setting up Quality of Service(QoS) on a special router that is running a special operating system or firmware called “Tomato”.
A lot of people don’t know that you can use QoS with magicJack to mitigate choppiness and other sound quality issues. This posting shows how to do it – in shorthand.
If you aren’t technically inclined this may be over your head – don’t be discouraged, you may not need this (few do) or you may want to get someone to do it for you…
YouTube – Internet Phone Secrets Revealed.
This is a Google SearchStories video. They are fun and easy to make, and the results look great. Short little sweet promotional videos. Check it out – 35 seconds long.
90% of the time you can’t get a dial tone but will sometimes dial anyway, if it doesn’t you have to re-boot, this happens very often, unplug-replug and then wait for it to re-boot;.
It won’t let calls threw dials, drops, dial tone, then busy tone all at once:.
A dial tone can’t be counted on, you have to re-boot often so don’t count on this if you have an emergency and need to dial 911!!
Doesn’t clear last called number when hung up so it will add the new number to the last number you dialed, then you get a recording about reaching a testing station or something..
It echos terrible, you can hear it repeating back to you as you say the next sentence, very un nerving when trying to have a real conversation with someone important you know like your attorney or doctor’.
It will just drop phone calls out of nowhere, when I was notifing family my mom passed in the middle of short phone calls it would just hang up?.
You will have phone calls coming in but you don’t hear the tone 1/2 the time, the other times it won’t come up on the screen/. When my Mom passed I has 15 phone messages, never heard a thing,.
You can’t hear it ring and I have tried several different phone types not to mention a brand new computer.
More often than not, you will see nothing as far as incoming calls recieved, if by chance you check your answering maching you will have messages sitting in there…for days!!
When it works it works OK (just ok!), when it doesn’t it is horrific (the worst!) I think I will try skype, I am not renewing my subscription.
via magicjack.
Voice over Internet Protocols (VOIP) has come a long way in the last few years. With broadband internet expanding dramatically, internet telephone applications have gone from corporate communications to everyday consumer use. One VOIP application getting lots of attention lately is MagicJack.
MagicJack is a small device that plugs into the USB port on a computer. The credit card sized unit also has a jack to plug in a standard telephone, which os one of the options that set it apart from the compatition.
via A Magic Jack Review-Wonder device or Trash | Magic Jack Information and Discussion.
This is a pretty honest review – a little on the over-simplifying side but good.
Are you Android user jealous of Apple’s FaceTime user out there doing video calling to each others? Now with the latest Skype for Anroid, you can do video calling too with the front facing camera available on your Android phone. Skype has just updated their Skype for Android app to include Skype Video Calls.
via Android Now Can Video Call With Skype | iNicholas.
This is good stuff – competition is good for us – the consumer…
Ever wanted to buy something relatively obscure on Craigslist but couldn’t be bothered scouring for it everyday? Or in my case, couldn’t remember to search everyday? Ever thought about getting something in another city or just wanted to do market research in that city?
There is a great website that will provide searches for you on craigslist and email you the result. It’s a virtual craigslist concierge service.
The site’s name is “heycraigapp.com”. You can just remember “hey craig” and Google that – you’ll find it.
HeyCraigApp.com is an easy to use email service for digging out bargains on craigslist.org
The process couldn’t be easier – with one little warning about one thing but we’ll get to that in just a second.
You enter the search phrase.
You enter your email address.
You enter the city that you want to search – this is where the website can be a little unforgiving. Make sure not to include the “http://” or the trailing “/” in the URL and sometimes you need to guess the city field. For example, I’m searching in Toronto and the url is toronto.en.craiglist.ca but this didn’t work. I played with it until I got it down to toronto.craigslist.ca.
Anyhow, you may have fiddle a bit with it but you’ll get it.
For Digital Vagabonds this email service is perfect if you are looking to ferret out deals in a distant city. And the updates by email are so convenient.
Why All Internet Phones Can Suck…
This post is going to go over why internet phone quality can suck… and because half the solution is defining the problem this is important information if you have or are considering getting an internet phone. Now, for most people, with better and better internet, there is less of an issue with sound. It used to be worse but as things continue to speed up, this is a disappearing problem for the most part. But, you are still reading so either you are concerned about having sound quality issues or are having them.
