VoIP service

[magi]

There are two offices of our company. One is in American, and another is in UK. I want to use VoIP service of these two offices. I want to call UK from American at lowest call fee. How could I do？Does it work?

[gogo dog]

Skype.

[serawan]

You'd need to either set up some sort of IP phone service yourself, like Asterisk, or subscribe to a service. Such services are available from many companies. I'm not sure who the best to use in Turkey would be, but two services I use that are good in Canada and the US are les.net and voip.ms. voip.ms also has gateways in the UK so might be a good choice for Europeans. (VoIP is very sensitive to latency so you want to use as close a provider as is reasonably practicable.)

www.gizmograbber.com

Edited December 20, 2008 by serawan

[Grazel]

I use Voip a lot these days. Pier to pier is free and I top up my account for my missues to call mobile phone thailand

 

Just have a microphone on my desk and thats it, no feed back, and clear line. Better than landline usually.

 

Set up an account in minutes

[luv.you.long.time]

Skype for sure if you at a computer.

 

For everything else, go with rebtel.com They are superb, crystal clear and cheap cheap cheap !

[TurtleInAsia]

www.viopdiscount.com FREE without any problems at all. Get a Nokia e or n series phone with Voip Support and you can call from and handset rather than a computer.

Edited December 21, 2008 by TurtleInAsia

[hamlek]

Have been using Challenger Mobile on my N95 for a while and it works well, www.challengermobile.com. That said I haven't tried any other mVoIP service or compared prices so I can't say if they're better/worse or cheaper/more expensive than anyone else.

 

// Johan

[jackieboy]

i use voip and its no problem crystal clear and get through everytime

[mikeymoo]

There are two offices of our company. One is in American, and another is in UK. I want to use VoIP service of these two offices. I want to call UK from American at lowest call fee. How could I do？Does it work?

 

USE SKYPE

[khagai]

USE SKYPE

 

Skype computer-to-computer is free and usually works fine. You will need speakers and microphone at both ends if they aren't built into the computer already. I have used Skype in this manner for about 6 years to Thailand. However, occasionally the connection is dropped often. I believe that is the fault of the Thai Network, and I assume that the British infrastructure is much better.

 

The other thing you can do from USA (I don't know if you can do it in England) is to replace your phone service with Vonage (which uses VOIP). The base plan ($24.95 per month) includes local calls, emergency services, free long distance to all of USA, Canada, Mexico, and I believe England, France, Germany, and Italy, with no additional charges. You can call any land-based or cell phone in those countries with the base plan, I believe, but check for yourself.

 

I added the "Call Asia" plan which includes unlimited calling to Thailand land-based phones and cell phones plus many additional Asian countries (which I really don't care about) for an additional $9.99 per month. Pretty cheap since I am probably on with Thailand for about 60 hours per month.

 

Connection is the USA is crystal clear, to Thailand it varies with the cell phones depending on "number of bars" and is very clear with land-based phones.

[tunamelt]

Skype if you're a noob and don't need the hassle. It's easy, quick and reasonable. They now offer a business version as well. If you want to do it easy, but need SIP protocol, gizmoproject.com is a great choice. SIP works with IP phones, soft phones, Trixbox, DID numbers, and even Google voice.

[Geek In Asia]

If you are like me and perfer to use a real phone style of handset for calls. Then you can get a VoIP phone in TuckCom for 4-5,000 baht. Personally I use the Linksys 942.

[wallchips]

Well i've been using viopcheap for a while now calls cost from uk to Thailand .01p a min to mobile from laptop

clear lines, no problems with this site , just topped up £15 have to use up within 70 days i think. calls to land lines are free

 

Before i went with this provider i tried one called evaphone ..same rates but only connected a couple of times and their

online message help is not up to standard.

[andyaus]

VoIP

 

There is some good information posted so far.

 

As a Telecommunication Consultant I am often asked to give an opinion on the pros and cons of various services and these are often lumped together as Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP.

