Zarak,
I built a new house over the summer, and took the opportunity to dump my local phone company (Bell). I'm in Northern Ontario, and my ISP (Vianet) offers a VOiP line for $12.50CAD / mth which includes all the bells-and-whistles (voicemail, call waiting, call display, call conferencing etc.), and long distance of 5c / min anywhere in North America, anytime. A comparable service from Bell would run ~ $40CAD, therefore the economic benefit is a no-brainer.
I’ll break this up into a pros/cons list to avoid rambling on for 3 pages. Note, I’ll use the benefits as they applied to me, and all costs are in CAD$.
Pros:
- Cost savings of > $300 per year (I’m quite frugal, so this was enough for me!)
- Portability: My wife and I spent a week in Mexico in December, and we brought our ATA (analogue telephone adapter) and a phone with us. This allowed us to plug the ATA into a high-speed internet port, and we could keep in touch with family, mainly our daughter, without incurring any cost. Any calls to/from your ‘home area-code’, regardless of where in the world you’re connected, are considered a local call. We actually made a few dollars by letting others at the resort use our phone to call home since my long distance rate of 5c/min was substantially cheaper than the resort.
- Number porting: I was able to keep my old number that I’ve had for years. This would not have been possible had I stayed with Bell since I was moving across town.
Cons: (I’ll also list how I overcame them)
- Potentially 911, although I think most service providers have fixed this. The only thing to remember, is if you do travel with the ATA, dialing 911 will send emergency personnel to the registered address. My service provider requires I call them when I travel with the ATA, and they de-activate my 911 service.
- Power outage: If you loose power to your cable modem and ATA, you are without telephone service. This was not really a big issue for me, since I have a cell phone for backup and power outages in my area are quite uncommon. I also purchased a small UPS that supplies plenty of power to keep my modem, router and ATA running during short interruptions.
- Connection to existing phone distribution system in your home. This was a non-issue for me, since I pre-planned and wired my house during construction to allow for VoiP. This is by no means insurmountable, but you will have to put some thought into it. Requirements are: Coax from ISP to cable modem, cable modem to router, router to ATA, ATA to house phone distribution. Note, you can also connect the cable modem directly to the ATA, then ATA to router.
- QOS (Quality of Service): This is the biggest challenge in my opinion, and is dependant on a few things. The 2 most important variables are the bandwidth from your ISP, and your internet usage. My personal situation was such that if I was downloading something, the voice-quality was choppy at best. Remember, I’m not in a telecommunications-hub, therefore my bandwidth is not the greatest. There are a few ways to deal with this. First, many of the new ATAs have QOS built-in, and can be configured to prioritize voice over data. Also, with the advancement of VoiP, many new routers on the market offer QOS. I went the Linux route, and configured my Linux firewall to prioritize voice, and this corrected the issue to an acceptable point. There are still times when the voice is a bit choppy, mainly between 3-5pm when kids are getting home from school and internet traffic in general increases. It’s not enough to cause a problem for me, and every time I hear it drop a bit, I simply think of the money I’m saving
. Your method of resolving the QOS issue is up to you, but it’s really not that difficult.
- ISP caps: Depending on your usage and account type, you may have to upgrade to an 'unlimited'. If you have a capped account, and you exceed your download/upload limit you'll be 'up-the-creek' with your phone.
All-in-all, my suggestion to anyone wanting to switch to VoiP is to test it first. Ask your ISP to lend you an ATA to test for 1-2 months and see if it works for you. The largest potential draw-back in my mind is the voice-quality. If you can solve this, it becomes smooth sailing, and is a great way to use advancements in technology to save a few bucks. I also echo others in saying VoiP will take over in the next 5-10 years. Well, so much for doing pros/cons to keep it short!