We’ll get to their causes in a second but first, let’s talk about the various internet phone systems available today.
You may have heard of MagicJack – this is a computer-based usb dongle that you plug a regular phone into. If your computer has internet you can make phone calls. It is super cheap. But for some people this service sucks.
Some people have Vonage and that company does their very best to ensure that their phone service doesn’t suck. But for some people it does suck.
Some people use Skype both as a phone or as a way to voice call or video call Skype user to Skype user. And yes, Skype is not immune from sucking for some people some of the time.
Some people are using the Google call phone feature that’s available in their gmail account. And I think you know what I’m going to say about the sound quality on that – yes it can suck.
Some people use do-it-yourself VoIP and sign up with internet phone companies, and connect their regular phones to special internet devices or computer software programs….,
some even put internet phone apps on their smartphones.
What?
Why Would anyone one put an internet phone on a cell phone?
Usually to escape their cell phone’s providers restriction on their per minute plan or to phone long distance for free or next to nothing. Some people even use Skype on their smartphone to phone other phones. It could also be that they need to be able to answer a phone line in a different country – or they have an extension from their office system…
But whatever the system that’s used, whatever the internet phone provider, the hardware, the software, whatever internet phones (AKA VoIP) can suck.
Now, don’t get me wrong – everyone of these systems can sound great. But and it’s a big but – every single internet phone system can suck.
And here’s why…
The Internet is a jungle. There are little segments of data called packets that scurry around it and try to get to where they are going as fast as they can but they run into all kinds of traffic problems.
And really all we need be concerned about is these packets getting to a superhighway called the Internet backbone – because usually things really fly along the backbone and there is really little the little guy can do about packets once they get there.
But it is in the getting to and fro of the packets to the backbone that is the rub…and here are things you can do. And just like the personal trainer said – “there are only two problem areas that you need to focus on.”
The first area of congestion may be the internet from your house to the backbone. This is what your internet service provider deals with. And no internet service provider is immune from having problems – everything fails from time to time – - even if it was set up correctly.
So if you determine that you have problems iout on the internet itself – all you can really do is really phone your ISP and tell them that you are having problems. They may take you through a whole troubleshooting routine – maybe getting you to hook a computer directly to your ISP’s internet modem. Then they will run some line tests to see if they can find the source of the problem. If your internet service provider can’t solve it probably the best idea is to switch providers – go from cable to dsl or vice versa – increasingly there are more options including cellular wireless, other types of wireless, and fiber optic, but for most people you are stuck switching from cable to dsl. or vice versa.
Just a little note -If you do have real fiber optic internet, you shouldn’t have any problem with your internet phone as the best solution is to have such a large pipe that your voice packets don’t get clogged. And fiber is that sufficiently large pipe. And your internet phone should be as good or better than your land line.
But let’s go back to the jungle story.
The other area of congestion is where your home network meets the public internet. And where they meet is at your router.
Here’s the problem for most people that are having problems. – you may be that you are sharing the internet with different devices or people. And they are using almost all of the pipe that’s available. Maybe it’s all the time, but most people experience problems just part of the day when probably there are more people around using the internet. And this screws up your internet phone because those little pieces of voice, in packet form are waiting to get through the queir maybe in each direction but usually just one.
Another note: for people living internationally – some countries intentionally screw up your internet packets so that you can’t make internet phone calls. If your long distance charges are famously high you probably live in one of these places. There are usually ways around these blocks, but they can be tricky to implement yourself although some phone service companies promise to beat all blocks, government and otherwise.
But for most users, the problems are probably in their own house with their little routers getting overwhelmed with the amount of data that sometimes arrives.You can either get a fatter pipe or set up a router with a special service called Quality of Service that acts as as a traffic cop to make sure your time-sensitive voice packets go first.
So, all internet phones can suck and it usually has a lot less to do with the hardware/software and phone service providers than how the packets are controlled between your network and the internet. It could also be your internet service provider’s network but I’ve used very slow “high speed in name only” connections and had them work consistently. If you are want more information, check out postings on this site about QoS and also there will be listing of recommended devices that handle QoS in the Gear section.
