Travel Technology - how does voip setup save money at home?

i'm sorry if this was discussed before, i tried searching, could not come up with anything relevent.

if i have dsl through verizon, meaning i need a phone line, how does a set up from these people

http://www.voip-pal.com/home.html

save money?

i still need my dsl line in order for this to work, don't i? so how exactly does this save any money?

also, does that mean i need my computer to be on 24/7 for this to work? i only have a laptop so that's why i'm asking.

thanks in advance

You do need a high speed Internet connection for VOIP. It appears as though the solution you mentioned does require that your computer be turned on in order to use it. Other solutions, like Vonage, connect directly to your Internet cable or router and do not require that your computer be on in order to be used. I save money with VOIP (I use Vonage) because I'm already paying for the Internet connection and I get a package of features not offered by my local phone company with free, unlimited long distance calls for less than $25/month.

The way to save money with VOIP is to use it in conjunction with a high speed cable internet connection.

You can get DSL lines a la carte. Not all phone companies do it. Speakeasy.net definitely does it. By far, the people who benefit most from VOIP are those who can get a cheap cable modem connection though. It knocked $30/month off my phone bill.

From Verizon's Site:

Do I have to have Verizon local phone service to get Verizon High Speed Internet?

Depending on your location, you may be able to order Verizon High Speed Internet even if you do not have Verizon local phone service. There are several benefits to converting to Verizon High Speed Internet without local service. You can find out right now if this option is available to you by checking your address.

I have a Viatalk (http://www.viatalk.com/) account that I paid $199 for 2 years service. It gives me 2 phone numbers with unlimited long distance (including Canada). That is $8.29/month for 2 separate phone lines.

VOIP is a great idea for people with kids, as you get them a very cheap, unlimited phone line.

I have homes in Arkansas and California. I have local numbers in both locations. I keep a VOIP adapter in both homes and turn it on wherever I am. I can be reached with a local call from either location. Further, there are a number of remarkable features (http://www.viatalk.com/broadband_phone_features.htm) that the local phone company can't even begin to touch. You can even use it from your laptop with a soft phone program.

My experience is that VOIP works best with a good high speed connection. You can afford one with the money you save on VOIP.

I looked at VOIP after I realized that I was paying 60 per month in NYC for a local phone I never used. I ended up going with SkypeIN so I could have a number that I could give out to my bills (bank, electric, etc.). Its 38-40 per year, plus outgoing is relatively cheap and you can get regular "phones" for it.

The outgoing is relatively cheap too. Might be worth a look.

My wife makes frequent calls to her sis and mom in 2 locations. Monterrey, MX and Guadalajara, MX. We live in San Antonio. Would Vonage (or something similar) benefit us? Can we keep the number that we have with Time Warner? Will it work with a monitored alarm system?

I would hate to have to change our number.

Assuming we're talking about VOIP at home, you need some kind of internet connection, for which you're already paying.

For most people, that is either DSL or cable.

And for DSL it is almost always an add-on to your phone line.

So...for most people with DSL, VOIP is a great, low cost, second line option, or first line if you nave cable internet.

Also, VOIP call-out fees from most providers are extremely low for international calls, but actually can be pretty poor for local and U.S. long distance calls, particularly if you also have a cell phone.

My wife makes frequent calls to her sis and mom in 2 locations. Monterrey, MX and Guadalajara, MX. We live in San Antonio. Would Vonage (or something similar) benefit us? Can we keep the number that we have with Time Warner? Will it work with a monitored alarm system?

I would hate to have to change our number.

Vonage rates to Monterrey, MX and Guadalajara, MX are 1 cent per minute

http://www.vonage.com/intrates.php?keyword=mexico

You should be able to port your your existing phone number over to Vonage

There are several monitoring services that work over the net. This was does discussed over at voxilla.com a while ago. I don't have a POTs line, but pay a similar fee for a cellular monitoring service. There is a GSM transmitter hooked to my box. Even if they cut my cable line, the monitoring works.

They can't push upgrades to my box and can't see quite as much what is going on in my house, but once I popped for the transmitter, the fee was pretty comparable.