 

This covers so much ground and gets very technical. I try to explain to my business clients in very simple terms as follows.

 

The internet is a shared service. You might have an exclusive line or channel to your ISP (provider) or probably the local exchange but after that your data is lumped together with streams from everyone else. Similar to a highway this travels fast sometimes but during peak times it slows down. The internet providers start with big open highways but as they get more subscribers these highways slow down. When the ISP has fast internet and lots of spare capacity they are probably losing money. The ISP makes most money when the service has as many people as possible but for the client this is when the service is at its worst...bummer

 

Most of the "consumer grade" VoIP services like Skype rely heavily on this "shared" service so in busy times the service degrades. A good ISP in January might be a crap ISP in July based on their Client to Bandwidth ratio. ( this keeps the service affordable so deal with it) Similarly at 4pm when the school kids get home and log on to games then the service degrades etc etc.

 

The quality of each VoIP call relies on the amount of bandwidth and speed available. As previously mentioned we use terms like Latency, Jitter, Buffer and QoS to measure the quality of a VoIP line. Unfortunately we have very little control on a Skype service.

 

Using Skype in a pier to pier situation can be hit and miss but the price is cheap and for casual chats we put up with line drop outs and some echo or delay. Sometimes we get lucky and get a good service but you can't rely on it.

 

A commercial grade VoIP service uses Private DSL (digital Subscriber Line) services to the local exchange and the ISP supplies a dedicated connection between Nodes. The beauty of this is that we can control the quality of the line and give you a service that is almost perfect. Big companies use this all the time but for most of us it is uneconomical.

 

Most of my clients use a shared ADSL service (asynchronous DSL) to link to the local exchange and a shared business grade DSL between exchanges (and Nodes) Business grade services have much better Client to bandwidth ratios so there is much less chance of congestion. Exchange to exchange connection gives us some control of the QoS (Quality of service) so it is only from your premises to the exchange that things can brake down.

 

Of course not everyone has a computer and we want to call them on a land line or a mobile. This is achieved using a "Gate way" and the Service provider negotiate a cheap "local" call price with a Telco so they can connect to a gateway. If you call an Australian Gateway you are likely paying 8 to 10 cents per landline call ( about half the price of a normal call). Calls to mobiles are about 18 cents per minute. I use Skype from a Philippines call centre through their Australian Gateway and pay a flat $10 per month...incredibly cheap but the call quality is not great for business to business calls. Important calls are booked through a local suppliers gate way for 8 cents un-timed.

 

The OP has offices in the UK an USA so he has two choices. If he just wants office to office calls he might be happy to use Skype and put up with the issues. Calls are cheap. the quality is not bad and both parties understand the way it is connected.

 

If you have important calls like board meetings etc, then I recommend using a local VoIP provider who can "link" the two countries on their network with QoS and give you a much better quality . It will cost more depending on the number of call (amount of bandwidth, You need at least 8kbs)

 

If you also want local call access at each end then perhaps an ISP with international gateways is a better option. (I use World Dial Point in Australia but I'm sure there are great options in both the UK and USA.( Even with Local Call Gateways you can often get service to service call for free if both ends are with the same supplier)

 

My guess is that with time differences most calls are after hours for one office or the other so the traffic is not going to be high Weekly meetings, conference calls etc are planned for the beginning of the day in one office and end of the day in the other. Most regular traffic is done via email so the number of calls is reduced.

 

 

This is a simplified explanation and if your needs are more complex I suggest talking to a consultant in your local area. They can recommend hardware at each end and help you configure it.

 

My comments relate to the situation outlined by the OP ... I don't expect it will apply to all of the people reading this but I am happy to discuss other choices

 

Anyone in Australia who wants some assistance, just send me a PM and I will be happy to call them on my VoIP service so you can judge the quality. I can also supply hardware, systems and internal networks.