WhichVoIP Blog

In this blog you can keep track of the whichvoip.com’s highly acclaimed “highest rated VoIP Review of the Week”. Check back each week to see which VoIP Provider is being the highest rated. CLICK HERE to view ALL VoIP Reviews.

Last weeks highest rated VoIP Review of the Week was……..

LAST WEEKS HIGHEST RATED VOIP REVIEW		Week Ending: Jan 28th 2007
	REVIEWER:	OVERALL RATING:	Click Here to READ MORE
	John Coman	(4.7)
Reviewers Comments: I did a lot of research on different providers. I set up a spreadsheet and analyzed all of the different providers. I settled on Sunrocket for a couple of reasons. No bull pricing. You pay $199 per year. No tax no surcharge. No extra fees. Check others, particularly local cable providers. They all add fees and taxes. I had the usual switching my phone number hassles but they appear to be mostly from ATT. I think it is great. Voice quality is great. No one in my family can tell any difference…….
Post your VoIP Review of your VoIP Provider by clicking on the postbox:

Technorati Tags: VoIP, VoIP Review, VoIP Rating,  SunRocket Review,  SunRocket Rating, Broadband Phone Review, Internet Phone Review

Looks like the cordless phone market is really starting to take VoIP seriously.

We now have Linksys and Belkin creating WiFi phones purely for VoIP service.  No need for RJ-11 cables into your VoIP Adapter any more.  Use your WiFi cordless phone to talk to your wireless router and out through your high speed internet modem.  This is really starting to gain popularity and likely to be a huge market in the coming years.

Another recent new product introduction, from Philips (1211) and Olympia, are the DECT / VoIP hybrid cordless phones.  Now for those still concerned about giving up their landline connection, this really does make sense.  Use the phone in its standard form for calls with your landline provider.  Then if you wish to save money for your long distance calling, hook a USB cable to your PC and whenever your PC is on you can use Skype VoIP to send and receive calls.  Recent reviews have been favorable.  May be worth a go and it acts as middle ground before the inevitable move to VoIP for your phone service needs.

Andy

http://www.whichvoip.com/

In this blog you can keep track of the whichvoip.com’s highly acclaimed “highest rated VoIP Review of the Week”. Check back each week to see which VoIP Provider is being the highest rated. CLICK HERE to view ALL VoIP Reviews.

Last weeks highest rated VoIP Review of the Week was……..

LAST WEEKS HIGHEST RATED VOIP REVIEW		Week Ending: Jan 21st 2007
	REVIEWER:	OVERALL RATING:	Click Here to READ MORE
	Becks	(4.7)
Reviewers Comments: I’ve just paid $200 for two full years of service!! I wasn’t too sure what to expect for that price but it was an offer I could not refuse. The equipment arrived in a few days and it was so easy to set up. Sound quality is excellent, features are good certainly a lot better than my landline. I have not talked to customer service so I didn’t want to give them a 5 star but if the product is anything to go by then their customer services should be good. I’m telling all my friend to at least try it particularly since the special is so good. Great site guys lots of good info……
Post your VoIP Review of your VoIP Provider by clicking on the postbox:

Technorati Tags: VoIP, VoIP Review, VoIP Rating,  ViaTalk Review,  ViaTalk Rating, Broadband Phone Review, Internet Phone Review

The big buzz today at the announcement of free directory assistance calls. The cost for this service is typically 75 cents to a $1.50, however dial this number 1-800-FREE411 and they are free - well almost. When you phone you are greeted by an automatic attendant and short audio ad. This ad is how they can offer a “free” service. The ad when I called was no more than 10 seconds so not a big headache when it can save you a buck or two. So don’t worry about your VoIP service provider no longer having directory assistance - you don’t need it!!

Calum

http://www.whichvoip.com/

   Just a heads-up folks, Viatalk has that great VoIP special deal on again. 

Sign up for their yearly unlimited calling VoIP plan, currently $199 for the year and receive one whole year FREE.  This deal has been on once before and was for a limited time only, this will be the same.

We try not to introduce blatant advertising on this blog but we’re seeing huge interest on our website for this VoIP provider right now.  The Viatalk VoIP review section on our website, written by users, also gives Viatalk a high score.

http://www.whichvoip.com/voip/visit_site.php?id=vt_500

Andy

Technorati Tags: Viatalk, VoIP, VoIP Special, VoIP Review, Viatalk Review

Today in New York Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and Nortel’s Mike Zafirovski provided an update of the of their partnership, originally announced in July.

The full Webcast and transcript is available at http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/exec/steve/2007/01-17Nortel.mspx, but the key announcements are as follows:

1. Integration between Microsoft’s recently released Exchange Unified Messaging and Nortel’s IP-PBXs
2. Extending the combination of Nortel’s Converged Office, which integrates with Microsoft Live Communications Server and Nortel CS1000 IP-PBX, to now be available upon CS2000. This takes the solution from the small and medium enterprise, to the larger enterprise
3. Integration of Nortel’s Multimedia Conferencing and Microsoft Office Communication Server
4. Creation of a solution targeted for deployment within a branch office.

