Couple of remarks: 1. I've not seen any major service outages. I saw one outage at 2:00 AM, but I went to sleep and things were up again in the morning. 2. Yes, you need a broadband connection. No, you shouldn't use DSL over the phone, that defeats the purpose (but maybe not the price) 3. If you do it correctly, the Motorola VoIP box uses QoS to prioritize the data stream. When uploading/downloading even large amount of data, it shouldn't influence any ongoing phone connection. 4. You can define an alternative phone number if for any reason the phone connection/ internet connection goes down 5. You can define an alternative phone number to be called for call forwarding no answer. Normally this is your voicemail, but it's completely enduser configurable. So if you go off-line for any reason, no, you are not SOL. Actually, I have some practical use for it. (Among many other things), I own a retail store. I want my personnel to call me when I am abroad, but I don't want the store to be able to call international numbers. They *always* call my cellphone, so I don't want to change that and I don't want to pay extraorbitant roaming charges when I am abroad for 2-3 weeks. So I set up a call forwarding structure: 1. Cell phone to Vonage home phone (CF unconditional. You do this in one of the cellphone menus) 2. Vonage to my international cellphone number. This is a number I often don't know in advance, since I buy a prepaid SIM wherever I go. I go then to an internet cafe (or use internet in my hotel) and configure the CFU on the Vonage website. Works as a train. --Ramon
_____ From: Wallach, Levi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 11:15 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [T-Mobile-US] Cell phone as landline replacement I have VOIP but use another service called Broadvoice which is even cheaper than Vonage. In addition to the comments from Ramon, the other downside is that VOIP is just not a mature technology. It's not totally reliable. What he doesn't mention is that you need to have a broadband connection to your home to use it, which means still dealing with the phone company to get DSL, or a cable internet connection. If your internet connection goes out for any reason, you're SOL. Same for a power outage, whereas with POTS, you normally have a phone line no matter what the power situation is. the reception is also dependent on a lot of stuff including what your internet connection is like. If you don't have a big upstream, which is sometimes the case with basic DSL at 128kpbs up, the connection is not the most reliable. If you want to do any major uploading during a call, the connection is likely to drop unless you can limit the upload ba! ndwidth so that you are giving the VOIP connection at least 90kbps. Don't get me wrong, I still prefer VOIP especially with all the additional features and the fact that I get unlimited calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada so never have to worry about additional fees. I also get an email notification every time someone calls my VOIP number and another email if someone leaves a message. That email also contains a wav file attachment of the actual message, so I can listen to it on my computer at work without having to call the home voicemail and navigate through menus. The other nice thing about VOIP is that because it uses the internet, you can take your connection with you. Take your phone and your VOIP adapter with you and anywhere you can get access to a broadband connection you can hook by Ethernet to your adapter, you have a phone that can call anywhere for free, or receive calls at your VOIP number. Speaking of the VOIP number, b! ecause you aren't dealing with the phone company, you aren't restricte d to your local area code. So if you move 3,000 miles from where most of your friends and family are, you can specify their area code so that when they call you on their regular POTS lines, they won't have to deal with long-distance. In the end for me, while I chose VOIP, I decided to keep a basic landline phone that costs about $16 a month. This provides added security in case of emergencies when the power is out. That's another issue - VOIP can't get true 911 services where you call that number and they immediately see your location. Instead your call is normally routed to a local non-emergency phone bank. Some people feel this is unnecessary if you also have a cell phone, but I figure $16 is not a lot to pay for a good failsafe device... Levi Wallach Blog: twelveblackcodemonkeys.com DVD Review Site: dvdmon.com Pictures at: http://wallachexpressions.smugmug.com/Photos%20by%20Levi From: Ramon F. Kolb Sent: Mon 12/6/04 10:43 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [T-Mobile-US] Cell phone as landline replacement I switched away from my landline and got VoIP instead. There are many VoIP providers, I chose Vonage. The advantage of Vonage is that you can keep using your existing landline phones, and the price is generally cheaper than a mobile contract. How does it work? You get a "black box" from your VoIP provider that hooks up between your cable modem and your router, and this box has a phone connector. I physically cut my connection to the landline outside, and then hooked up the box to a phone outlet in the house. Works perfectly, got 4 phones connected. Some draw-backs: I have had troubles with dialing into a dialup service (needed it to test if my laptop dialup connection would work before I was going on the road), and with some calls to cellular phones in Latin America. Some advantages: wicked cheap compared to my Verizon landline, flexible (I took my box with me to Europe, connected a phone and high speed internet, and was making phone calls as if I were at home, at no additional cost!), and many, many options are user configurable on their website. --Ramon [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Yahoo! 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