By the way, did you know that you can buy Mexican VOIP numbers. See, eg:

https://www.vonics.com/vonics/WorldFonePlanDetails.vwp?planId=33&gclid=CLbk4LPBlZECFQ0wiQodtjXdIw
http://www.didww.com/store.php

If you choose Viatalk (recommended by others), you can SIP forward a DIDWW number to a viatalk number.

From my perspective I'm not entirely sure VoIP offers the huge savings it once it. I think a lot of phone companies are waking up and offering very competitive packages, particularly when you do a bundle with TV and Internet too...

Of course, there are some other real advantages to VoIP that do make it fairly compelling. First, as has been discussed, the rates to call other countries are often quite low. Secondly, VoIP has amazing flexibility. You can route your calls however you like (cell, computer, house, etc)... you can get a number outside of your geographical location (I get a local number in what ever country I'm traveling too, then i can call my VoIP server as a local call and dial back out to anywhere else for free)...

I work from home when not traveling and my wife works from home at least 1 day a week. We both have separate office lines...essentially $4/month each from my provider...that ring are respective desks. Hers also rings her cell and work phone.

So to me, the savings may not be in simply switching from AT&T to Vonage but in the ability to add features and lines and a very low price.

As you mentioned, I have bundled service with Time Warner. I'm quite sure that if I switch the phone service to Vonage, the other components (High speed internet and channel package) will increase in price, keeping my bill close to what it is now. Then I will have to incur the extra charge for Vonage.

The .01 rate to Mexico is great, but I don't know if my wife will talk $40 (Vonage charge) worth each month...that's a lot of minutes!!

I don't think that I would use any of the features while traveling. My wife is stay at home mom and takes the calls.

Plus, I don't know if VOIP will work with our monitored alarm system. I'll have to research that.

Now, if Time Warner were to whack me with a nice increase, I just may make the switch.

From my perspective I'm not entirely sure VoIP offers the huge savings it once it. I think a lot of phone companies are waking up and offering very competitive packages, particularly when you do a bundle with TV and Internet too...

I've heard that too but everytime I've considered switching to one of the bundles I remember how much tax and miscellaneous fees the phone company used to tack onto my bill. We have 2 lines and the bottom line cost is $39.95 a month. It's $14.99 each + tax. $5 a month tax on each line is much cheaper than all the fees/taxes from the phone company.

As someone else mentioned, features are endless. One of my favorites is getting voicemails e-mailed to me. We were on vacation out of the country for a week. The resort we were at charged $2.50 a minute to call the US or $1.00 per minute for calling card calls. So, we tried not to make any calls. So it was nice to get our home voicemails e-mailed to us since we had free wifi at the resort. Big time & money saver.

I have to say, $199 for unlimited domestic long distance for 2 years, 2 lines, caller ID, 3-way calling, voicemail, etc... is cheaper than the phone company could give me 1 line with no long distance and no features - before taxes. It isn't even close. I save a bundle.

By the way, if you do VoIP, you really want to make sure your internet router supports prioritization based on Quality Of Service (QoS) tagging. This will make sure that your phone calls don't get screwy when little Jimmy is surfing the internet while you are on the phone.

My thoughts:

For what it is worth, every single major carrier now offers stand alone DSL or "dry dsl" meaning you are not able to use the telephone line for voice calls. This wasn't something offered in the past but is commonplace now. It's been commonplace for about a year and now most of the DSL promotions involve a dry dsl line (i.e., Verizon's $12.99/mo intro rate). Also, as a rule of thumb you're going to get a higher quality VOIP connection on DSL since you're not sharing your connection with your neighbors (read about QoS below).
The package deals offered by Vonage and the like are only good deals if you talk a LOT...like an excess of 1800 minutes per month. The viatalk price sounds good but are you willing to bet $199 on brand new company that they are going to be around for two years?
DIDs (phone numbers) are offered as low as $1.49/mo with outgoing call costs approx 1.5 cent per minute with no volume requirement. You can then get rid of the e911 and save all those fees. Paying for what you use is almost always best as these companies offering unlimited service know the average person isn't going to talk enough to touch what the per minute costs add up to. However, dealing with wholesale providers requires more knowledge than using the retail-designed packages.
QoS is the key to using VOIP on a connection used for other things. VOIP is not a lot of data (approx 20kbps each way) but needs to be transferred as quickly as possible. If you're downloading a file on the computer, a good QoS router will send the VOIP data out first.

