VoIP

zap

is it worth my while looking for a wireless BB provider and then using blueface to replace my current eircom bb and pstn line

capistrano

I don't see why not. I use NTL for my broadband and I have recently signed up to BlueFace for phone sevice. You get a local number (Dublin, Galway or Waterford so far) and when the 076 prefix becomes active you'll get an 076 number as well.

So I had the great pleasure of phone Eircom and telling them to close my account!

Cabaal

capistrano wrote:

I don't see why not. I use NTL for my broadband and I have recently signed up to BlueFace for phone sevice. You get a local number (Dublin, Galway or Waterford so far) and when the 076 prefix becomes active you'll get an 076 number as well.

So I had the great pleasure of phone Eircom and telling them to close my account!

Ohhh nice!
I've been looking for a VoIP service but I need a local phone number
Whats the call quality of blueface like? Is their much delay?

Also whats the story selecting a Waterford number..the site don't have too much info about anything other then Dublin.

Luckily I have a Esat Business line so I can get my line changed to digital only....so no more eircom line rental
Saving me 60e every two months

cormac_byrne

Cabaal wrote:

Whats the call quality of blueface like? Is their much delay?

I've got a IrishBroadband 1Mb Breeze / Blueface VoIP / Grandstream 486 ATA setup

When dialing there appears to be a bit of delay connecting, but no noticeable delay on the call.

There is nowever a bit of a permanent 'mains hum' type sound.

To be fair I havn't determined if this is due to the telephone handset,
The Grandstream box (which connects my analog phone to the ethernet),
some dodgy wiring in my house,
or is a limitation of the service.

The Grandstream ATA (analog telephone adapter) has lots of settings, so there may be room for improvement there.
Also FYI it acts as a router and DHCP server for my LAN.

Up until recently (and I've only had the setup a short while) the voice quality was fine, apart from some occasional glitchiness, which I could easily live with.

Recently the quality has degraded considerably to the point of being unuseable at times, but this is the fault of my IBB setup rather than blueface.

e.g. download 300Kbps, upload 50Kbps pings up to 50% packet loss

Obviously the phone can't handle this, blueface advised me 128Kbps upload speed for useable operation.

Assuming IBB can fix my speed problem then all should be well again. Am paying for 1Mb up/down speeds, even 1/4 of that should keep the phone happy, surely not a lot to expect ???

IBB are testing 2Mb upgrades at the moment so that may explain their equipment being a bit flaky if they're experimenting with settings.

Cabaal

I guess I'll see how I go with it...now whats the story with the numbers?
The My Account section has no options or anything when I log in.

Cabaal

Just sorted out my 9.99e package with Blue Face....all I can say is WOW!
almost no delay and its extremely nice to have a 051 number for incoming calls

Best 10e I spent tbh

sikes

can i keep my present dublin number and is it possible to have more than 1 call going at any time?

regards

mneylon

According to the sbpost most of the ISPs will be offering some kind of VOIP solution in the next few months. In the meantime Skype is a pretty good solution

capistrano

I don't think you can keep your Dublin number; you'll be given a number beginning with 436.

And, yes, you can have multiple calls at the same time. You can even phone yourself and have the outgoing call on Line 1 and the incoming call on Line 2!

causal

sikes wrote:

can i keep my present dublin number and is it possible to have more than 1 call going at any time?

Yes you can keep your present Dublin number - you have to request Eircom to port it over to blueface.
[Edit: if you are on one of the Freedom packages, check blueface webiste ]

Multiple calls - Yes, I believe so, but you best check with support@blueface.ie to be sure.

causal

capistrano

blacknight wrote:

In the meantime Skype is a pretty good solution

Without SkypeIn it just isn't a viable replacement for the regular phone service. Okay for making cheap outgoing calls, but then again so is blueface pay-as-you-go.

BigMoose

When dialing there appears to be a bit of delay connecting

Are you pressing # at the end of dialling the number?

