Verizon Hub

[Todd Covini]

For all you gadget gurus...
Anyone have one?
Is it truly the "Home Phone Reinvented" or just a really big fixed cell phone?

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/vzhub/overview.jsp

Landline service in Beaumont is the pits and we're not ready to personal cell only just yet. Looking for landline solutions...

[evarner]

For all you gadget gurus...
Anyone have one?
Is it truly the "Home Phone Reinvented" or just a really big fixed cell phone?

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/vzhub/overview.jsp

Landline service in Beaumont is the pits and we're not ready to personal cell only just yet. Looking for landline solutions...

Digital Voice is a Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) service that offers phone service over a broadband Internet connection instead of through a traditional telephone network.

The quality of your Digital Voice call is affected by your broadband speed / bandwidth. So, customers with a lower bandwidth, like 768K, may experience poorer sound quality than customers with a higher bandwidth, like 3.0 Megabytes per second (Mbps) will enjoy.

Recommended bandwidth subscription: 1.5Mbps

No DSL or Cable... out of luck :(

[Todd Covini]

Well, sound quality can't get any worse than the landline I have now.
Got cable and it's advertised at 3Mbps, but sure doesn't feel it.

If the connection were slow, I don't mind poor sound....but if it cuts out, is choppy or simply doesn't connect....that's a problem.

What's the common complaint with VOIP?
Has it improved in the past years? (Initial reports were that it sucked as was unreliable.)

[evarner]

Well, sound quality can't get any worse than the landline I have now.
Got cable and it's advertised at 3Mbps, but sure doesn't feel it.

If the connection were slow, I don't mind poor sound....but if it cuts out, is choppy or simply doesn't connect....that's a problem.

What's the common complaint with VOIP?
Has it improved in the past years? (Initial reports were that it sucked as was unreliable.)

VoIP has come a long way since a decade ago when dropped calls were common and callers sounded like they were talking with a mouthful of Rice Krispies. No longer is VoIP a pure trade-off of quality for savings.

I swiched over to VoIP about 8 months ago and never had an issue with voice quality.

There are some sites to test Internet speed/quality.

[AllZWay]

I would bet your office phone system is VOIP.

Home use wasn't great several years ago, but it has came a long way and I know several people that are using through the local cable company with no problems.

[Nick]

Land lines work when the power goes out.

[JJordan]

VOIP will forward all calls to your cell (or any other number) when the power is out. I switched over to AT&T's VOIP (CallVantage) about a year ago and have never had a problem. $19.99 a month for unlimited local and long distance, call waiting, caller ID, etc. Unfortunately, AT&T no longer takes new customers for CallVantage because they are pushing their U-Verse phone which is much more expensive.

Also the taxes on VOIP services are much lower than on a land line. My after tax rate is only about $24.

-Jay

[mitchntx]

Land lines work when the power goes out.

:lol:

[Todd Covini]

There are some sites to test Internet speed/quality.

I tested mine and seemed OK.

6.64 MB download
.59 MB upload

Since I know nothing about internet technology, would VOIP need both download & upload speed? Would that mean incoming tones would be great but my outgoing tones would suck?

What are the speeds some of you successful VOIP guys running?

[donovan]

I have been using Time Warners Digital Phone (VoIP) for three years now...

Never had any problems, speeds are 8MB/768MB

And mine works when the power goes out!! $50 battery backup keeps the cable modem/phone/router going for about two hours... If I have my notebook charged up I can even get online with no power to the house!

DD

[BlueFirePony]

hmmm..should only need 64kbps (up & down) for VOIP to work effectively if they are using a decent compression algorithm. They must be packaging more in there than just the audio during a call...maybe that device is "real chatty".
Remember you are sharing that pipe with all the other devices in your home so a single big outgoing email (like a 2Mb attachment) could cause your call to hiccup for a second.

[David Love AI27]

And mine works when the power goes out!! $50 battery backup keeps the cable modem/phone/router going for about two hours... If I have my notebook charged up I can even get online with no power to the house!

DD

...then the power is not out if you have "backup power"... whatcha gonna do after two hours?

[Adam Ginsberg]

FWIW, when we moved, we made the switch to mobile phone only. ALL of us have cellphones (the 3 boys, Kathy and myself), and it's the primary means of staying in contact with everyone. Kathy's cell number is listed as our "home number" with the school, banks, etc. We do get the odd stare from time to time due to the area code (Dallas), but no one really questions it much.

Paying for a landline just for recreational/personal use didn't make sense, in addition to paying for our cell service. Local home power outages don't effect cell service, unless is a more widespread outage.

Time Warner includes one landline number with our package (it's VoIP), but it's only use is for my work fax machine. We don't even know what the number is. Although....some damn fax service does.....

[Todd Covini]

Sunday paper showed a $50 price drop......

[donovan]

And mine works when the power goes out!! $50 battery backup keeps the cable modem/phone/router going for about two hours... If I have my notebook charged up I can even get online with no power to the house!

DD

...then the power is not out if you have "backup power"... whatcha gonna do after two hours?

Power here only goes out for 30 minutes at a time... :D unlike you guys on the coast!!!

Its mainly there just to keep the Fax going... we use cell phones for most everything else.

DD