Blueface - My experience

JimmySmith

Thought i'd post my experiences of blueface now that i've had it for a month.

The good:

1 - After a little help i can now answer my phone where ever my laptop can get a broadband connection. Thats soo good.

2 - No line Eircom line rental anymore.

3 - Emails my voicemail to me. I can now keep my voicemails forever in my google account. I just forward the message to myself and add the details in the voicemail in case i need to ever find it again. e.g 'Johns number in the US voicemail'

4 - Blueface support is very very good.



The Bad - At least until i figure out how to fix it

1 - I have changed my voicemail pin number twice now only for it to reset to the default one by itself.

2 - You have to pay for both Blueface and Eircom at the same time while you are porting your number. If you didnt have to pay blueface until they had your number ported then that would be much better.

3 - Can't send a fax.

---

Overall i'm very happy with the service. Need to get this voicemail thing sorted though. But it gets my vote of approval.

fatherdougalmag

JimmySmith wrote:

3 - Can't send a fax.

Have you looked at the bottom middle of the BF homepage recently?

Blueface wrote:

"FAX-TO-EMAIL service now available for 076 Numbers (Irish Geo numbers coming).
If you are a subscriber and would like to participate in our trial please email support@blueface.ie with your username.

Note this is real Fax and not Fax over IP so it works everytime!"

Not clear if it's just incoming calls or both outgoing and incoming. Worth asking unless AC doesn't do so here.

Mossy

JimmySmith wrote:

1 - I have changed my voicemail pin number twice now only for it to reset to the default one by itself.

Hmm, I had a problem where it just wouldn't change for me, I had to use the default. I've just changed it to a five-digit number (I was trying to change it to a four-digit number before) and it seems to work. We'll see if it sticks.

JimmySmith wrote:

2 - You have to pay for both Blueface and Eircom at the same time while you are porting your number. If you didnt have to pay blueface until they had your number ported then that would be much better.

I used the Pay As You Go option while my number was being ported - just had to pay Blueface for calls.

RedRooster

Agreed. I'm a new user to www.Blueface.ie too. There support is outstanding. Although, is it because there are soo few customers. Anyway, I was emailing customer support last week about VoIP questions. I'm new to the technology and emails were returned within 5-10 mintues, till 10:30 pm. At this stage I was too tired to email anymore questions and left with my tail between my legs. Me 0 - Blusface customer support 1

Millionaire

I am moving to thailand and going to work my business from there into ireland.

was looking at Blueface. I eamiedl them, adn they said, yes I can have an Irish number and be in thailand with VOIP.

also I assume that I can dial Irish mobiles and land lines on Blueface fom thailand over the net?

And I can have a Voice Mail too?

Are these guys like an Irish Skype?

Apologies if my questions are very obvious, but I am clueless when it comes to technology, so any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

G

Cabaal

Millionaire wrote:

also I assume that I can dial Irish mobiles and land lines on Blueface fom thailand over the net?

And I can have a Voice Mail too?

Are these guys like an Irish Skype?

Yep you'll be able to dial local, national & mobile numbers just as if you were in Ireland

You'll also have voicemail, infact with blueface they will also e-mail you a .wav (soundfile) file of any voicemails in your mailbox...extremely handy imho,

Their not really the same as Skype, the way skype works and the way blueface works are very different...one example is with blueface you can call other customers on broadtalk.ie and other VoIP providers around the world however with skype you can't as it uses its own proprietary protocol.

Millionaire

Thanks cabaal

so looks like its more flexible that SKYPE

sounds good.

may be the ideal solution.

sick of irish winters!

Millionaire

a quick questions about blueface VOIP rates.

Ok say I got an Irish blueface VOIP number, I am in Thailand, but I am calling Irish mobile and landlines.

is that still considered irish to irish calls??? if so...I would save a fortune on rates??!!??

Cabaal

Millionaire wrote:

a quick questions about blueface VOIP rates.

Ok say I got an Irish blueface VOIP number, I am in Thailand, but I am calling Irish mobile and landlines.

is that still considered irish to irish calls??? if so...I would save a fortune on rates??!!??

I'd imagine so, considering its one of the benefits of VoIP

For example my home phone runs over VoIP, tomorrow I could goto America and set it up their. I'd be able to phone people for the exact same cost as if I was in Ireland & as far as everybody is concerned their still ringing my home phone number.

One thing to keep in mind is the quality if your internet connection wherever you are going, if the latency between were you are located and blueface's servers is high it may cause delays during calls.
Unfortunatly the only way to really know how this will affect you is to test it.

By the way, if you need to include more information in a post you can click the edit button, its better then posting one port after the other

RedRooster

When registered you with blueface basically get two numbers.

