VOIP Harware, ISP Advice

[81stubee]

If anyone can help me it would be good.

I'm setting up internet for my Parents in law in geelong. They are currently with optus and paying a fortune for Internet and Phone. Upwards of $190 per month.

I am going to put them onto VOIP with the following:

Phone: Westnet
Internet: Westnet (bundled)
VOIP: My net phone
Modem: VGPM

Any suggestions? Do you think I should go with a ISP that will prioritise VOIP traffic? Anything else I should watch out for.

Reccomendations, I haven't gone to VOIP myself so am in unchartered territory a bit.

Stu

[lewy]

cant help with voip,however can recommend westnet here in darwin at least.have had them for 3 years and nil problems of thier fault, thier help line is in Australia,takes a long time to get connected first up but that could be the mob who ownes the phone lines,after all they have to switch things around in the local exchange:mad:

[vnx205]

I have had no problems with MyNetFone during the year or more that I have been using them.

[Chucaro]

Hardware ways I have a Netcomm NB9 VOIP modem and a Uniden cordless and base station and all work perfect.
My provider for the Internet and Voip is Gotalk

[greg-g]

I believe Westnet are very good.
We use have used Internode with their NodePhone for 3 years, and certainly won't be going back to Telstra for any more than is absolutely necessary.
The phone breaks up a bit if someone is doing a large download at the same time. I would recommend a 1500 bps connection, or ADSL 2 if you can get it. A cordless phone is almost essential.
Greg

[hoadie72]

I've been using iiNet & VOIP for many years. I have an ADSL modem/router that has a Quality of Service feature, thus prioritising voice over data. I've retained my landline as I use the VOIP line for business calls and the landline for personal. My modem/router lets me plug my landline in and via a single handset I can select which line I dial out on, VOIP or landline, and also receive incoming calls from either onto a single handset. Triple-0 calls will default to the landline (though that's something I configured), otherwise Triple-0 can't work out where you are - or at least they couldn't years ago when I set all this up.

Re-reading that I'm not sure it makes sense, sorry!

[jik22]

Ideally, anyone doing VoIP who is non-technical should get it from their ISP, and buy an ISP-supported router/modem/ATA as well. This significantly reduces treoubleshooting issues if you have a single suplplier and don't really know what you are doing (Or the day to day user doesn't).

However, where this isn't possible, here are a few suggestions:

Use a router/modem that also has an analogue connection for the VoIP line to go to a "normal" phone - this typically means you don't get any firewall configuration issues and the prioritisation of voice traffic is done by the router.

Otherwise, at least ensure the router/modem you use SUPPORTS VoIP and the firewall can work with it - especially if you are on a single IP address using NAT.

Remember, you can only prioritise voice traffic leaving your router/modem - once it is into the ADSL/Cable and Internet cloud, it's a free for all unless you use the same ISP for both and they do actually prioritise voice traffic - and even then, it's limited to within their network.

Due to the above, make sure you run a decent speed ADSL service from a decent supplier. One of those cheap 256k down and 64k up offerings is only going to lead to problems later....

I've been running VoIP at home for the last 5-6 years, and have recently moved over to iiNet's "Naked DSL" here so I don't even have a Telstra or any other kind of fixed line now...just the VoIP line from iiNet and a couple of others whcih are better for things like international calling, etc. It's never going to have the guarantee of a regular phone line, but as long as you have a working mobile in the house for 000 and such if you need it, it's more than good enough for most people, most of the time...and with the right Internet and phone tarriff can save you a fortune.

[solmanic]

TPG - ADSL2+ with VOIP, but I don't use TPG's VOIP service. I just went with that plan to get a faster upstream speed (1500kBs instead of 512) and the integrated all-in-one Dynalink modem/router/ATA which works fine.
I use Gotalk for my VOIP. Cheap as chips and as long as you never have to actually talk to them, generally good service.

[landyprincess]

We are TPG ADSL+2 with VOIP and use VOIP. Unfortunately we still need to use Telstra's line as we don't have DSLAM infrastructre where we can do away with Telstra all together!

We went with TPG's router option only because it is supported. Support staff are good I have found and if there have been problems I have always escalated and had a good resolution and response time from them!

Make sure you get a plan that has a good chunk of upload/download as the data that you use with VOIP will count towards your parents useage - if they are on the phone alot.

VOIP plans are cheap both local, national and interstate.

You will need to put the states area code in front of all phone numbers. For example if your folks want to dial you in Melbourne they will need to put in 03. Similarily if someone was in adelaide and wanted to phone someone else in adelaide they would need to add in the 08. Annoying if you have all the numbers programmed into your phone - we had to change all the prefixes!

