Advice needed on residential VoIP solution

[FreeMan]

Dear all,

I am a total noob to VoIP. I tried to read and understand but seems like I am a bit too dof!

Here is my problem: I would like to ditch my home Telkom line, upgrade my ASDL speed and bring in a VoIP phone. I would like to do a cost benefit analysis as I do not want to actually pay more for a VoIP phone line than the one for Telkom.

What are the options and advice?

Thanks!

 

[dj_jyno]

Do you mean ditch the line as in not pay analogue rental, or just not use it. If it's the former, I'm afraid it's impossible.

 

[FreeMan]

So will you always have to pay for a telephone line? You can't just have an ADSL line?

 

[TSpeed]

No real benefit

There is no real cost saving by dumping your telkom line and switch to a voip option for home usage.
You are going to end up paying more.

a. Telkom line rental stays the same
b. By increasing your Adsl speed, Telkom is going to charge you more.
c. Some internet service provider charge extra to move over to higher adsl speeds
d. Voip service provider is going to charge you a monthly rental and once off fee for a handpiece.

The only real benefit for voip now is, Inter-branch calls and calling your auntie in Australia.
for the latter i would recommend using your pc with a softphone on both sides.

 

[paulcolmer]

With regard to the above i hope this will be of assistance to you;

It is correct that you have to have the Telkom line to faciltate the DSL service, we have long waited for the implementation of LLU (local loop unbundling) and maybe the fact that this may lead to a 'naked' DSL service ie, DSL without the analouge line rental. Telkom have been dodging this bullet for a long time. Last week at the MyBB conference I chucked the question at Steve Lewis ( Telkom ME) while he was doing a panel discussion, his answer was as expected that the analouge line is the delivery medium for DSL and there are no plans at this moment in time to offer naked DSL !

There is however cost savings to be made by retaining your DSL and using a VoIP service, Rentals are typically around the R50 per/month for the service and savings are made on both calls and the implementation of per/second billing, your once off investment would be the price of an IP phone. You may port your existing Telkom number to a provider for a once off charge as well. You savings will really depend on your call volumes that you have.

The last solution is to use wireless 3g and dump the Telkom one time, wireless speeds are increasing, bandwidth is coming down in price as well, so this can be an option. Be awear that 3g will allways have a higher latency than DSL and VoIP does not like high latency. More importently you need a very good connection, if your signal is not strong the VoIP will give you issues. Even in areas that have very good 3g you have some bad days ! 3g is not stable all the time, on these bad days you can get issues. So you must investigate and test in your area before committing to a 3g option.

Paul