I have breeze lite 1mb (new equipment), blueface and no expense going to Eircom I have the Sipura (sp?) interface for my dect phone. Works brilliantly. No one calling has noticed the change from Eircom quality wise.

causal

capistrano wrote:

Without SkypeIn it just isn't a viable replacement for the regular phone service. Okay for making cheap outgoing calls, but then again so is blueface pay-as-you-go.

Exactly, and with blueface you can dial 1800, etc. numbers, 999 calls etc. which you can't with SkypeOut.

Also the closest SkypeIn number is in the UK - so as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong please) anyone who does want to call you has to pay for a call to the UK :eek:

Blueface is better than Skype on all fronts, imho.

causal

causal

BigMoose wrote:

I have breeze lite 1mb (new equipment), blueface and no expense going to Eircom I have the Sipura (sp?) interface for my dect phone. Works brilliantly. No one calling has noticed the change from Eircom quality wise.

Similar story here, ntl - blueface- grandstream486 - dect quadset. Perfect

I just received mt Final Bill from Eircom - THEY OWE ME €8.49

causal

capistrano

causal wrote:

Yes you can keep your present Dublin number - you have to request Eircom to port it over to blueface.

I didn't know this. I closed my Eircom account a couple of days ago, do you reckon it's too late now?

causal

No I shouldn't think so, iirc there's some law about the length of time that must elapse before a old number is re assigned, so it should still be there for you to use.
I presume you're on FreedomBasic or FreedomPlus, if you're 'pay as you go' you afaik you don't get a number for receiving calls.

Phone blueface (dial 3000 from your handset - free ) and Aaron will email you out a form, which is for you to request that your phone number be ported over to them. You can either sign and return it, or digitally sign and email it back. That's how it worked for me, mind it took a few weeks for the port to go through because eircom dragged their heels.

hth,
causal

[Edit - fixed some typos ]

Blaster99

causal wrote:

Blueface is better than Skype on all fronts, imho.

It depends on what you want from the service. If you want a telephone replacement then Blueface is better but if you want to talk to people for free and use it as a computer tool, Skype is better. It is better because you can also chat, send files (albeit very slowly), and the GUI is million times slicker than a SIP soft-phone is. I very rarely use Skype for phone calls, I nearly always only use it to make free calls to people I work with. And for that purpose it is excellent. You can do conference calls with Skype as well, which is also extremely useful.

Cabaal

I had a few querys to do with Blue Face, mobile numbers were getting 403's errors and I wanted to check about porting my current PSTN line number over to the blue face setup.

The support line was very helpfull and I have to say I;m impressed, so far so good...I'm looking forward to the new 076 number as well


Anyone have much experience with the SPA-2100 Analog Telephone Adapter?
http://www.sipura.com/products/spa2100.htm
Hard to setup? Is it worth getting over the Grandstream?

Any issues anybody come across with using the VoIP hardware over the software based setup?

causal

The GUI is better, but of real significance is that Skype is a proprietary technology. With Skype you can only call other Skype users for free; with blueface (SIP) you can phone any other VoIP (SIP, H.323, whatever) users for free - Vonage, Babble, Net2Phone, FreeWorldDialup etc. etc.

Skype say they may in future build in VoIP compatability (SIP etc.), if they do that and also have a presence in Ireland (so I can keep an Irish number and use our intelligent network services) they might be worth another look. But I doubt it'll happen.

causal

causal

Cabaal wrote:

The support line was very helpfull and I have to say I;m impressed, so far so good.

Initially I was having trouble logging in my softphone (hardphone was fine - could make/receive calls), next thing the softphone was working fine and I couldn't figure what I'd done to get it working.

Next thing I get a phonecall "Hi, it's blueface here, I saw you were having trouble logging in so I [fixed it]... " :eek: :eek:

How's that for customer service .. they see the problem, fix it, then let you know :cool:

causal

BigMoose

Anyone have much experience with the SPA-2100 Analog Telephone Adapter?