One other issue with VOIP is you can't dial 1300, 13, 12, 1800 type numbers. You need to physically disconnect the line from the ADSL router and plug that into your normal handset.

A couple of idiosynchracies so you may need to factor that in for your parents also.

Some ISP's have an override number (yet to find out for TPG what they are tho) but generally I don't think those numbers are supported as yet.

Just make sure you know the pitfalls as well as the cost benefits and see if your parents are happy with those little things.

TPG VOIP plan we have is 49.95 per month and that's on the following plan:

ADSL2+/30GB VOIP
1 Month ADSL2+ connection & VOIP, Peak Download 20GB (7am-1am), Offpeak
Download 10GB (1am-7am)

They may have bumped the plan up so you may need to check what the latest is on their website tpg.com.au

This ADSL package includes dial-up internet at any of TPG's Australia-wide locations if your service goes down.

The dial tone is distinguishably different from Telstra's dial tone also.

Otherwise, TPG are great. Less money to Telstra where possible the better.
With all our mobile, interstate and international calls we were spending a little over $350 month so huge savings for us of around $300!

Can't comment on wesnet. If you head on over to the whirlpool forums you should be able to guage feedback from others also about that particular provider as well as others..

Hope that helps.

Cheers Lp

[cwiley]

I believe Westnet are very good.
The phone breaks up a bit if someone is doing a large download at the same time. Greg

Get a router with Quality of Service (QOS) built in. Give VOIP first priority and - voila - no voice breakups anymore, even with large downloads/uploads happening.

[djam1]

I have used Westnet for years and cant complain at all.
I have also used VOIP for the last 18 Months using Westnet as my ISP and Gotalk for my VOIP provider.
It costs me $15 a month for the VOIP and I get 400 odd national/local calls 300 calls to mobiles and when I have rung overseas the costs have been negligible.
I use a Dlink ATA (I think its a 2001s) it performs faultlessly and this whole setup is the best thing I ever did.
Nothing delights me more than giving Telstra the flick

[jik22]

You will need to put the states area code in front of all phone numbers. For example if your folks want to dial you in Melbourne they will need to put in 03. Similarily if someone was in adelaide and wanted to phone someone else in adelaide they would need to add in the 08.

This is only true of some providers, and is all down to how they implement the dial plan (Which is the thing that determines how you dial as well as what the numbering plan is for a given country or area.) and whether they care about your geographical location. Some ISP's let you choose which dial plan to use (For example, with my Pennytel account, I set it to WA so I don't have to dial 08 for WA numbers, but obviously still do for SA which is a different subset of 08.) and others do it for you based on your geographical location - so for iiNet, I dial exactly as I would with Telstra.


One other issue with VOIP is you can't dial 1300, 13, 12, 1800 type numbers. You need to physically disconnect the line from the ADSL router and plug that into your normal handset.

Again, not necessarily. The VoIP provider may choose not to allow access to these numbers, but it has nothing to do with the fact the service is VoIP. Again, iiNet do support this on their iiTalk service, and I suspect others do too.


The dial tone is distinguishably different from Telstra's dial tone also.

Dial tone is provided by your hardware on VoIP, not by the ISP. Therefore, you can have your ATA, IP Phone or router play whatever dial tone you like as long as it is configurable. Same with ring tone - this is provided locally too. Look for settings regarding country in the phone/line configuration pages, which some of the better devices have.


Get a router with Quality of Service (QOS) built in. Give VOIP first priority and - voila - no voice breakups anymore, even with large downloads/uploads happening.

That's not true either - you can't really prioritise your downstream data as the settings only apply once the traffic is at the router. So although you are unlikly to max out a high speed ADSL2 connection, it's pretty easy to do so on a slower service is running things like Bitorrent flat out.

Also, although QoS will give priority to your VoIP traffic leaving your router, once it's on the wire, any packet marking you have done will likely be ignored by the ISP, so from the next hop onwards all traffic is mixed in and has equal priority. This is especially important when you are using VoIP from someone other than your ISP, as the traffic has to go onto the "real" Internet instead of just within your ISP's network where they have control and there is less likely to be contention between your IP phone/router the VoIP gateway.

[Hunchy]

Phone: Westnet
Internet: Westnet (bundled)
VOIP: My net phone
Modem: VGPM


I use gotalk with a Billion 7401 VGPM router. It's a great combination - but be aware that gotalk SUCKS for customer service. So if your folks are not hugely techy, I don't think I would suggest gotalk. Got to be comfortable doing it all themselves.

Plenty of good suggestions in this thread, though :)