Newbie help!

upandcumming

Hi everyone.
Sorry to be so painfully oblivious to the workings of VoIP, but as money is very tight these days, I'm very interested in getting it setup at home as the 'landline' and I'd appreciate someone to help a newbie!

Currently, we are connected with Vodafone with landline and wireless broadband. We call Ireland, UK, UAE and USA, both landline and mobile. I know it is possible to have a normal phone connected and use as a typical landline phone, but after that I'm stumped!
All help is very much appreciated!

Johnboy1951

If you have not used VOIP previously my advice would be to

get a PAYG account with someone like Blueface - Minimum €5

use that account to make calls from a PC softphone - there are lots of free apps available - whichever PC OS you use.

investigate the hardware available at the same time ..... using the software should give you an appreciation of what you want for your situation -- before investing in hardware.

Keep your present landline until you are satisfied that VOIP will cover your needs.

regards.

Mr. G

I think what your refering to is a ATA. Like this:

You can get this from the Blueface shop preprogrammed so all you need to do is plug and play into your telephone, elecrical socket and router provided by your broadband provider - You may need to change broadband provider because I don't know if you can use vodafone mobile broadband with VoIP.

Blueface offer plans here. Or maybe you might use other companies like Digiweb Metro or imagine WiMax which use simular methods.

You signup with an account from a VoIP provider and then you save - usually you topup an account like prepay mobile phones. Try out the blueface free account which has €1 on it to try out.:D

Good luck and feelfree to ask any quesions.

Raoul

Same situation really.

http://www.blueface.ie/residential/free.calls.aspx

What is the story with the above deal? Like 200euro for free calls for life. It honestly sounds too good to be true.

I am in Louth and have a pretty good broadband connection. Should I snap up this offer? I have used skype to skype calls but that is about the most VoIP I have used. I am an electronic eng, should really know more

phoneranger

its a good offer and doesn't have a catch as far as i can see. i have recommended it to several friends and they think it is great:D

Johnboy1951

The only 'catch' I know about is that the service is tied to the hardware.

If the hardware breaks then you must buy a replacement from Blueface who I guess will set it up as the first device was.

The cost of the replacement hardware is not huge, so that should not be much of a consideration.

As a personal preference I would not like to have my phone service tied to one particular piece of hardware. I reckon for most people it would not matter very much.

regards.