I've got the SPA-2000 I think. Got it from Blueface the week they first had it advertised. No reason for chosing it over the grandstream other than it has two phone ports which might be useful (not used the 2nd one so far!).

All I did was took it out the box and plugged it in. Worked without any configuration! Although I'm sure I was meant to configure something, since it's working I've not bothered.

Only issue I have with Blueface (which I must take up with support - my fault I've not so far not, not theirs!) is that I have trouble calling other VoIP users. I get 401 errors when calling a SIP address at nildram.co.uk. Never had a problem calling PSTN/GSM numbers, inc 1800 etc.

Cabaal

blacknight wrote:

According to the sbpost most of the ISPs will be offering some kind of VOIP solution in the next few months. In the meantime Skype is a pretty good solution

I'd imagine Eircom will be last to do this
I think I may check with Esat and see what kind of service they may be providing.

BigMoose wrote:

I've got the SPA-2000 I think. Got it from Blueface the week they first had it advertised......

I'm curious how long are you using blueface?
for that matter how long has everybody here been using blue face?

capistrano

Cabaal wrote:

for that matter how long has everybody here been using blue face?

2 days!

I've ordered Freedom Basic with the SPA-2100 ATA, which hasn't arrived yet, so thus far I've only been able to use the SofthPhone.

Another think I like about VoIP is that I can run a SoftPhone in work and be able to receive home calls.

Cabaal

capistrano wrote:

Another think I like about VoIP is that I can run a SoftPhone in work and be able to receive home calls.

On that note actually their voicemail is impresive

Somebody calls and gets your voicemail and they leave a message..you can check it like any normal voicemail.
But it also e-mails you a .wav file of the voicemail as well

Skype charge extra for voicemail, wtf like?!?

Blaster99

Cabaal wrote:

Skype charge extra for voicemail, wtf like?!?

They gotta make money somehow and selling add-ons is a pretty obvious way to do it. I'm not sure if that voicemail is for SkypeIn, but otherwise if somebody isn't there you just send them a chat message which will be delivered when they connect the next time.

Being able to take calls anywhere is pretty handy for sure. That was the only reason I wanted to use Blueface but for various reasons I don't really have that requirement any more. And a lot of companies have restrictive firewall setups that make it difficult to use SIP. Skype, to plug it a bit more, is pretty good at getting through firewalls. I presume it tunnels over port 80.

causal

Cabaal wrote:

Any issues anybody come across with using the VoIP hardware over the software based setup?

I had the VoIP hardware (Grandstream486) setup a lot quicker than I did the Softphone (X-Lite).
I totally prefer the hardphone. In my experience with the x-lite softphone (and Skype) you tend to get echo unless you're using a decent headset. Basically I've found the hardware (Grandstream486+normal telephone) gives far better performance than the software (X-lite, Skype).

The 486 also has an RJ11 port that allows you to connect it to your phone line so you can use it for normal pstn calls. Of course a lot of us disconnected our phone lines, so it's not needed.
On that note, if you solely use VoIP for phone calls - if you lose your broadband - you better have a mobile for making emergency calls.

BigMoose wrote:

Only issue I have with Blueface (which I must take up with support - my fault I've not so far not, not theirs!) is that I have trouble calling other VoIP users. I get 401 errors when calling a SIP address at nildram.co.uk.

I'm not sure but possibly blueface have to explicitly allow access to other VoIP networks, check out this page on the blueface website which lists 'Other VoIP Networks' and says " Want another VoIP network here? Send requests to support@blueface.ie"

Cabaal wrote:

for that matter how long has everybody here been using blue face?

3 weeks for me. Blueface only launched in December last year, so no-one has been with them much more than 3 months. They're a young company and I'm happy to be in early and support what they've had the vision/guts to do.


causal

BigMoose

I'm curious how long are you using blueface?

About 2 months now.

flodis79

Can I use a foreign VoIP box with Eircom? They havent blocked the communication ports or anything?

