I have been a customer of Virgin for years now for house phone, broadband and TV, in the last three weeks we have had issues with the landline phone being very crackly, Virgin have been out three times and are unable to rectify the issue.

SO, I am thinking of cancelling the home phone line and going with a VOIP phone system from the likes of Vonnage, do you have any experience of using VOIP phones?

All info and or recommendations would be gratefully received.

Thanks

VOIP is very reliant on the quality of your broadband, we use VOIP in work and when it works it works well however the sound quality can deteriorate on a call.

We use MS Lynk and our exchange is VOIP enabled.

If your broadband is ADSL then the noise on voice may also affect the broadband speed. If there's a bad wire somewhere, then it needs to be fixed.

If it's Virgin then it's coax and fibre. I agree if it were ADSL then a lift and shift at the exchange could sort your issues (I have heard of dodgy cable pairs as well causing issues).

I have a VOIP, DECT phone on Skype think it is called a "dualphone" connects to the broadband and also has a normal PSTN connection works very well as Skype calls are free and Skype out calls are very cheap even for intrenational.

John

Can you cancel the phone and still have BB?

I can cancel the phone, or the tv or the broadband, not a problem.

The reason I asked about VOIP is because I saw an advert for Vonnage on the tv, looked like a viable option, service from Telewest and then Virging has been good on the whole but they are really dragging there feet on resolving the telephone issue claiming it is an issue with my handsets, however, plug them in next door and they work fine. They are booked again for Wednesday afternoon and I have the key to next door to show the engineer that my handsets are fine!

I have used Skype for calls to the states, credit the account and I can call a local number from the house phone so it is a free call, the other ends also receives a local call for Arizona and Skype debit my credit, works well.

I will see how Wednesday goes and if no repair I will ditch the phone line and call Vonnage.

Thanks for your comments

You won't have access to the emergency services and if you have adsl/dns routing issues you'll lose your phone.

VOIP imo is fine on a business line with SLA response, but risky on a residential line as your only landline.

Can you keep a geographical number or do you have to have a 0845 number?

Vonage gives you access to a geographical number, and I believe it also gives you emergency services access. In fact all VOIP operators are required to collect address details now I believe, including free ones like SIPgate, following OFCOM consultation.

Couple of points that need mentioning, Virgin doesn't always mean coax, although if you've got Virgin TV then you should have coax. The other thing to bear in mind is that Virgin are likely to charge you more for dropping a service than they are if you take their "triple-play". Every time I've looked at the calculator, it's cheaper to have all three services. So I'd just keep the phone line but don't plug anything into it, just use Vonage if that's what you're happy with.

edit - also, I believe the rules are changing regarding how much companies have to pay for blocks of geographical numbers. So there's a chance that the Vonage costs may have to increase to cover the use of these geographical numbers which currently cost very little, but may start to cost tens of thousands a year.

I have no landline at my home (and haven't had one for over 3 years), only a (fiber) Virgin cable connection and several incoming numbers (local and international). My main incoming numbers are with A&A whose service can be configured so that it will use your mobile number (or any other number) if your BB is down and people call you. You can also call emergency services as long as you've got that set up with address details.

I use a Raspberry Pi server with Raspbian and Asterisk 1.8 installed (not one of the specialised Asterisk images like Raspbx, etc) which controls all my call handling (blacklisting, whitelisting, holidays, etc) and as my normal home phone I have a Siemens Gigaset C475 IP DECT/SIP phone. I get an email if someone leaves me a voicemail, an IM notification when someone calls, and there is loads more that I can do should I wish to do so...

Audio quality is dependent on your equipment, your BB speed, and many other factors, but I have never had any problems, although we are light phone users in our household.

As to cost, you can get something like a Sipura S3K (Linksys now) for < £50 which is a fantastic little box and allows you to use your own current DECT phones with both a PSTN and VOIP line with for instance Sipgate, who will give you a free geographic incoming number