VOIP noob

anthonymcg

Hi all,

I'm currently with BT for my broadband but am planning on ditching them in favour of NTL. As NTL is cable based I'm also looking into ditching the phone line and going with Blueface for VOIP. Trouble is that my knowledge of VOIP is limited at best. We bought two cordless phones a couple of months back to use around the house so I'm not too sure if I'd want to get rid of em right away. What are the benefits of IP phones and are they expensive?

I was thinking of getting the WRT54GP2 from Blueface as they seem to be a good wireless router. I'll also need a USB adaptor for my main PC since that's upstairs, any recommendations on that front? Thanks in advance.

Blaster99

IP phones give you advanced functionality like 3-way calling, call forward, mailbox message indication, multiple lines. In a home environment I wouldn't bother. IP phones are generally expensive, about €100-400 depending on quality.

Linksys, Netgear, and D-Link make good wireless stuff. Seeing as you're getting a Linksys router, you may want to stick with Linksys in case you have support issues.

wexfordman

Anthone,

The lynksys router/ata is definately the way to go imho, thats what I did, and never looked back. You can use your two new phones with it no bother, and as the previous post said, its not really worth the money buying specific ip phones in the near future.

Another plus with the lynksys is that it provides you with two ports, so you can have two seperate phone lines if you want (I just set up my second line on Smart VOIP yesterday for the laugh), so a second line for the misses, or the kids is there if you want also. Thats 50 quid a month in rental if you went with eircom!!!

Blueface is great, porting your eircom number over takes a couple of weeks though, but worht it in the end.
Wexfordman

Regards,
Wexfordman

jimmycrackcorm

I'm very happy with my blueface connection and I have my dect phones connected to my ATA. Blueface Support is the best of any service I've come across. Things I really like are the live up to date account view, the ability to simply scan and fax by email and getting my voicemail calls in my email when I'm at work.

Oh and the soon to be huge saving from no eircom line.

Cabaal

I was very happy with my blueface 10e subscription for the 8 months or so I had it, unfortunately I'm without my dsl connection at present and circumstances changed so I don't really have a big need for a incoming number etc anymore.

May I suggest you take a look at the "what is your VoIP setup" thread (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=250581) you'll notice the majority of people use NTL as their provider when using VoIP...it might give you some ideas for your setup

anthonymcg

Thanks for the responses folks. I'll be making the switch in the middle of next month as I'm paid up until then with Esat. I won't be switching the landline straight away but will test the quality with a 076 number first.