Will use it to be able to have people calling me on a local foreign number when im abroad.

capistrano

flodis79 wrote:

Can I use a foreign VoIP box with Eircom? They havent blocked the communication ports or anything?

Will use it to be able to have people calling me on a local foreign number when im abroad.

Sure, for example, you could sign up to Packet8 in the USA for $19.95/month and get a local number anywhere in the USA or Canada aswell as unlimited calls to anywhere within USA/Canada and cheap call to everywhere else.

secret_squirrel

Just to clarify the situation with Dublin geographic numbers on Blueface - Does anyone have their number up and running yet?

cormac_byrne

Yes, I had mine within days of ordering (weeks before I got broadband in fact) all I could do was check my voicemail via email, the blueface team really seem to have got their act together. Their tech support is excellent too.

Now all I need is for IBB to fix my upload problem
(my upload speed is permanently below 14.4 kbps )

secret_squirrel wrote:

Just to clarify the situation with Dublin geographic numbers on Blueface - Does anyone have their number up and running yet?

capistrano

secret_squirrel wrote:

Just to clarify the situation with Dublin geographic numbers on Blueface - Does anyone have their number up and running yet?

I signed up on Sunday night about 9pm and I got an email with with working Dublin number by 10pm! Did you ever hear of such a quick setup?

Cuauhtemoc

So which do you think would be better..

Smart Telecom - Broadband and phone line for €35(eventually) or
NTL - €35 + Blueface - €9.99(the cheaper blueface option).

Smart initially looks cheaper but then with blueface there's free calls to other voip users, 100mins talktime.


C.

Blaster99

I very much doubt Smart will do international calls for 1.7c either. I've said this before as well, when it comes to getting broadband ignore the promises and go with what's available now. A lot of vapour in this market. Against NTL and VoIP is that a phone line usually works all the time.

SachaJ

Couple of questions on the two numbers, ie. 01 & 076:

1) Is there any way to distinguish what number a caller rang before you pick up the call. So if say I was running a business from home, I could ignore all "01" (business) calls after 6pm, and only answer the "076" (personal) calls. Or even set the "01" calls to go directly to answering machine after 6pm.


2) Is there any way to have the different numbers goto different answer/mail boxes - ie. a different message for each. Again a business and a personal.


3) When someone dials a "076" number. What way is it charged? Is it a national call?

cormac_byrne

SachaJ wrote:

Couple of questions on the two numbers, ie. 01 & 076:

3) When someone dials a "076" number. What way is it charged? Is it a national call?

076 will be charged as a local call (they're not live yet)

I think the 01 & 076 numbers will be handeled identically as they'll both relate to the same SIP id, but you should ask blueface to get an exact answer.
Try aaronc @ blueface . ie

Maybe they will give out additional numbers at a low price (more likely 076 than 01), then you'd be laughing as long as you had a 2 port ATA (like the Sipura)

nava

Hi

did anyone have any problems with Blueface regarding sound and line breaking

In all the calls I made with my acc. I have th same problem, after a few seconds I cannot hear anything at all what the other people are saying, after that it goes and comes back, I tried with several phones numbers and the same problem, I tried at home with NTL broadband the 750 package and a Win2000 laptop and also a PC and the same problem. I also test it in work today with the same problem.

Does anyone have any ideas, I'm using the 1 week trial account.

Forgot to metion it works ok with SKYPE.

Thanks

BigMoose

For what Skype does, it does just work. Where I've struggled with Trillian/MSN getting audio calls to work in one direction or another, Skype has always just worked. However as already mentioned, as a replacement for a PSTN line it's not much use. Hence why I use it and Blueface

As for your Blueface problem, I've never had that using either the softphone or a Dect handset and the Sipura box. Do you have any strange firewalls/NAT in the way? Although saying that I have a firewall route/NAT and dont have the issue...

capistrano

cormac_byrne wrote:

...then you'd be laughing as long as you had a 2 port ATA (like the Sipura)

Speaking of the Sipura 2-port ATA. I have just installed mine and Line2 is dead. Line1 works perfectly.