Taxes on land-line phone bill are obscene. That said, does VOIP service incur any taxes and surcharges?

As far as Vonage fees. Here's my breakdown for Arizona:

Residential Premium Unlimited Plan $24.99
International Calls $ 0.68
Irish Virtual Phone Number $ 9.99
Regulatory Recovery Fee $ 1.98
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $ 0.99
Federal Universal Service Fee $ 2.90
State Telecommunications Sales Tax $ 2.16
Local Telecommunications Sales Tax $ 1.06
County Telecommunications Sales Tax $ 0.27
State 911 Fee $0.20
Total Amount $45.22

$45.22. Would be under $35 if I did not have a virtual phone number in Dublin and had no long distance calls.

Selling point to me is fairly inexpensive international call rates, and free long distance to land lines in Ireland, UK, France, Spain & Italy.

The feature set is something my local phone providers (Cox Communications or Qwest) cannot match. Simulring - the number rings my cell phone simultaneously. Easy call transfer from the Vonage line to another #. Voicemail I'm notified of via email, and can have sent as a WAV attachment. I use this to easily check voicemail when I'm traveling overseas.

All that being said, I do need a router that has QoS capability for VoIP to work well at home. My D-Link Gamer router calls this "GamerFuel" or some such nonsense. I work from home often and use the phone for conferences. If I'm doing any kind of upload transfer, without QoS the upload takes all the bandwidth and my voice becomes garbled. I never have trouble with incoming audio or downloads affecting that, however.

Quick list of what I'm paying...

Me:
Broadvoice World Plan - $24.75/month (two inbound channels, unlimited out, flat rate unlimited calling to most countries in Europe and US, plus 1-800 number and extra Washington DC number)
Voxbone Virginia DID - $7/month (strictly inbound, two channels)
Les.net - pay as you go trunk, at $0.02/minute, charged with $25 (got it as a backup trunk...not much need, but does allow "setcallerID" which is nice)
VoIP Plus - Virginia DID $4/month (wife's work inbound number, two channels)
FreeDigits.com - free 515 area code DID

Work:
Broadvoice BYOD Lite - $15ish / month depending on usage. Pretty sure they dont sell this $5/month plan anymore, I'm grandfatered in. (2 inbound channels, unlimited out, 100 outbound minutes)
Voxbone - $7/month for a GA DID
Telasip - $65/month for business class unlimited service (work requires a business class line and if they are paying, I dont argue ... 2 inbound, 2 outbound, allows setcallerID)

Broadvoice charges for e911, however, in all cases I have 911 setup in my PBX to dial the seven digit access number (same as 911, just a regular number) and report the caller ID of my main house number (personal BoradVoice).

Broadvoice recently started charging tax too around $5.47

I'm surprised this discussion hasn't also included non-monthly fee options, such as Gizmo (http://www.gizmoproject.com/).

You pay for each outgoing call (~2 cents/min to U.S.), and you'll need a call-in number ($35/yr or so). You'll need an unlocked ATA, and initial setup is fussier than Vonage.

The viatalk price sounds good but are you willing to bet $199 on brand new company that they are going to be around for two years?


Actually, viatalk.com has been around for a while. (http://vtinside.com/the_beginning.html) I'm going on two years with the service.

I know there is a risk associated with purchasing services in advance, but the phone line my VOIP replaced was running $60/month for the features that I wanted, so after 3-4 months on the VOIP service I was out no more than I would have been with a regular phone line. After that, it's all free. :)

I'm surprised this discussion hasn't also included non-monthly fee options, such as Gizmo (http://www.gizmoproject.com/).

You pay for each outgoing call (~2 cents/min to U.S.), and you'll need a call-in number ($35/yr or so). You'll need an unlocked ATA, and initial setup is fussier than Vonage.

I use Gizmo in Germany to have an USA phone number so my friends and relatives in the USA can call me for free or at least don't need to pay international rates. I also use it to make cheap calls to the USA. It works very well and has a good voice quality.

Anyway Gizmo is not a substitution for a land-line or VoIP Service like Vonage because Gizmo offers no 911 service!!!! Always make sure if you substitute your land-line for VoIP that the VoIP-Provider offers 911 service or that you have at least a cell phone as backup.