This announcement has been highly anticipated, as the original announcement in July was very weak on actual details. With this update, Microsoft and Nortel have shown that they have made progress over the last months that provide real solutions and value to the end user.

Though there is some time before these solutions become available, the discussion clearly shows the benefits of migrating from “old telecom” to “new IP technologies”. In this case, the ability to have a single unified client (Microsoft Office Communicator) shows real value.

Technorati Tags: Nortel, Microsoft, Unified Messaging, Unified Communications, VoIP

In this blog you can keep track of the whichvoip.com’s highly acclaimed “highest rated VoIP Review of the Week”. Check back each week to see which VoIP Provider is being the highest rated. CLICK HERE to view ALL VoIP Reviews.

Last weeks highest rated VoIP Review of the Week was……..

LAST WEEKS HIGHEST RATED VOIP REVIEW		Week Ending: Jan 14th 2007
	REVIEWER:	OVERALL RATING:	Click Here to READ MORE
	Oleg	(5.0)
Reviewers Comments: Great Customer Service - usually respond in seconds. Very knowledgeable, helpful and polite staff. The equipment is easy to install. Good quality of sound. The company informs via email about any changes and when they charge credit card. The phone number was transferred over from the local phone company in several days after I faxed authorization form. This is my first Voip provider and after reading many negative reviews (bad customer service, waiting time on the phone is over an hour, low quality of sound, etc.) from users of Vonage and Viatalk, I am glad I selected VoicePulse. VoicePulse does not have any special offers, but it provides good and reliable service and is still much cheaper than I paid before to Verizon……
Post your VoIP Review of your VoIP Provider by clicking on the postbox:

Technorati Tags: VoIP, VoIP Review, VoIP Rating, VoicePulse Review, VoicePulse Rating, Broadband Phone Review, Internet Phone Review

Though the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was making news in Vegas this week, Apple really stole the show even though their big announcements were happening at MacWorld in San Francisco. The announcement of the Apple iPhone has been much expected for a long time now, and Steve Jobs and the team have created quite a buzz with the device.

However, one area that has received some press but not as much is related to Apples ability to use the actual name ‘iPhone‘. For many years Cisco has owned the trademark for iPhone, via its Linksys consumer division, which in turn picked up the trademark when it aquired Infogear in 2000. Cisco use’s this trademark in it’s Linksys iPhone VoIP phone.

Though Apple and Cisco were in discussions regarding the use of this trademark, apparently Apple made their announcement at MacWorld before an agreement was completed. This has led Cisco to sue Apple.

Now, the interesting thing is why is Cisco so concerned about the use of this trademark? Though it is obvious that companies want to protect their trademarks, there is more to this than meets the eye. At first glance though the Apple iPhone and Cisco iPhone allow a user to make phone calls, they are on seperate networks (wireless vs VoIP) and it may not seem obvious why there is a major concern. However in reality, Cisco’s concern probably really stems from the future convergence, and the fact that VoIP over wireless is expected to get hotter in the future.

So, the next big question is, when will Cisco be making a Linksys phone for the wireless networks?

Rob

Technorati Tags: Cisco, Apple, iPhone, VoIP

A lot of the negative reviews we get all have one thing in common, actually it’s 2; bad customer service seems to be a common complaint but another is choppy or intermittent audio during a phone call. Over the past week or so I have had the same problem with my VoIP service. I’m still working on it!!

So what causes it? A lack of bandwidth is one cause. Run this speed test and make sure you have at least a 200Kbs in the uplink and downlink direction. Another cause which can be related to lack of bandwidth is packet loss, every time a packet is lost in the network you are loosing some audio. How can you tell what your packet loss is? - well type the following command in a DOS or command window on your PC “ping -n 100 yahoo.com” don’t type the quotes. This command sends a small packet of information to yahoo.com servers and they send a reply saying they got it. The -n 100 just runs the same test 100 times. Try it a few times and see the results. If you are not using your VoIP phone you shouldn’t see any more than about a 1% packet loss. More than about 3% to 5% and the audio drop out becomes very noticeable.

A lot of problems users of VoIP have is that they don’t follow the setup instructions they get - I know because I have helped so many friends read their instructions . It is important to put your ATA directly after your modem and then connect you PC or router to the ATA. Your ATA probably has Quality of Service (QoS) built into it, in that it gives priority to your voice  - which is what you want.

If you type the ping command at your command terminal while you are using your VoIP phone you’ll probably see an increase in packet loss - this is actually a good thing as you ATA is giving priority to the voice packets.

Not all VoIP problems are related to your internet however a good portion of them are, unfortunately you suffer and the VoIP company gets the blame. So, before cancelling your VoIP service test yout internet connection. If it is bad then you’ll just have the same problems with your next VoIP provider.

I’ll let you know the cause of mine when I Know.