Do you know if there is some configuration needed to get Line2 operational?

Having said that, I can't even access the web-based config screens for the Sipura! I'll have to play around with it some more; I'm using it in conjunction with a WiFi router, which may be interfering in some way.


Added later:
All is well. I put the Sipura in front of my WRT54G router. So the cable modem goes into the Sipura, which then feeds into the WiFi router.

I can now access the config pages to configure line 2. So now I have two phones on different lines.

The other beauty of this setup is that all packets to the outside world go through the Sipura and I'm hoping it will do some QoS stuff to priotitise VoIP packets. That way I can be downloading torrents and still make calls without worrying about not having enough spare upload capacity.

causal

Hey Capistrano,
With the Sipura: when you say you "have two phones on different lines" - do you mean you can use the 2 lines indpendantly of each other? i.e. if line 1 is busy, you can make/receive a second call on line 2?

I think the reason you couldn't originally access the Config Pages was because you probably have to set the Sipura to accept WAN side configuration; but since you moved it 'further out' i.e. before your gateway - you're now accessing it from the LAN side. Why that might make line 2 work I've no idea. Can you configure the Sipura directly using the phone? It's useful in case your network or pc fail.

An advantage of having the ATA after the cable modem (and before your gateway) is you don't need to leave your gateway powered on all the time, and the possible QoS advantages you mentioned too.
The disadvantage is it's outside your gateway and, if it doesn't have a firewall, it's in the 'DMZ', more exposed to an attack.

On a side note, I've had perfect conversations with blueface while downloading large files that were using a lot of bandwidth; of course what I need to test is having a conversation while doing a big upload - since 128up sucks compared 750down. Just waiting for the ntl (or is that UGC) increase...

causal

Cabaal

secret_squirrel wrote:

Just to clarify the situation with Dublin geographic numbers on Blueface - Does anyone have their number up and running yet?

I kind of messed up my order when I was getting my Waterford (051) number...but I phoned support and they were able to give me in within a few seconds
Just thought its worth mentioning.

causal wrote:

On a side note, I've had perfect conversations with blueface while downloading large files that were using a lot of bandwidth; of course what I need to test is having a conversation while doing a big upload - since 128up sucks compared 750down. Just waiting for the ntl (or is that UGC) increase...l

Luckily I have 256k to mess about with but I do find torrents will affect the quality a good bit, I've since capped the uploads lower and the delay is almost gone
Stopping all torrents removes any delay what-so-ever
Downloads don't affect the quality of service at all for me

capistrano

causal wrote:

Hey Capistrano,
With the Sipura: when you say you "have two phones on different lines" - do you mean you can use the 2 lines indpendantly of each other? i.e. if line 1 is busy, you can make/receive a second call on line 2?

That's exactly what I could do. However, I later noticed that neither phone would ring on an incoming call - it goes straight to voicemail! I have now disabled Line2 and connected both phones to Line1 using a splitter. I suspect you need to configure Line2 with a different account.

causal wrote:

On a side note, I've had perfect conversations with blueface while downloading large files that were using a lot of bandwidth; of course what I need to test is having a conversation while doing a big upload - since 128up sucks compared 750down. Just waiting for the ntl (or is that UGC) increase...

Right, it's the upload that the problem. I started downloading a 700MB file with BitTorrent (which uploads and downloads simultaneously) and the called the Echo service (301). There was a huge delay. I then enabled QoS and tried again - much much better.

I'm pretty happy with my setup now. Though there are a couple of little niggles left; I tried sending myself a fax from work this afternoon and it failed. Haven't tried sending out a fax yet.

causal

The two sockets providing two separate lines is a definite advantage of the Sipura over the Grandstream 486.

There was a huge delay. I then enabled QoS and tried again - much much better.
I'm pretty happy with my setup now. Though there are a couple of little niggles left; I tried sending myself a fax from work this afternoon and it failed. Haven't tried sending out a fax yet.

