In need of a little help!

DArcy

Hi all,

Please forgive my ignorance. I've spent the past hour reading about VoIP and Skype online, and while I understand the concept, I'm not sure which option is best for me or how I even go about sorting the situation out...

I'm moving to Scotland in 2 weeks; will be staying on campus (going back to college) and will have free broadband access in my room via whatever the system the college has in place. Want to be able to ring home as much as possible for as little as possible. We have Digiweb broadband at home. Can somebody set me in the right direction with this VoIP thing?? Thanks in advance and apologies for being the dumb blonde of the day :rolleyes:

Blaster99

With Skype, both of you need to run Skype at both ends and it's free. This will give you the best sound quality and you can do video as well.

If you want to call phone lines, with voipcheap.com you get 300 free minutes a week to landlines and they're v cheap beyond that. See the site for details. You can download a PC app from them to make the calls. Most VoIP providers will give you an inbound phone number as well, not sure about voipcheap.com.

You need a headset with either solution.

DArcy

I, in my haste perhaps, signed up with freespeech.ie. They gave me an 076 number, I had to open a few ports to have incoming calls, download a "digital" phone, put some money in my account. I can make and receive calls from my PC. Is this a decent deal??

And this is probably my second or third stupid question for today but...is it possible to get a cordless phone that's VoIP compatible? Can I dial out through my broadband connection using a cordless phone instead of sitting at my PC?

RangeR

DArcy wrote:

I, in my haste perhaps, signed up with freespeech.ie. They gave me an 076 number, I had to open a few ports to have incoming calls, download a "digital" phone, put some money in my account. I can make and receive calls from my PC. Is this a decent deal??

And this is probably my second or third stupid question for today but...is it possible to get a cordless phone that's VoIP compatible? Can I dial out through my broadband connection using a cordless phone instead of sitting at my PC?

If you have a Pocket PC Phone/PDA like the XDA II, you can get VoIP phone software for that. The XDAII has WI-FI so you could use this as a "roaming wireless phone" around your apartment.

Failing that, if you want to spend a little cash, you could get an ATA and a DECT phone. An ATA plugs into your internet router and lets you plug in ANY analog [normal] phone and use it to make VoIP calls. The advantage of pluging in a DECT phone to the ATA is obvious; You have a Wireless VoIP phone.

DArcy

Ok, so if I buy a DECT phone and an ATA, am I right in saying that I can have a DECT phone somewhere in the house and it will still make and receive calls even if my PC isn't switched on? This is exactly what I'm looking for.

As I said earlier, I have an 076 number with freespeech. I'd like to do have an 076 number in Scotland with the same phone setup - this would work out cheap right?! I keep thinking there'll be a sting in the tail somewhere. The only worry I have is that I'm not sure what the broadband setup is like in Scotland. Is it possible that it will be restrictive and won't allow an ATA to be set up?

Foxwood

DArcy wrote:

The only worry I have is that I'm not sure what the broadband setup is like in Scotland. Is it possible that it will be restrictive and won't allow an ATA to be set up?

If it's in student accomodation, that's definitely a possibility.