Internet Telephone Service...

[Toma]

YOu guys seen this? Primus offers a telephone line over your DSL for $20/month. COmputer does not need to be on even.

Only downside I see is no 911. ANd get this.... you can pick you area code!! and you can take your number with oyu anywher ein the world...

Say you live here, but want a Paris phone number. THey can do that, so that all you calls to paris will be local (unfortunately, your calls to Calgary will be long distance). Wild!

[Shaolin]

that's pretty cool.. back in the late 90s I used dialpad.com if i ever wanted to call long distance (it was a free service too), but i wasn't able to receive calls..

[1badPT]

Yeah the mid to late 90's rocked for internet stuff - its like everything was free. Now its all about penis pills, popups, spyware and :bullshit: [/vent]

Anyways, I have been hoping a Canadian service provider would offer this service for a long time and its great that someone has finally done it. If you are looking for local numbers in other countries, check out:
http://www.iconnecthere.com/nonmembers/eng/services/broadband.html

[jdmakkord]

telus is going to be offering voice over ip soon as well. Its been in the works for quite a while now, just waiting on approval from the crtc.

[Toma]

Man, how much I hate telus is beyond words.

I had to take the day off today waiting for those kno nothings to come in and hook up a second phone line. They can't give me a time, and I don't see why they even need to come here....I have ahd a second line before, its all wired etc... all they have to do is throw a switch.

What a waste of a day :banghead:

[izzoblitzo]

that would be sweet... like, If my business is international, I could basically use this service as a second line, and have unlimited 'local' calls to wherever I choose as my area code, for only $20bucks a month? sweet!:bigpimp:

[Toma]

Originally posted by izzoblitzo
that would be sweet... like, If my business is international, I could basically use this service as a second line, and have unlimited 'local' calls to wherever I choose as my area code, for only $20bucks a month? sweet!:bigpimp:
Exactly what i was thinking lol. You could say something like "Please contact our North Amercian office at xxxxxxxxx, or our Duabi office at xxx-xxx-xxxx)"

living room business goes international ;)

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by jdmakkord
telus is going to be offering voice over ip soon as well. Its been in the works for quite a while now, just waiting on approval from the crtc. telus is bullshit.

after calling to place an order, the customer would have to wait about 2 hours on hold to talk to a csr that knows nothing, then gets transferred about 8 times hearing 8 different stories about the install....then has to wait another 3 weeks for the install date. and for installation theres gona be a $40 fee for the techie to show up, plus $18 for every 15 minutes hes on site. of course, he will have to stay for a good hour and a half on a 20 minute job because he cant find the telephone panel so then u get fucked there. after a week of good service, it all fucks up, so u call customer service and the circle begins again...

[rage2]

Originally posted by jdmakkord
telus is going to be offering voice over ip soon as well. Its been in the works for quite a while now, just waiting on approval from the crtc.
The telus VoIP is a joke. Very minimal VoIP services to the end user. Target pricing is for mid to large businesses, so it's useless for everyone here. Mostly, it's a way to upgrade their backend to run off their own IP network (not the internet). It's a carrier grade solution, therefore piggybacking the net won't work.

A nice marketing gimmick IMO to make them sound bleeding edge. Support's gonna be hilarious when things go wrong. Untrained support staff on a completely new technology on their backbone... fun :).

[sputnik]

not a bad deal... i talk to my family and friends in manitoba all of the time... i wonder what the sound quality is like over shaw

however... the 204 area code isnt supported yet... but for $20/month... i would easily use that

[Weapon_R]

Does anyone have any plausible suggestions for oversea phone calls using the internet? Currently, I use those phone cards found at most little grocery stores and they give incredible talk time (42 mins for $5, whereas telus charges us $1.50/min) to call to the middle east.

I remember using net2phone YEARS ago when the internet was in its infancy, but the voice quality and connection was terrible - that, and you had to talk through a microphone and hear through the speakers which made thing even worse.

Given now that we have high speed internet connections, and phone-to-phone quality is now excellent in the regions that I call, are there any better alternatives to using these phone cards? The last time I checked, net2phone was even more expensive than the phone cards, but maybe times have changed?

[1badPT]

Do the people you intend to contact have computers? If so, the really simple solution is use one of the IM's (MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger, ICQ, AOL IM) voice chat. With a headset, its pretty good quality and you won't have per minute charges. If their connection is crappy, you'll have a bit of a delay which is annoying at first, but you get used to it.

Other than that, you're basically looking at some sort of pre-pay option whether you use something like www.iconnecthere.com or whether you buy LD cards - but then you have the per minute charges :dunno:

The last option which I think you've ruled out already is using one of the traditional LD carriers like sprint or primus which of course means per minute charges, and they are usually higher than the LD cards anyways.

[Xtrema]

I heard about the Primus but $20/month that piggy back on top of your broadband connection is still not enough saving and justify for the switching. I'll switch when it's closer to $15/month

Does anyone know what hardware you need to work? Do you need specific IP phones or just any old phone will do? If that's the case, do you have to get a converter for every phone that share the line?

[1badPT]

You might not be able to justify it, but for someone like me who has family in Toronto and the surrounding areas its going to be great. I can LOCAL call them from here - no LD. They can call me with their telephone and it will ring on the IP phone and no LD charged for either of us. I still have my cell for calls here in Calgary so its the best of both worlds. Plus if I travel, I can take the IP phone with me, plug it into the data jack at the hotel, and make/receive calls there at the same number :)

I'm probably getting this, and if I do, I'll post in this thread my thoughts about it.

[swancity]

Try webphone.com, I'm using this now to make international long distance , it costs much less than others. You have to be online to talk over the microphone, so far the sound is very good and clear.

[celica girl]

Sorry to bump this old thread... but I just got primus... and for some reason my phone won't ring. THe caller ID shows up and the status light on the phone lights up but still no ring. The guy told me that the modem doesn't have enough power to send a signal to my phone. Is anyone here using primus and Expandable Corless phones? If so what kind do you have?
Thanks.

[FiveFreshFish]

Originally posted by Shaolin
that's pretty cool.. back in the late 90s I used dialpad.com if i ever wanted to call long distance (it was a free service too), but i wasn't able to receive calls..

Has anyone tried this free service?

http://www.skype.com/

[celica girl]

FYI... I went out an picked up a panasonic cordless phone and it works just fine. Turns out motorola doesn't work well with VOIP.

[CRXguy]

Originally posted by FiveFreshFish


Has anyone tried this free service?

http://www.skype.com/

That's what we use to talk to relatives in the U.S. and overseas. The sound quality is around 7/10, but I dont care since it's free. :D