Posted on 04/17/2006 7:41:51 AM PDT by Pop Fly
It's likely your home phone is such familiar technology that you barely think about it. Maybe it's time you did.
Lots of people are giving up the traditional household "land line" in favor of Internet phone service, also known as Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP.
Many more would like to try VOIP - if they could do so cheaply and without sacrificing their current phone line - at least until they see how this new alternative works out.
And that's where the Internet telephone provider SunRocket comes in.
SunRocket (www.sunrocket.com) is aggressively positioning itself as a low-cost VOIP provider that makes it easy and affordable for consumers to take Internet phone service for a test drive.
Note: VOIP demands that you have an existing broadband connection, such as cable Internet or DSL. If you already have such a link for home computing, you're all set. If you don't, it might make the cost of getting one more attractive.
One popular SunRocket package is a "limited" VOIP plan that offers 200 minutes of calling time - including free long-distance calling throughout the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico - for $9.95 a month.
If 3 hours, 20 minutes a month for outbound calling isn't enough, you can opt for SunRocket's $199-a-year plan, which offers unlimited call time and the same free long-distance package.
The annual, all-inclusive plan works out to $16.58 a month, or just $6.63 a month more than the limited plan, well worth it if you make a lot of long-distance calls.
(At $24.95 a month, an all-inclusive plan that lets you pay by the month isn't nearly as good a deal.)
The 200 calling minutes in SunRocket's limited plan can also be used to call any "SunSpot" destination - 30 countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, and 11 large international cities. The all-inclusive plans, besides including unlimited calling in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada, have a $3 monthly credit good for 100 minutes to call SunSpot locations. A full listing is available on the SunRocket website.
A couple of more words about pricing: With any SunRocket plan, you'll need a "gizmo" that lets your phone link with your existing broadband connection and the SunRocket service.
With the all-inclusive plans, the gizmo is free, as is one or two cordless handsets, depending on the promotion. But you'll pay $39.95 for the gizmo and one or two handsets if you select the limited plan.
Setup is straightforward. You connect a VOIP box - that's the "gizmo" - between your broadband modem and your PC. Then you plug a regular telephone line into a spare jack on the box.
I turned everything off before making the connections. Then, after powering up the modem and gizmo, I checked the phone line and found a dial tone waiting.
Total setup time, including unpacking the boxes: About 15 minutes. Doesn't get much easier than that.
By using several cordless phones, all linking to the same base station, you can easily spread the VOIP service throughout your home.
In several phone calls, both in-state and long-distance, sound quality was surprisingly good. Friends and relatives on the other end of the line, including one on the opposite coast, said they couldn't tell any difference between my Internet call and the regular ones they get.
On my end, the sound quality was often actually better than a regular telephone connection, with a wider range of tones and less line noise. I did, however, hear an occasional echo-like sound while speaking. But it was rare, and my conversation partners said they heard no echo on their phone.
All SunRocket plans come with a nice bundle of advanced call features - caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, three-way calling and distinctive rings. You'd pay a lot more for those features if you bought them a la carte from traditional phone providers.
SunRocket offers E-911 service, which means emergency providers will know where your call is originating, even if you hang up suddenly or can't respond to questions.
But that won't work during a power outage. Indeed, your SunRocket service won't work at all without electricity. So it's important that you have an alternative way to call for help if needed in a blackout. A cellphone is probably a good backup.
The possible applications of inexpensive VOIP services like SunRocket are many. You could substitute it for your existing home phone line. It might be a good choice for a teenager's phone line. It might also work as a spare phone line for your home office.
With SunRocket around, you might start thinking more about your home phone and less about your bill.
We have had VOIP for about three months now, and have had great results...for $25/month, with the same services we had from Qwest. What I especially like is that you can go online and read your voice mail and see a call log, both incoming and outgoing calls. I expect the telco and cable companies will figure out a way to penalize the VOIP companies so that they can cash in on the service, but we are enjoying it while it lasts.
I don't know anything about SunRocket, but my experience with Vonage was absolutely terrible. The incoming sound quality was perfect, but the outgoing sound cut out about every 30 seconds for 2 to 3 second gaps. You can also forget about getting help from their customer service. After several calls to Vonage, I was told it sounded like my adapter was defective, and I sould return it. Of course, since I had previously sent my receipt to Vonage in order to get a rebate, that wasn't an option. Vonage also agreed to refund the termination fee they charge when you leave their service, but that didn't happen, either.
It is not so much VOIP that is killing the POTS (plain old telephone service) as it is mobile phone service.
Here in Slovakia, a country of only 5 million, the number of mobile phones is over 3 million, and that was four years
ago. Now it is rare to see anyone over 7 and under 80, that does not have a mobile.
I should add, the mobile service here has always better and far ahead of service in the US.
Your uplink QoS (Quality of Service) was bad, and you were probably skimping on upload bandwidth. Also, depending on which modem you were using, the modems sometimes tend to drop packets and need to be reset once in a while, or you may have needed to replace your modem. I have had no problems with Vonage whatsoever.
I found their customer service to be excellent, especially compared to the local telephone company.
I originally ran the adapter through my D-Link gaming router, and made sure there was enough upload bandwith. When that didn't work, I ran the adapter straight through the cable modem, so no router was in the way. Still got the same results.
Don't bet on it from the telco companies.
Never heard of Sunrocket or Tomato Vine, which I've been hearing advertised. I'm using Time-Warner's service for $39.99, though I've been tempted by Vonage, since they advertise so much and it's quite a bit cheaper.
If you consider getting VoIP again, SunRocket is probably worth checking out. My friend who has it raves about how it has more features than Vonage and is signifanctly cheaper.
I replaced my DSL and ISP providers that were costing me over $50 per month with a wireless ISP as fast as DSL that compbines the services for $30 per month. Then some time ago I dropped my Qwest land line costing up to $50 per month with a Vonage $15 per month service. I figured that with only 3 cents a minute for overage minutes on the $15 service, I would seldom use enough minutes to go over the $25 unlimited service. Especially since a lot of our minutes are cell minutes anyway.
That's proven true. I've only gone over $25 twice, and then just a small amount, and most months have been just $15.
So I've rduced a phone and ISP bill of well over $100 per month to just $45. And by paying the wireless service for a year in advance, they gave me a 20% cut on the wireless service to boot.
The quality of the service is not quite up to Telco standards, but it is satisfactory to me.
I don't know how it works for VoIP as a whole, or other services, but according to this article SunRocket has 911 coverage that records your address immediately, even if your call gets disconnected.
I have seen Motorola modems that tend to cause similar problems. I am not familiar with the D-Link, but my Linksys has been flawless.
Does anybody know how it works with fax?
Hmmm...Tomato Vine is one I'm not familiar with. You pay $39.99 a month for Time Warner VoIP? Yikes, you definitely need a cheaper plan. Vonage is definitely cheaper than Time Warner, but if SunRocket is $200 a year and Vonage is $300, it seems like a no-brainer which one to get, regardless of who advertises more.
Unless they have VPN tunnels from one of their sites to the rest you are also risking some big time voice lag across the internet.
Ahhh.....touche, Just another Joe, you did say ALMOST all....my bad! I'm surprised other services besides Sunrocket haven't made E911 a priority...I'm sure that's something that holds a lot of people back from getting it.
I don't know about SunRocket, but I do know that fax can work with VOIP.
My friend got (and cancelled) Vonage as it sounded like every other second was skipped. It was sooo frustrating trying to listen to her talk. She could hear me fine, but you couldn't hear her well at all.
Until this technology improves, I'll keep the landline.
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