[Cialug] VoIP

[Jerry Weida]

One drawback for VoIP is that it requires a constant 110kbps in each
direction in order to provide a "clear" line.  While most broadband
connections can easily provide this in most packages, the problem
becomes clear when a cable modem/dsl line doesn't have "reserved
bandwidth" for the VoIP product.  It requires a constant rate, which
many broadband providers don't have.

Mediacom is working with DOCSIS 1.1 which can provide the necessary
bandwidth reservation and they did do a trial for VoIP in the current
cable system which ended about a year ago.  Hopefully something more
will come out of it soon.

I don't know if Qwest has any such bandwidth reservation available for
the DSL platform, but it would be interesting to find out.


On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:09:04 -0600, Dave J. Hala Jr. <dave@58ghz.net> wrote:
> I just got rid of my Qwest voice service, and have been totally wireless
> with US Cell for almost 3 weeks. Its a weird feeling, but it seems to be
> without issue.  Its weird to dump my home number that I've had for
> almost 20 years...
> 
> :) Dave
> 
> On Mon, 2005-01-24 at 12:05, Neal Daringer wrote:
> > i live in iowa city. vonage has numbers in every state now except for montana,
> > wyoming, alaska, hawaii, idaho, and virginia(i think its virginia). as far as
> > what they have for where you can get a number in iowa they can give you a
> > number in the following areas:
> > ankeny, des moines, clinton, davenport, marshalltown, ottumwa, carter lake,
> > council bluffs, souix city, burlington, cedar falls, iowa city, cedar rapids,
> > waterloo, and waverly.
> >
> > from what i could get out of their FAQ page there isn't much you can do with
> > VoIP when you have a connection under 1.5mbit. something about the duplex it
> > encodes at or something. probably keep looking into this stuff. just want to
> > tell qwest to go to hell since i haven't had a decent call on my home phone in
> > the last year and they won't fix it. i'd get rid of it all together but the
> > wife won't let me.
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting Jonathan Bailey <jcbailey@code0.net>:
> >
> > > Vonage does have DSM area numbers. I believe they are out for DSM
> > > proper, but they have Ankeny. They also have Ames numbers.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Jon
> > >
> > > Nathan C. Smith wrote:
> > >
> > >> I had vonage for two years, it will only save you money if you actually use
> > >> it.  My wife complained about the call quality (both on ADSL 144k and T1) so
> > >> I finally cancelled it.  Since I started playing with Asterisk I've used
> > >> nufone Voipjet and a few others.  There is a lot more savings to be had with
> > >> a prepaid plan like these if you are only dialing out.  Vonage didn't have
> > >> DIDs in Iowa last I checked (4 months ago) so you can't have a local number.
> > >> We will be/are one of the last states to get local numbers.
> > >>
> > >> If you do a lot of LD calling you might be able to get your money's worth
> > >> from Vonage, but I think there is going to be a big VOIP shake-up in the
> > >> future when some of the other companies start playing VOIP and we will start
> > >> to see some really cheap calling.  As long as the FCC stays out of
> > >> it.  My advice is to skip Vonage and either use Asterisk or wait for
> > >> something
> > >> better.  BTW, a service called Bellster now offers free p2p asterisk to PSTN
> > >> calling over the Internet.  I used it last night and thought it was OK.  It
> > >> is new as of Friday and there may still be issues with it.
> > >>
> > >> -Nate
> > >>
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: Neal Daringer [mailto:admin@c0wzftp.com] Sent: Monday, January
> > >> 24, 2005 10:33 AM
> > >> To: cialug@cialug.org
> > >> Subject: [Cialug] VoIP
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> any of you have experience with VoIP telephone companies (i.e. packet8,
> > >> vonage, etc.)? just wondering if it would actually be worth checking out to
> > >> save $ on the phone bill.
> > >>
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> 
> Open Source Information Systems (OSIS)
> Dave J. Hala Jr. <dave@osis.us>
> 641.485.1606
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