Ask Engadget: What's the most useful portable Voice over IP service?
By Peter Rojas 
posted Sep 9th 2004 7:59PM
posted Sep 9th 2004 7:59PM
This week's Ask Engadget comes to us from Engadget pal Nick B., who wants to know, "What's the most useful portable Voice over IP service?" So what is it? A WiFi Pocket PC with loaded up with Skype or Vonage? A laptop with a softphone client? Just carry around your Analogue Telephone Adapter and hope for the best? Anyone tried one of those newfangled WiFi phones, like the ZyXEL Prestige 2000W pictured at right?
I currently use the Vonage softphone service from an iBook with Airport Extreme but I'm raring to get a PocketPC with wifi so I don't have to open my laptop up just to make a call. I've tried to use my Jabra bluetooth headset to talk from the iBook but with mixed results. A wifi VOIP phone would be perfect but at the current prices, the PocketPC would be the better value just because it can be used for so much more - like a universal remote control for instance.
Two months using Vonage from Brazil and it really works better than Skype and FWD.
I use it with IBM T40 Lap-Top on a Wi-fi, Never have used with the Ipaq though...
I have one of those wifi voip phone just like the Zyxel, mine has been rebranded Teliphone (http://www.teliphone.ca) I have taken that phone to California on vacation, I'm from Canada... I've been making phone calls from the Apple Store over there, from public hotspot, and I have to say, that personnally, it's the best voip device I had the plaisure to use and own!
I have one of those wifi voip phone just like the Zyxel, mine has been rebranded Teliphone (http://www.teliphone.ca) I have taken that phone to California on vacation, I'm from Canada... I've been making phone calls from the Apple Store over there, from public hotspot, and I have to say, that personnally, it's the best voip device I had the plaisure to use and own!
I've used the Zyxel with mixed results based on what kind of wireless router I'm hitting.
So far the best results have been with VoicePulse followed by Vonage.
As far as softphone, Vonage or Skype are my picks.
For pure VoIP it's AT&T's CallVantage. Best service around..I only wish they had a softphone...
Is there any Engadget reader with experience in using a VoIP service in Germany? I really wouldn't think twice about spending 250 bucks for a phone if I knew for sure it would work with a decent sound quality and reasonable call rates in Germany.
... is it crippled in some way so that it only works with t?Phone's service? Or is it trivial to reconfigure it so that it can register with other SIP servers?
If you are willing to talk via your laptop, Skype is the one to beat right now.
Pluses:
+ The quality of the audio is uncanny (I use it between South America and the US). 95% of my calls sound as good as (sometimes better than) circuit switched long distance. Low latency, great full-duplex feel. Only exception is if the parties stop talking there is a bit of an unnatural mute (maybe they should inject an artificial hiss to emulate a phone line.)
+ It gets across most firewalls, unlike many an IM voice service.
+ There is no monthly fee. If the party you want to talk to has skype, there are no per-minute fees (great viral marketing.) If they don't have skype, the skypeout service lets you talk around the world at extremely low rates.
Minuses:
- The main drawback in my view is you don't get a regular phone number for phone-based people to call you. You can call them, but they can't call you.
- If looking at it as a phone line replacement there is no way to receive/send faxes. I've read that some voip companies offer to handle this via a second phone number whose signal they packetize like a voice line. This seems inefficient though, I would prefer to send/receive bitmaps/metafiles from the laptop to a server that then relays it to the phone system (ala efax).
- As a nitpick, the UI design could be better on the privacy protection front. The current UI is such that a non-literate user can reveal personal info and/or let random people call their skype account. This could lead to "skype stalker" types that call out of the blue. The UI should have a strong opt-in policy by default (i.e. none of your profile info should be public unless you expose it via some obvious UI, nobody should be able to ring you unless they get your ok first.)
I tried Skype after reading about the release of a Mac-Version about 10 days ago and after reading many comments of very satisfied users. The software installed without problems and calls from my PowerBook to a Windows Laptop in the same WLAN (but of course in and out via the cable internet connection) had good sound quality and worked like a charm. I charged my account with 10 Euro and tried to call normal phones in Germany without success. A call to my fixed line phone here in Japan was okay, but I still didn't manage to call a German phone since then. Now I have useless 9.91 Euro on my account because I can't use 'em to make international calls. Skype to Skype (Japan -> Germany) has a very poor sound, big lag and I hear my own voice as an echo about 2 seconds after speaking. Maybe it's a problem of the internet connections, but both (here in Japan and in Germany) have more than 1 MBit/s down and 256 kBit/s up.
Here's an interesting article on the variety of factors that influence voice quality, including echo.
http://www.iec.org/online/tutorials/voice_qual/topic06.html
I've been using a Zyxel Prestige 2000 with Packetnet (http://www.packetnet.be) (dutch only :( ) here in Belgium and it works great at any hotspot. They sell there Prestige at around €220 i believe, and there's no fee for calling their subscribers..
I tried vonage softphone, and although the service is good, you have to have a big clumsy headset to be heared. I tried jabra freespeak but it was simply awful! The audio was choppy like radio, and if I move just a bit from my computer, the signal fades away.
So, what's the use to have a softphone on a notebook if the headset per se is not portable?
I'll try skype ASAP, I assume it's the best way to reach my oversea friends, and the P2P architecture amuses me (the more you use it, the lighter it gets - that's why skype offers it to everyone for free).
The possibilities of a wifi PDA connecting with a softphone are seductive, tho! But maily, my problem is not the service per se, but the headset (best quality/lightweight). I still can't find a solution to it.
I'm using AT&T's CallVantage. I got it due to its lower international rates compared to Vonage and VoiceWing(Verizon). Tey will send a D-link router (Telephone Adapter) within a week. Tey charge $20 for the first 6 months and $35 thereafter.
The line quality is outstanding by the way.
I've heard that they plan to remove the sip menu from the phone since many ppl like me have played in there and fsck up their phones... But right now, I've already configure my phone to use other networks. And it worked.
Many of the providers listed don't allow you to use your own equipment.
It won't be fun to purchase a nice Pulver WiFi phone only to find out AT&T tells you to piss off.
A good VOIP/SIP service in Germany (and the UK if you can navigate the site in German) with local area telephone number assignments is http://sipgate.de
The ultimate phone conversation is Skype to Skype, pure IP. It's free and it's incredible sound quality. It's where we are all headed eventually anyway. Pots stinks. Cellular stinks. Skype IP is awesome.
I have been using N2P for some years. It seems to me to be as goog as Skype. Sound quality is perfect, even over dial-up connections! I even have a number to call from my cell phone using their PennyTalk.com service to tap into my account and make calls anywhere in the world. Why isn't anybody comparing it to Skype?
I have been using net2phone service for some 3+ years because I do a fair amount of international calling and love being able to dial a number from my cell phone, even toll free numbers at no extra charge from the US or Europe.
I have had Champion Communications' Flashphone for about 6 months and I love it. It is a portable softphone that hooks into your USB port. They are running a special for the holidays! You may want to check it out! The service is $29.95/mo for stand alone, but if you have their VoIP service at home you can add the Flashphone for only $9.95/mo!! I use it with my bluetooth headset and have had great quality calls!! http://www.voip-champ.com