VOIP stuff

[RichP]

Got a volunteer mental health group just starting up that I'm helping get their computer stuff up. They bought a 'Magic Jack' and so far it's far from Magic and has not done Jack at all. I don't normally get into this stuff, are there any good ones out there that actually work.

[stumpXJ]

I am not an IT guy (it will probably be obvious with my next sentence), but we have used Vonage VOIP for going on 5 years now with zero issues. Not sure if that helps at all, but its my experience with VOIP.

:D

~James

[Ghost]

Our home office has had VOIP for a while now. We call it the "bat phone" and not for a good reason. It was scratchy and sounded like a cell phone most of the time. I will say it has gotten better since it was first installed, but I'm not a big fan of it. IIRC it used some MIMXE type of software to run it. I'll see if i can find out more about it if you want me to.

[Coastie]

How big is this place? Are they just looking for one line or a PBX type setup? If they want the same type of setup as the magic jack they could just go with Skype and buy a USB phone. That's all this Magic Jack seems to be, a device to convert an analog 4 wire phone for use with a computer with some Skype like service.

I used Skype while my friend was over seas for about 4 months worth the small amount I paid for it.

Oh P.S. I didn't look at this Magic Jack in too much depth their website was making me angry with that little girl going off about her cat.

[dave92cherokee]

I've got the Magic Jack and have been using it for about 3 months without any problems what-so-ever. Before that I had verizon voicewing VOIP that had a 2 line phone box that plugged into a Cat5 cable and it worked wonderfully only got rid of it because I was tired of having to deal with India tech support any time I had a problem.

[RichP]

How big is this place? Are they just looking for one line or a PBX type setup? If they want the same type of setup as the magic jack they could just go with Skype and buy a USB phone. That's all this Magic Jack seems to be, a device to convert an analog 4 wire phone for use with a computer with some Skype like service.

I used Skype while my friend was over seas for about 4 months worth the small amount I paid for it.

Oh P.S. I didn't look at this Magic Jack in too much depth their website was making me angry with that little girl going off about her cat.

I said the same thing, they are trying to save a few bucks. The old story or cheap, fast and good, pick two still holds true. Initially they just need one line, they are sharing a space with another organization and those people have a real system right next to the network patch panel. I was trying to figure out why they, the other organization, had a cable modem, two computers and a netgear router sitting on a desk with the typical wire clutter instead of just using the fraking patch panel. I have not met any of them but my first impression is not good.
I'm going back tomorrow nite with a 4 port switch to split the cable modem and a SMC 7004, the cable modems here give out two IP's so I can get away with that. Then with the PC directly on the net I'll see if I can get the magic jackoff working. Then it's just a matter of putting the SMC in there and opening up the correct ports. I think the part that really annoyed me was they changed the default password on the netgear and would not give it to me nor would they open the ports for me, I was tempted to do factory reset but am proud of myself for resisting. I guess I am mellowing with age.. :D

[XJEEPER]

Rich,
I've sold TDM and VoIP PBX's for the last 7 years and have been in telecom for 12+ and while I haven't had any experience with the MJ product, the math is still the same. A stable VoIP connection must be engineered properly to net toll-grade QoS. Not going to happen on the cheap, although many will argue that Skype-type products are great.....right up to the point that their call quality starts to suck, due to latency and jitter.

Spend little to nothing for VoIP communication, expect little or no Quality of Service. :wierd: How important are their calls routed across the MJ conneciton? Will a poor connection result in lost revenue, loss of information, reduce customer satisfaction? These all have a quanitfiable ROI associated with them. Anyway, good luck with the MJ.

[seanR]

VOIP sux.
Bad sound quality, dropped calls, A LOT of duplexing.
We had it for a wile, we canned it and now just use cell phones.

[ChiXJeff]

Like Turner said, VoIP really depends on good networking. Me, I wouldn't use it personally, I saturate my link too frequently, I'd had to go to packet shaping at the firewall to make it acceptable.

Duplexing? You're talking about the echo, right? Duplex, simplex, and half-duplex all mean something else.

[XJEEPER]

VoIP is great, engineered properly. VoIP over a broadband connection, as Sean just described, is unstable due to then inability to control latency and jitter. Think of this as delay. If a data packet is sent from one location to another and it doesn't get there in time, it is simply resent and no one really notices.
VoIP is converting voice to data and then back to voice on the other end. If a packet is dropped or shows up late, you hear a break in the conversation....missing words in a sentence at best.

I have designed solutions for business grade VoIP communication and properly designed , VoIP is rock solid....as long as the network connection has no issues, but we're talking MPLS, P2P T-1's or Metro-Ethernet type connections, not DSL or Cable modem. With MPLS, you can give voice packets priority over data and guarantee QoS.

With consumer grade bandwith, such as wireless BB, DSL or Cable, the BW is constantly changing and is asynchronous, so the call quality is sometimes great and sometimes poor. Number of hops from origination to destination are also factors in VoIP call transmission. You'll likely have more consistant call quality with a cell phone than you will with a Skype or Vonage type connection, because your cell call is being routed across a managed network, not simply blasted out across the public internet, where data traffic routes are dynamically altered, resulting in delay or latency.

[RichP]

Yea, I know alot of this, I've done 3Com NBX's and currently have an AVAYA system. It took me about 30 hours to get the remote softphones working reliably over cisco vpn but I did finally manage it. Turned out to be a codec issue.
I am going to push them gently towards a plain old verizon phone line as the best solution for their needs. They are a volunteer mental health group so their funds are limited till they get a bit further up and running. I figure after I get the MJ up and running it will be a big enough PIA that either cell or landline will be a no brainer.

[winterbeater]

Vonage is the way to go. We used to pay $2-300 on our summer phone bills for our small resort business. Now it's $20/month, free call forwarding to our cells on the road, etc. VERY cheap overseas. No extras. 4 years ago, quality was sometimes shaky. Now always excellent.

[seanR]

Duplexing? You're talking about the echo, right?
Yea...