OT - VOIP

[harry]

[Brian Gaff]

Where have you been for the last couple of months? Underwater? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Or to put it another way, this is so old news that I'm really surprised to see this kind of article. In fact land lines are not going but they are being integrated with the internet so effectively all landlines will be based on voip. I am hearing from suppliers that there will be a big sell soon for cheap internet at a basic speed at the same cost as the lndline and it will include the voip as well.

I did actually try voip a few years ago from Vonage, but it was unreliable if using a tone dialling audio dialer I used.

Brian

[Jethro_uk]

Wow ! Let's party like it's 1999 !

[Michael Chare]

We use VOIP and don't tell anyone are true landline number. When we had a power cut the VOIP/DECT base station and the router stopped working. I was surprised to then get a call on the wired landline phone. Calls to that are normally just nuisance calls but it turned out to be the electrical power supplier (not who I pay) telling me the cause of the power cut and when it might be fixed. Interesting that they knew the number to call.

[Graeme]

In message , harry writes

What am I missing that must be blindingly obvious to everyone else? Surely most customers, at least domestic and small business, will require a landline for Internet connection, so how does using VoIP replace a landline? Perhaps the suggestion is we should do *all* our connecting via mobiles?

[Jethro_uk]

We have Virgin fibre, and no landline.

[John Rumm]

It does not replace the landline as such, but it does get rid of POTS, and the analogue bit of the local loop connection to the exchange or street cabinet. So the landline becomes data only, with on premises equipment to interface the customer wiring and equipment to the digital service.

No, while its a option that will suit some, it would not be a good use of the limited mobile spectrum to unnecessarily shift lots of traffic currently flowing over wires into it.

However you can see a point where the network becomes fully fibre, and the connection to the property is fibre as well (i.e. FTTP). Then there would be no facility for traditional analogue voice.

[Graeme]

Well, yes, but that is still a landline, whether it is copper, fibre or whatever. Presumably you have to pay for the fibre to be there, whether or not you make phone calls or access the Internet.

[Graeme]

Again, I must be missing something, because surely, to the average domestic or smaller business customer, a landline is a landline, whatever type of phone or Internet connection is used, and whatever the material of the physical connection.

The article Harry linked begins :

'If you're paying for a landline in the UK, your bill may very well skyrocket soon. There is a solution ? it's replacing landlines and much more reliable than cell phones.'

which says replace the landline - with what? The only real options are a fixed physical fibre or copper connection (a landline), a mobile service, satellite or piggybacking a neighbour's wi-fi.

The article is disingenuous at best, showing a VoIP box with a phone on one side and router on the other, but no mention of how or where the router is connected. Presumably the article author thinks that only a traditional copper connection is a landline, which I would dispute.

[Theo]

The site is advertising VOIP providers, so it's not terribly surprising they're plugging them as 'one neat trick' landline providers 'don't want you to know about'.

However there is an element of truth in that POTS phone call costs have entered something of a death spiral. From September, if you're calling out of bundle on BT, for instance, it's a 23p call setup fee and 15p/minute. If you want to avoid these with a monthly bundle, it's £9.99 on top of line rental.

A VOIP provider's fee of say 2p/min with no setup fee is way more sane by comparison. (for the record, wholesale for calling 01/02/03 is about

0.1p/min). As more people who actually make phone calls flee to VOIP providers, BT is left trying to squeeze less and less out of their remaining POTS customers.

Theo

[John Rumm]

Ah, yup there is your problem - its safest to assume that any link harry posts will either be as full of crap as he is, or more typically, unrelated or contradictory to the point he is trying to make. ;-)

Its just a very poor quality article being sloppy with terminology. Its conflating "landline" with telephone service. Its reads like it was a puff piece written by a VoIP provider.

You may find that you can buy a "phone" line for broadband only, and not have a POTS service on top, or a PSTN number allocated to the line, but it will still be a landline, just not useable as a phone line. Hence if you want a phone service over it, then VoIP will be the way to do it.

The other thing to keep in mind, is that for local and national UK calls many of the VoIP services are often no cheaper than many of the bundled call packages you can have with your POTS service. I maintain a PAYG SIP account for placing VoIP calls - it gets used rarely when either I need a third line, or more commonly when I have a line fault and no voice comms, but at least one of the broadband lines is still limping on. However cost wise its per min charging makes it more expensive than the bundled deal of calls on the normal line - even if its notionally cheaper than the per minute pricing outside of the bundle.

VoIP can be much cheaper for international calls. Companies like Delmont (and their vast army of white labelled resellers) do lots of very cheap international deals - although the quality can be a bit suspect at times IMLE.

[Graham.]

I just realised I got my first VoIP device in 2006, so it has been ten years since my landline has been used to make an outgoing call.

So while I agree with the content in the link, like all the links you offer, it's a bit random and not at all authoritative, and the links to the all-important "UK providers" at the foot of the page don't connect to anything intelligible.

The two providers a mainly recommend to people aren't UK based anyway, they are based in Luxemburg and Germany.

[Michael Chare]

I have a non BT fibre connection to my house. I only have to pay for it because I use it. The term landline generally refers to a copper/aluminium line from your house to a BT exchange.

[Bob Eager]

1) It is often cheaper. Landline charges (particularly BT) are high, even with an 'evenings and weekends' contract. 2) Multiple calls can be made at the same time if you have a multi-port ATA. Useful in a household of more than one. 3) The phone isn't 'engaged' unless all phones are in use.

[whisky-dave]

We have that systen here, we have an emergency phone in the lab which goes down anytime the network does, if fact it;s down now no idea why. I have another VOIP phone in my 'office', it;s very low volume and I can;t always here what's said but I've been told they are better than our previous system so I have to believe it.

[Graeme]

In message , John Rumm writes

I'm certainly not arguing about the use of VoIP - we used Skype when first introduced, years ago, because at the time we were in UK and MiL lived in Cyprus. Wife spoke to her weekly via Skype, using a simple headset with mic plugged into a desktop, and it worked very well.

[Dave Liquorice]

You must have a pretty poor VOIP tariff, or a damn good POTS one. B-)

For a minute or two non inclusive, UK 01, 02, 03 call on BT you're looking at 50p ish a go. Our VOIP 5p...

The "Anytime" package from BT is £9.50/month. I guess if you "live on the phone" even 1p/minute adds up but we don't. I've spent about £12 on VOIP calls since Jul 16, SWMBO'd about £24 since Mar 17.