 Calum

http://www.whichvoip.com

Each month on the WhichVoIP.com home page we update our VoIP Top 5’s table to reflect the top VoIP provider in terms of user VoIP reviews, VoIP service provider searches on our site and VoIP provider site visits.

These statistics are purely a means of giving our readers further information to aid in their decision making process when searching for a new VoIP service provider.  By highlighting the top VoIP service providers for the current month you can see the general trend of the many thousands of visitors we get each month.

We have analyzed these results over 2006 and here are the results for the year, the WhichVoIP.com Top 5 for 2006:

So no surprise that the usual contenders are in there

However there are a few smaller VoIP providers that are really growing in popularity, namely VoIPYourLife and ITP.

Hope this helps in your decision making.

Andy

Okay folks, we’ve listened to the feedback from our friends north of the border.  We now have a web page dedicated to VoIP in Canada.

Although VoIP has not quite seen the growth in Canada that has been observed here in the U.S we have managed to find five decent VoIP service providers that offer VoIP solutions for Canadians. 

Nearly all of the U.S VoIP providers offer free service to Canada in some form but to be honest not many actually cater to Canadians who would like the same service to the U.S. 

This page will grow over time as we find other good VoIP providers in Canada and please feel free to send us your recommendations so we can update our table.

Oh, here is the link by the way, take a peek:

    http://www.whichvoip.com/voip/canada_voip.htm

Andy

Nokia Corp. said Monday it is cooperating with a leading provider of Internet-based phone services to enable cell phone users to make wireless calls without using precious minutes. Nokia said its new N800 Internet Tablet will permit wireless phone connections through eBay Inc.’s Skype service. The model is available immediately in the United States and selected European countries, and Nokia said the Skype features will be available for download by June (More).

Pretty cool stuff. Yet another opportunity to save money with VoIP.

Tony

http://www.whichvoip.com

Vonage has signed a three-year contract with Earthlink to offer its customers Wi-Fi Internet access in select cities throughout the United States. Under terms of the agreement, Vonage will buy Internet access on a wholesale basis from Earthlink in all cities where the company will build, own and operate municipal wireless networks. Vonage will then sell its own Wi-Fi Internet service to consumers under the Vonage brand (More)

Is this the beginning of the end for the traditional land-line?

Tony

http://www.whichvoip.com

In this blog you can keep track of the whichvoip.com’s highly acclaimed “highest rated VoIP Review of the Week”. Check back each week to see which VoIP Provider is being the highest rated. CLICK HERE to view ALL VoIP Reviews.

Last weeks highest rated VoIP Review of the Week is….drum roll please……wait for it……here it is……..the first of 2007….

LAST WEEKS HIGHEST RATED VOIP REVIEW		Week Ending: Jan 7th 2007
	REVIEWER:	OVERALL RATING:	Click Here to READ MORE
	Tim Hedrick	(4.9)
Reviewers Comments: I’ve been using Vonage for three years. First in California and now with a US phone number in Europe. I think it is outstanding. When we initially set up the service, I had a bit of trouble getting it going on my own. I called their customer service and had a great experience. The guy spent ten minutes walking me through configuring the router and then I was up. We have moved three times since then and I have had no trouble plugging in the router and being up and running with the same US number within minutes (even now in France). Once in a great while it will drop a call, however, this is pretty infrequent. I have read some complaints regarding their customer service and understand their subscriber base has swelled enormously in three years so perhaps this has contributed to that problem. Last I read they were trying to address this. So far, I have not needed to deal with customer service since the initial setup three years ago……
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Technorati Tags: VoIP, VoIP Review, VoIP Rating, Vonage Review, Vonage Rating, Broadband Phone Review, Internet Phone Review

It is almost mind boggling how many new VoIP providers appear on an annual basis. Most of these VoIP providers offer some form of free VoIP service. What is more interesting is that some of these VoIP Providers are now offering some form or another of mobile of wireless VoIP. So you can now reap the rewards of VoIP from anywhere.

But how do these VoIP providers differ from simply using an international calling card to make cheap calls? Well here is what I found from a little research on each of these VoIP providers:

Efonica - Free phone service to other Efonica members from your cell phone

iskoot - Skype calls on your cell-phone

Jajah - Free calls from cell phone but you need special software on the phone. Free land line calls.

Talkster - Cell-phone to Instant Messenger service

Phonegnom - No mobile service but worth a mention for its free land-line calling

At a glance it seems like Jajah and Phonegnome have the coolest land-line to land-line free VoIP service, with Jajah having the best cell-phone calling option for its ability to do seamless calls. Even if you do need to download some software.

I must calrify that I did not actually try these services yet, although I plan to in the future. Can’t think of a reason not to. Please let me know if you have used any of these providers and what you think of them. Or if you have heard of any other cool providers. Just send a comment.

In conclusion….WOW! This VoIP stuff is getting really interesting. What next?

Tony

http://www.whichvoip.com