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moneysense.ca, 6/04/06
VoIP Revisited
I considered VoIP for our home phone last year and decided against it, as it was not cheaper than a plain old telephone. I also had some doubts about the reliability of VoIP and what happens if I dialled 911. Our current no-frills local phone service from Bell Canada costs $22.13 per month and I would consider switching to a VoIP service if it is cheaper and offered at least the call display feature (to block annoying telemarketers).
Recently, I saw an ad from Comwave for their iPhone service. The iPhone Enhanced sounds interesting as it offers unlimited calling and tons of features for $19.95 per month or $14.95 per month with a two-year contract. It also looks like we could keep our current phone number. Does anybody use Comwave for their primary phone? Is the phone service reliable? What about voice quality? I would appreciate any comments or suggestions.
moneysense.ca, 6/04/06
I could be wrong but I think the unlimited calling only covers iPhone-2-iPhone calls. If it works similar to Skype, this would mean that unless you are calling another person with the iPhone service you’d face a $0.039/min rate for local or long distance calls in Canada.
I had tested their ePhone service in Dec ‘05 and the sound quality was great and equivalent to Skype. I decided to stick with Skype since I had more contacts already set up with an account there.
Just my personal experience. I used iphone last year and eventually I cancelled it. I am in Calgary and my highspeed is decent. However, the iphone voice quality was really not reliable. Sometimes I picked up the phone and there was no dialing sound and sometimes while I was downloading stuff the phone conversation broke up a lot. Anyway, to me a phone has to be reliable and iphone just did not give me that.
To Frugal: seems to me (and I could be wrong) that local calls are free and above that you have free iPhone-2-iPhone calls.
I just signed up for PeopleLine VoIP. It’s $9.95/month. For this service you get:
* One personal phone number to place and receive phone calls.
* Caller ID and Name Display, Call Waiting, Caller ID Block / Screen. Click See More Voice… for details.
* Option to add the Voice Mail, Call Forwarding, Conferencing, Call Hold and Call Transfer ($5.00 / mo extra).
* Unlimited Local Calling.
* Option to add a Global i-Line long distance calling plan.
* Secure 24 x 7 operations and support
The adaptor is only $70. I haven’t bought the adaptor yet as I’m still testing this service. So far it is OK … I had it for a month now.
For more details take a look at their website: http://www.peopleline.net/pstelco/homeline.htm
I`m conisdering voipgo.ca. My friends is in his 2nd year contract with them and is happy with the service and paying $12 a month
I’ve been using http://www.voipgo.ca for over a year and for $12.49 a month if you pay for the year you get unlimited north America calling and 18 phone features.
You can buy the adapter at http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=014833&cid=TEL.480 for $50.99 and install it yourself. I used this adapter since I have a home network. There is a router version that would be suitable for simple non networked households. My home phone wiring is connected to this device and it will support up to 2 separate lines.
I use http://www.voip.ms for the second line. With voip.ms you can buy an internet phone number for as low as $1.99/mo and pay as little as $0.005 per minute. If you don’t use the phone much you’ll save an quite a lot of money with this service.
With simple set ups the call quality is excellent and service is always up unless your internet or house power goes out. When you add the internet phone to a home network be prepared to spent some time fine tuning your network with QOS (Quality of Service) router settings. The best deal for internet and voip phone is with http://www.acanac.com. I use them for my internet and its very reliable. Can anyone beat $29.95 (Hi speed DSL) + $8 (dry loop to remove Bell home phone service and leave internet only) + $9.95 (for unlimited north America voip phone) = $47.90 for Hi speed DSL + full featured VOIP home phone? Even less if you get the $1.99 http://www.voip.ms pay as you go phone number instead.
I just use Magic Jack http://magicjack.cyfocus.com Works well and I can bring it anywhere around the world. US Marines use it to communicate with their family.