A Dublin PSTN number (if registered dublin)
A VoIP number. (Similar to Mobile. No local or national rates. All standard)

Think of the Dublin PSTN number as any new phone line from Eircon etc. cause that's exactly what it is.

Worldwide -> Irish VoIP (international rates apply)
Kerry -> VoIP (local for caller)
VoIP -> VoIP (free)
VoIP -> Worldwide (http://www.blueface.ie/rates/rates.aspx)
VoIP -> Mobile (http://www.blueface.ie/rates/rates.aspx)
Mobile -> VoIP (local for caller)
Foreign Mobile -> Irish VoIP (Dunno, I guess international rates)

Worldwide -> PSTN (callers' international rates apply)
Kerry -> PSTN (caller's national rates apply)
VoIP -> PSTN (http://www.blueface.ie/rates/rates.aspx)

To avoid international rates for a caller calling you, register a PSTN number in that country for about 10 euro

:v:

Millionaire

great Thanks.

Will seems like Massive cost savings for me...and nice weather too.

I am not technical but my buddys broadband 349Kbps. while I tested mine in dublin which was 319 I think.

Skype OUT can be a back up...just in case.

and I might divert my land line to a call answer service for a few months just in case!

dam099

Millionaire wrote:

I am not technical but my buddys broadband 349Kbps. while I tested mine in dublin which was 319 I think.

Its not just the bandwidth thats important for VOIP but also the latency/pings (the time in milliseconds taken for a round trip from your PC to Bluefaces servers)

Millionaire

dam099 wrote:

Its not just the bandwidth thats important for VOIP but also the latency/pings (the time in milliseconds taken for a round trip from your PC to Bluefaces servers)

Oh!!! WAS " congestion on the back bone" an old saying for a similar concept.

sorry again, I am below whar this means in lay man terms. sorry not techie at all.

so could this mess things up for me?

what the story re this?

Thanks all for kind help so far.

G

Millionaire

RedRooster wrote:

To avoid international rates for a caller calling you, register a PSTN number in that country for about 10 euro

:v:

thanks

so I am only going to be doing business in ireland, so an Irish VOIP will do me. amd as we think, calling from thai to ireland...on blueface will still be local rate?/

aaronc

Millionaire wrote:

Oh!!! WAS " congestion on the back bone" an old saying for a similar concept.

sorry again, I am below whar this means in lay man terms. sorry not techie at all.

so could this mess things up for me?

what the story re this?

Thanks all for kind help so far.

G

I know of a user in the Phillipines using an Irish provider to place calls to North Amercia (I've never really been sure why he doesn't use a US provider directly). So you should be ok calling from Thailand back into Ireland.

The internet backbone is highly unlikely to be a problem anywhere these days except for maybe Africa. I also imagine Thai cities have better internet connections available than in Dublin so provided your are in or close to civilisation it should be a viable otpion for you.

Aaron

XFM Studio

3 - Can't send a fax.

I'm not sure about this but if you're using one of those ata converter units you get a normal dial tone and DTMF. So a bog standard fax machine will work on this?

Cabaal

XFM Studio wrote:

I'm not sure about this but if you're using one of those ata converter units you get a normal dial tone and DTMF. So a bog standard fax machine will work on this?

Its believe its been tried by a number of people on this forum and each time its failed, however blueface do offer a fax service that goes over the 076 number.

UberNewb

Cabaal wrote:

Its believe its been tried by a number of people on this forum and each time its failed, however blueface do offer a fax service that goes over the 076 number.

I know you can recieve faxs on that new 076 fax number, but can you also send them?

Cabaal

UberNewb wrote:

I know you can recieve faxs on that new 076 fax number, but can you also send them?

Although I have not tried it, according to the website you can
"1 Virtual fax number with fax to e-mail and e-mail to fax service"
http://www.blueface.ie/products/business.aspx

While its part of the business package I'd imagine that if Home users want it blueface can offer it to them for a small fee.

Although this is spectulation on my part so its best to check with them

KeithMur

Hey Guys,

I'm recently new to Blueface, but I have found it very good. I rang my make on his Canadian mobile two weeks ago. It cost 1c per minute. Unbelievable, considering a local call is dearer and also the quality was top notch.

The only problem I had was that I connected to it with asterisk with the help on the website, but I couldn't get connected to the IAX channel. While I could with SIP, IAX was my prefered choice. I emailed the support team and they said that if you want IAX you have to specify it with them, which it doesn't say on their website.

But once they set it up it was game ball.

Regards

UberNewb

Cabaal wrote:

Although I have not tried it, according to the website you can
"1 Virtual fax number with fax to e-mail and e-mail to fax service"
http://www.blueface.ie/products/business.aspx

While its part of the business package I'd imagine that if Home users want it blueface can offer it to them for a small fee.

Although this is spectulation on my part so its best to check with them

cheers Cabaal