The MrPUdding "Get rid of Eircom" project.

MrPudding

Finally the time when I am free of their evil clutches is in sight.

Stage 1 now complete. Yesterday I order IBB breeze. Looking at a 3 to 4 week wait for install. That will give me time to decide on my hardware and where I am going to put it.

I am very excited.

MrP

Canaboid

I hope you're getting IBB as an absolute last resort with no other type of BB available to you. If that's the case, best of luck and I hope it works okay for you. I'd hate to see you having to pay a reconnection fee to Eircom for reinstatemant of your landline for DSL in order to get usable BB. I and a lot of others have had very bad experience with IBB in the past.

I went with IBB Breeze about 18months ago with the intention of cancelling the landline. It was muck and I ended up breaking contract and getting a refund. Things may be better now, I don't know.

I've been with NTL for 6 months cancelled the landline and haven't paid a cent to Eircom since

WRT VoIP, I'm unsophisticated so Skypeout with a Sennheiser headset does me fine for the few calls I need to make.

causal

Canaboid wrote:

WRT VoIP, I'm unsophisticated so Skypeout with a Sennheiser headset does me fine for the few calls I need to make.

Check out blueface.ie - they have a Pay-As-You-Go option that might suit you.
E.g. You can dial freefone, locall, emergency numbers etc. with blueface; but you can't with Skype.

causal

MrPudding

I am pretty sure I will be going with the €19.99 package, we are fairly heavy phone users.

Has anyone had good IBB experience? I know they had "issues" but I thought they had things more or less sorted. I will be hanging (not litteraly)(sp?) off either the Sandyford or Three Rock transmitter.

MrP

MrP

causal

After an arduous and alliteratingly sibillant server sapping trawl of the VoIP archives I found a couple of positive comments in this thread on IBB and Skype.
You might also find some interesting threads and comments therin in this Sticky.

causal

MrPudding

Well, the IBB has just been installed. No problems with the install, nice guys actually.

30 seconds to configure my wireless router and we are off.

Download speeds are around 800 kbps and uploads around 500 but going up to 700.

I have decided to go for the Linksys WRT54GP2 rather than the ATA. This will make things easier for me to have the phone and answering machine where I want it.

I will keep you posted.

MrP

Cabaal

MrPudding wrote:

Well, the IBB has just been installed. No problems with the install, nice guys actually.

30 seconds to configure my wireless router and we are off.

Download speeds are around 800 kbps and uploads around 500 but going up to 700.....

May I suggest you sign up with blueface with the 1 week trail, setup the VoIP software on your PC and dial 301 and do some tests to see what the delay is like.

Also call a few people...test like mad before you get a ATA.

paulm17781

I only did a small bit of testing (3 calls) and then took the plunge and bought the Sipura 2100. Glad I did now. :cool:

Cabaal

paulm17781 wrote:

I only did a small bit of testing (3 calls) and then took the plunge and bought the Sipura 2100. Glad I did now. :cool:

I did abit more then 3 calls but I basically did the same
I'm suggesting it since he's on IBB and he *might* have issues

MartMax

hi just wanna point sthing.

simple enuff that we can get rid of any telephone provider and opt for broadband with voip in place. but if one needs a fax facility, wouldn't it be impossible to minimise the cost? wat i mean is internet fax is out there but still require subscription (see efax for example, monthly costs more than £10). don't mind the usual charge outbound faxes. i read swhere the fax is not possible running thru voip. any ideas to for a perfect small office home office ideally, one bill, one mean (ie broadband), cheap etc.

causal

blueface.ie are/were trialling fax using IP
iirc the idea was it would be about €5 for the service per month, presumably plus fax call charges.

Quoting from the blueface support FAQ

Faxing and VoIP
Does fax work over VoIP? Or can I connect a fax machine to my ATA and send/receive faxes?
The simple answer is no, at least not reliably. The main reason is that while voice over IP can cope with factors such as dropped packets and jitter (packets not arriving at a constant rate) fax signals cannot cope as well. A more detailed explanation can be found here Faxing over IP networks

Is there an alternative to keeping an analogue line if I need to receive faxes?
At the moment no. There are two things that should change this in the near future.

* Firstly we are working on a fax-to-email gateway service that will allow faxes to be sent and received using email attachments
* Secondly Analogue Telephone Adpaters will start to support a protocol call T.38 (Fax over IP) that will enable you to plug a fax machine into an ATA to reliably send and recieve faxes.

hth,
causal

Cabaal

Just had a good look over the site and I can see no mention of fax services anymore,
maybe Aaron will be nice enough to give us a reply?

aaronc

Cabaal wrote:

Just had a good look over the site and I can see no mention of fax services anymore,
maybe Aaron will be nice enough to give us a reply?

Well we can't do much to speed up the adoption of the T.38 protocol in ATAs, this quote from the Sipura FAQ (http://www.sipura.com/Documents/faq/Section_1.html#3):

3: Does it work for fax?
A: Yes, you have to configure your SPA to use G711 codec, and to use
that codec only ("Use Pref Codec Only"). This configuration can be found
in your Line setting, under Audio Configuration.

- We suggest you to upgrade to our latest firmware.
- Make sure you disable "Silence Suppression" in your line configuration
- Make sure you have enough bandwidth for uplink and downlink of ~100Kbps
- You can set "Network Jitter Level" to high and disable echo canceller (optional)

Please note that at this time, we don't support T.38 fax protocol. If you are using
a Cisco gateway, pls disable T.38 (fax relay) and enable fax using modem passthru. Example:
...
modem passthrough nse payload-type 110 codec g711ulaw
fax rate disable
fax protocol pass-through g711ulaw
...

