voiplowdown.com— By 2010 more than 25% of American households will no longer even own a traditional land line. VOIP is cheaper and has better technology. Better yet, you don't have to deal with telecom customer service.
Oct 24, 2006View in Crawl 4
Most people use landlines to make outgoing calls these days and thats about it. I don't think most people have incoming calls happening unless they are from the baby boomer generation (like my parents). The reality is that right now with Skype you can make free outgoing calls anywhere in the nation if you have internet and a microphone. Then you can use a cellphone for incoming. Cellphones are convienant to call because the person usually is close by it. Then you save money on the outgoing with VoIP and you maximize savings and use even less minutes.
as far as customer service, i don't really know, we have a few choices to choose from around here, Comcast, Vonage, etc, etc, but the taxes right now seem bit high, my friend's bill was suppose to be $99 ($33-cable $33-phone $33-internet Comcast Package Deal) plus taxes, but even after taxes it seemed a bit steep ($121.33) and most of the xtra charges were on the VoIP part of the bill!!!
I disconnected my land line and just use a cheap 30 dollar skype phone i got from newegg and pay for a local # with skype, its great, i get voicemail, caller id, etc, land line calls from skype are usually very good quality. But, it seems from skype to cell phones, or international, the quality isnt so hot. But It does suit my needs and its cheap. Voip will be the future, in time, it will get even better as far as quality. Land line phones have to many charges and are expensive to maintain (the network)
One thing I absolutely MUST say: Please, don't run "on-hold" music on VoIP!Jeeze, there's nothing as hideous as that horrible swishing roar of crummy elevator music breaking up on your VoIP link to some customer-service hellhole in Mumbai while you stew in your own juice.Really, Corporate America, get a dang clue, huh?
Don't be ridiculous. A landline-quality voice call requires about 30kb/s (or less). That's 1800kb/min. Talk for 10 minutes and you will have transferred 2.2 megabytes.At normal landline voice rates, of, say, 5 cents/minute, that's 50 cents.Do you really think anyone's going to pay 50 cents to transfer 2.2 megabytes over their DSL line? At those rates, downloading a 45-minute TV show from BitTorrent would cost eighty dollars.
Closed AccountOct 24, 2006
You sure your ISP doesn't throttle VoIP traffic? Mine sounds great.
Closed AccountOct 24, 2006
Odd that this article doesn't address Net Neutrality.I wrote an article a few weeks ago on how VoIP works.<a class="user" href="http://www.notquiteleet.com">http://www.notquiteleet.com</a>
drakethegreatOct 24, 2006
Most people use landlines to make outgoing calls these days and thats about it. I don't think most people have incoming calls happening unless they are from the baby boomer generation (like my parents). The reality is that right now with Skype you can make free outgoing calls anywhere in the nation if you have internet and a microphone. Then you can use a cellphone for incoming. Cellphones are convienant to call because the person usually is close by it. Then you save money on the outgoing with VoIP and you maximize savings and use even less minutes.
rusty_gOct 24, 2006
as far as customer service, i don't really know, we have a few choices to choose from around here, Comcast, Vonage, etc, etc, but the taxes right now seem bit high, my friend's bill was suppose to be $99 ($33-cable $33-phone $33-internet Comcast Package Deal) plus taxes, but even after taxes it seemed a bit steep ($121.33) and most of the xtra charges were on the VoIP part of the bill!!!
Closed AccountOct 24, 2006
I disconnected my land line and just use a cheap 30 dollar skype phone i got from newegg and pay for a local # with skype, its great, i get voicemail, caller id, etc, land line calls from skype are usually very good quality. But, it seems from skype to cell phones, or international, the quality isnt so hot. But It does suit my needs and its cheap. Voip will be the future, in time, it will get even better as far as quality. Land line phones have to many charges and are expensive to maintain (the network)
Closed AccountOct 25, 2006
Competition is good for the marketplace and for the consumer.
anchoretOct 25, 2006
One thing I absolutely MUST say: Please, don't run "on-hold" music on VoIP!Jeeze, there's nothing as hideous as that horrible swishing roar of crummy elevator music breaking up on your VoIP link to some customer-service hellhole in Mumbai while you stew in your own juice.Really, Corporate America, get a dang clue, huh?
rajulkabirOct 25, 2006
Don't be ridiculous. A landline-quality voice call requires about 30kb/s (or less). That's 1800kb/min. Talk for 10 minutes and you will have transferred 2.2 megabytes.At normal landline voice rates, of, say, 5 cents/minute, that's 50 cents.Do you really think anyone's going to pay 50 cents to transfer 2.2 megabytes over their DSL line? At those rates, downloading a 45-minute TV show from BitTorrent would cost eighty dollars.