Good to see the QoS is working
As for the FoIP check the latest news on the blueface webiste:

LATEST NEWS:
Fax-to-Email Numbers now avialable for Beta testing to subscription customers.

This service will cost €5 per month but will be free for beta testing. If you would like to participate please send an email to sales@blueface.ie

causal

Blaster99

How do you dial another SIP user on another SIP network on a normal phone? I seem to recall that the "number" is like 1234@blueface.ie

Cabaal

Blaster99 wrote:

How do you dial another SIP user on another SIP network on a normal phone? I seem to recall that the "number" is like 1234@blueface.ie

Your half right,
If your dialing somebody on blueface and their # is 1234 you simply dial 1234.

However if your dialing another network you dial a prefix of sorts
For example its *1 for Sipgate (see http://www.blueface.ie/support/usefulnumbers.aspx)

So for a sipgate user with a sip id of 1234 you'd dial *11234 if you were dialing from a blueface account to Sipgate.

If you want to connect to other VoIP networks that are not listed on the blueface site you'll need to get blueface to add-them.

capistrano

Aaron Clauson himself (from Blueface) told me today that you can't use regular fax machines with VoIP. This was news to me as the Sipura documentation talks about connecting either a phone or fax to the Line1 and Line2 sockets.

He also said that maybe at some point in the future there will be a firmware upgrade to allow the use of a regular fax machine.

So, for now, we'll have to sign up for their Fax to e-mail service if we want faxes.

I hardly ever use the fax machine anymore anyway. I'll live without it.

causal

There's a separate protocol, FoIP, to enable Fax Over IP.
The fundamental principle is the same as VoIP but there are protocol differences between fax and voice calls.

causal

aaronc

capistrano wrote:

Aaron Clauson himself (from Blueface) told me today that you can't use regular fax machines with VoIP. This was news to me as the Sipura documentation talks about connecting either a phone or fax to the Line1 and Line2 sockets.

What I should have said is, you cannot "reliably" send faxes over VoIP with current analogue telephone adapters (ATA).

You can use fax over IP (note this is over IP not VoIP) with a protocol called T.38. Once this protocol is supported in ATAs, and if your service provider supports it, you will be able to "reliably" send faxes over IP (FoIP). There is hardware you can get right now that supports T.38 so you can reliably fax over IP, the problem is the hardware isn't cheap and is normally single purpose, i.e. you can't use it for voice as well.

Good links here:
http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=T.38

Sipura, an ATA manufacturer, state that T.38 support will be available in their ATAs with a future firmware upgrade:
http://www.sipura.com/support/spa2100faq/Section_1.html#3

As for fax over VoIP it can be done but not with a great level of reliablilty. For voice codecs that are not lossy, i.e. don't compress the data, such as G711, a fax call could keep all the information and be put back together correctly at the receiving end. The problem is that VoIP is normally transported over an unreliable transport layer, such as UDP, and is designed to cope with losing packets, receiving them in the wrong order or with different spacings. Fax signals happen to be sensitive to exactly these types of things. People often report succesfull faxes over VoIP using G711 but in my experience it is not something you can rely on. It may work for one fax but not the next.

Aaron

secret_squirrel

A reply in 1 hour 2 mins and at midnight! Now thats what I call service!

kazoo106

The only problem which I have with blueface is that they do not provide caller ID on outgoing calls - I also have a Northern Ireland number through sipgate which does show up the tellephone number +44284179XXX

causal

kazoo106 wrote:

The only problem which I have with blueface is that they do not provide caller ID on outgoing calls - I also have a Northern Ireland number through sipgate which does show up the tellephone number +44284179XXX

Blueface do provide CallerID on outgoing calls (and incoming) - I have both
Email support@blueface.ie or Aaron directly and he'll sort it for you
Note: your ATA, if you use one, can also block 'own number sending', so make sure it's enabled there too.

I'm not sure I understand the problem with the +44 number - is it that you don't receive the callerID when they call you, does that number have 'own number sending' dis/en-abled?

hth,
causal