We use the G711 codec by default so would support faxing over G711 but our own experiences with it have not been that great. You will see conflicting reports scattered around the place about how well faxing works over G711 but if it happens to be reliable for you I'd say you're one of the lucky ones. If you want more technical info this guy is the expert, http://www.soft-switch.org/foip.html.

In respect to the fax-to-email gateway it's pretty much on top of our list. We did a beta with our existing VoIP platform using some additional software but once again we weren't able to get it reliable enough. We will shortly be investing in some specialist hardware that is designed specifically for faxing and once we have that in place will be offering Irish geogrpahic numbers that will allow you to receive your faxes via email.

Aaron

Cabaal

aaronc wrote:

Well we can't do much to speed up the adoption of the T.38 protocol in ATAs, this quote from the Sipura FAQ (http://www.sipura.com/Documents/faq/Section_1.html#3):

I was actually on about fax to e-mail but it doesn't matter now

puma5k

This is kind moving from the topic.
But if Fax is to work over VoIP, Can a Visa Machine work over that same protocol (G711) or is there a better solution like the Visa Machine connected directly to an IP network?

causal

Rather than hijack this thread just point people to the similar thread you already started last week here , and post your revised question.

causal

MrPudding

Cabaal wrote:

I did abit more then 3 calls but I basically did the same
I'm suggesting it since he's on IBB and he *might* have issues

I have made a few test calls and they were OK. Of course it is a brand new install and only time will tell. Currently my pings to boards are between 9 & 14, I think this is OK. My understanding is that most of the IBB trouble seems to be on the Ballymun mast.

MrP

cousin_borat

If you are using telephone alot over the IBB you may have some issues. IBB do not use Time Divisional Multiplexing and people who have used VOIP alot over IBB have reported lost packets and jitter.

Best of luck anyway

kevpatts

aaronc,

I did the 1 euro trial of Blueface and it worked perfectly. I was just about to do what MrPudding is aspiring to do and ditch Eirom altogether when I realised that we still have Eircom Phonewatch. This is the only thing stopping a lot of people going all the way to the DSL & Blueface combination.

Do Blueface have anything in the pipeline to resolve this problem? Also, do Blueface have any plans to go in on a (non-DSL) Broadband & Blueface special package with any IBB or NTL etc? A "Ditch Eircom" package if you will?

Kev

aaronc

kevpatts wrote:

aaronc,

I did the 1 euro trial of Blueface and it worked perfectly. I was just about to do what MrPudding is aspiring to do and ditch Eirom altogether when I realised that we still have Eircom Phonewatch. This is the only thing stopping a lot of people going all the way to the DSL & Blueface combination.

Do Blueface have anything in the pipeline to resolve this problem? Also, do Blueface have any plans to go in on a (non-DSL) Broadband & Blueface special package with any IBB or NTL etc? A "Ditch Eircom" package if you will?

Kev

We've had some preliminary discussions with Eircom Phonewatch and they are doing some testing with some ATAs to test out whether the service will work with VoIP. It seems like it may use DTMF tones and not a modem signal which means it is much more likely to work over VoIP. Please note though that at this stage there is no verifed solution and we don't support or recommend using Eircom Phonewatch over a VoIP connection.

No we don't have any serious plans for a Blueface combined broadband/VoIP product. The two ISPs you mention are undoubtedly looking at offering a VoIP addon to their broadband packages in the near future, as I think are most other ISPs in the country. I think combined packages will suit some people and not others and independent VoIP providers will serve the role of keeping the ISPs honest by giving people a choice.

Aaron

kevpatts

Thanks for the info Aaron.

dubadubdub

kevpatts wrote:

I did the 1 euro trial of Blueface and it worked perfectly. I was just about to do what MrPudding is aspiring to do and ditch Eirom altogether when I realised that we still have Eircom Phonewatch. This is the only thing stopping a lot of people going all the way to the DSL & Blueface combination.

Do Blueface have anything in the pipeline to resolve this problem? Also, do Blueface have any plans to go in on a (non-DSL) Broadband & Blueface special package with any IBB or NTL etc? A "Ditch Eircom" package if you will?

Kev

Phonewatch can install Eirlink which uses GSM to connect to the monitoring station but it cost around 300 euros, the monthly charge remains the same.
I'm probably going to go that route but would love to hear from anyone who is actually using Eirlink.

kevpatts

dubadubdub wrote:

Phonewatch can install Eirlink which uses GSM to connect to the monitoring station but it cost around 300 euros, the monthly charge remains the same.
I'm probably going to go that route but would love to hear from anyone who is actually using Eirlink.

Thanks dubadubdub, it's actually gone down to 275 euro. There's only no extra rental if you don't have a compatible phone line, which I won't anymore. I'll probably get that cause it's a once off payment.

Kev

amp

There is a pleasant feeling to ditching eircom which is akin to excorcising demons.

unkel

amp wrote:

There is a pleasant feeling to ditching eircom which is akin to excorcising demons.

There is!

Feels great being able to stand up straight after the years of bending over and taking it from Eircon

mwrf

i wish that during porting a number, you got to send a personal letter to eircom requesting that they stick their phone line up their :eek: ,

Dear Eircom,

Stick this line up your :eek: ,

Regards,
Mr. S.

MrPudding

I forgot about this thread.

Things were a bit rocky for a while to be honest. You will not believe it but I had "some" trouble with IBB. That said they had it fixed in 5 short months :rolleyes: and I got a full cash money refund into the bank.

My connection to IBB is now excellent, absolutly no complaints now for months.

I had some trouble with my WRT54GP2 router but blueface replaced it and I am a very happy customer.

So, there has been some trouble along the way but simply making that call to €ircom made it all worthwhile.

MrP