Originally Posted by
JamesBigglesworth
I haven't experienced lag in over a decade. Given latency of under 30ms or less on many VoIP systems I'd be surprised at any lag.
That said, what a lot of you are missing is the texting part. For a connection at a fixed fee then, IMO, Vonage continues to be one of the best options out there for simplicity. It comes with an app to install on your phone as well these days, so you're not tied to the physical box & phone at home/office and, most importantly for this use case, their business phone option includes a send/receive text option within the app. It does everything the OP wants within a single system.
The *only* part that may be problematic is that you have to set it all up while still in the US
You'll have the latency due to lightspeed taking a while from the US to Australia. It's impossible to have 30ms on such a distance.
It's not the lag from his computer/phone to the local service provider, or having slower internet, it's simply the time (in milliseconds) the data packets take from some point in the US to some point in Australia.