VOIP on 8ta 3G

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Leeukop

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I am a newbie on this technology and need some answers before I commit to anything.

I live on a farm and we have been without Telkom fixed lines for many years due to cable theft. Telkom has now offered us a wireless phone with internet connection. Subsequently, I started digging and found out that 8ta has 3G coverage in our area. I am now contemplating on getting the 10Gb deal with 8ta.

Question:
Should i go for the Telkom wifi phone, or should I rather consider a VOIP phone on the back of the 10Gb 8ta data bundle? If so, which hardware would you recommend to cater for both data (2 laptops and a desktop) and voice at the same time.

Heinz
 
We moved to a retirement village with no telkom support, took up the 8ta 10gb offer and ported our telkom number to switchtel
(www.switchtel.co.za) Rental is R49.00 p/m, they supplied a Linksys ATA for about R600.00.
I have a Billion 7401 router.
So far this solution has been very effective, saving is substantial, quality can vary at times but has generally been good. YMMV
 
Before making a decision, just make sure the 8-ta 3G signal is good and strong then VoIP is an option.
Im running VoIP on 3G on both Cell C & Voda OK but i have good signal. Just be sure to check it first as i know of loads of people who have call quality thats up and down like a yo-yo due to the unstable and high latency nature of 3G. As you are looking at running 3 PC's at the same time as the voice i would recomend a router that suports some serious QoS, Billion have some nice 3G routers that can do this and if its set up right it can work OK.
 
Thanks for the responses.

I will have to do a signal test on 8ta. How do I do this, or is this something they come and do for me?
 
Doubt if they will do it for you, if the map shows you have cover you can get a prepaid sim to check quality.
Check on the 8ta forum, you need to convert the sim to non-roaming etc..
 
Hi, I am looking at getting a 8ta SIM and sticking it into a smartphone.

I would then use the FNB VOIP app or any other voip app for my daily calls.

Is this possible, could I expect decent coverage with the 8ta sim to use it for VOIP only
 
mercenary: best for this is actually the old Nokia E51 dumbphone with built in SIP stack (battery life is much better then newer Nokias and most smartphones when permanently on 3G). It will work well within good coverage areas but you will have limited success using it while driving or on the move. 8ta coverage is a bit patchy; yes, there is coverage over many areas, but only parts of that are GOOD coverage and it changes daily. e.g. At home I had only 3G upload speeds (384kb/s) initially until a few weeks ago and then suddenly they did some sort of improvement in the area and it went to ~4mb/s download with ~1.3mb/s upload and became almost as good as ADSL for VoIP. Moral of story: test thoroughly (for at least a couple of days) in the places you intend to use it. Dirk44 and paulcolmer have already said test before you commit and I have to repeat it! :-)
 
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