[thelist] VoIP questions

[Richard Bennett]

On Tuesday 14 December 2004 06:35, Alex Beston wrote:
> A fellow contractor in town recommended me get a VoIP phone to mitigate
> the exorbitant startup costs involved in business.

Exorbitant startup costs?
I think freelance IT must have about the lowest startup costs possible...

Anyway, VOIP only has any real advantages if you have some specific people you 
need to make lots of international calls with.
SKYPE is ok for that, and you don't even need the handset, just 
headphones/mic. The disadvantages are that you need to keep your PC on to use 
it, and you don't have a phone-number people can reach you on from a regular 
line (DID).
If you have an 'always on' DSL modem (not USB but Network with a switch) a 
better option is to get something like a Grandstream IP phone, and a SIP 
service provider. They'll get you a DID, and send all calls to your IP phone, 
if you're offline it'll give the caller voicemail.
But that service costs money of course, and as you probably need a regular 
phone number anyway, to get your DSL, it only makes sense if you have a lot 
of international calls with other people who also have IP phones (or SKYPE).

Call quality on an IP phone is quite good, a softphone (headphone/mic on PC) 
is usually not so good.
SKYPE is easy to setup, regular IP phones can be a lot harder, needing you to 
change settings on your firewall.

HTH

Richard