Hello QGLians,

I'm moving house soon and looking at various intergoogle providers and telephone services.

I'm looking very much at iiNet. My question:

Is getting VoIP instead of a normal phone line worth it? Does it work or does it suck the big one? There is a $20 difference in price and all I need to do is buy a $75ish VoIP unit and plug it into my router.

Any thoughts would be appreciated?

I'm currently using Pennytel, very much worth it. Our phone wasn't used much but went from being like $30 a month to $3 a month. Have zero issues with it, i'm using a unlocked engin box. The optus line is still hooked up, phone will ring when either the pennytel or optus line is called.

I'd go for a SPA 3102 box, they're nice and configurable. Oh with pennytel you also get a free DID (ie normal number) which gives you some interesting options ... say you move overseas, if you use your pennytel account there then someone can dial your local (ie brisbane) number and talk to you whereever you are ...

There is also some interesing ideas for doing that with mobiles that support voip.

Not sure what the iinet plans are like, but it's definietely been worth it for us.

I've been using Faktortel for ~15 months now without any hassles:
http://www.faktortel.com.au/

I pay $8 per month for the DID line and my monthly phone bill is around $3.

Because I'm on Optus cable I'm not renting Telstra's copper phone lines (instant saving of $25 or whatever it is per month).

The only downside is those 'auto' numbers (like ordering a pizza / taxi where it routes to your closest store) route to the Gold Coast, because that's where Faktortel's HQ obviously is.

If you're getting a phone line too (as in not naked DSL) then since you'rue paying the 20 bucks for telstra every month you may as well just use that, and maybe skype for long distance if you have to

If you're bypassing the telstra service and getting naked dsl then the voip is a good deal if it's under 20 bucks.. but 20 bucks? I dunno you'd wanna be getting enough free calls to cover you for the most part... voip calls are timed dodgily too. But I have a mate on iinet voip and he enjoys it

^ all my calls to landlines in Australia are 10c flat (unlimited time).

My mates in Newcastle can't tell I'm not using a traditional copper line.

If I get VoIP I'll be getting naked DSL, kinda defeats the purpose otherwise.

iiNet has a flat rate of 15c untimed local, 15c untimed national and 5c timed international. O and mobiles are 29c timed.
I barely use the land line and it costs $10 a month subscription. So I save $20 a month if I don't get a phone.

I just wanted to make sure the VoIP service was equal or better quality then a overly expensive land line.

Yeh you've got it pretty much figured out. I haven't heard about any problems with the voip quality.
The only thing now is you need to buy a voip modem, or get iinet's one, which isn't the cheapest modem around. That's your last expense before you say goodbye to telstra.

I'm going to get a VoIP unit that plugs into a free port in my router. Costs about $75. Wooo.

Do these VoIP routers have UPS or some sort of battery backup? Was wondering in case of the power outage and you need to make a call?

im looking at doing this as well toll

since we've had no phone line for a few months while we've had renos on the go, we just not going to bother going back to a phone line

will jump ship to naked dsl and use voip if we decide we want a house phone

VOIP is the shiz. There is no telling the difference between VOIP and a landline, in my experience.

Before I moved I was using the bundled iinet package, but when I did move iinet tried to screw me over to the extent that a tel$tra package was cheaper!

Now my VOIP is with mynetfone on their special whirlpool package - $0 per month with 10c untimed calls within Australia, and 15c per 30 second calls to mobiles. They even offer this pack where you pay $49 and get the device and a cordless phone delivered to you (all locked to mynetfone of course). My monthly phone bill since the switch has never been more than $3-4.

Do these VoIP routers have UPS or some sort of battery backup? Was wondering in case of the power outage and you need to make a call?

The home grade ones I have had didn't, so no phone in a blackout.

VOIP is the shiz. There is no telling the difference between VOIP and a landline, in my experience.

Right up until your ADSL has a problem.

But most people have a mobile anyways.

Pennytel is 8c untimed, also to some countries (uk, hong kong, nz, usa, few others)

They're also doing 29c untimed to mobiles at the moment.

The DID is free when they're available.

Do these VoIP routers have UPS or some sort of battery backup? Was wondering in case of the power outage and you need to make a call?

Unless you put a UPS on the router - that's what i'm gonna do. But yeah, everyone's got several mobiles these days anyway. A 1KVa UPS ($100 stylez) should run your router for more than the extent of any QLD blackout (not usually longer than 6-8hrs for a bad one from my experience).

Just signed up for iiNet Naked DSL - i'm about 800m from the exchange by road, im hoping for 18mb+ sync speeds. Going with Pennytel VoIP after recommendations from several people at work. f*** paying $30 in dead money to Tel$trass. What a waste. I'm gonna get the billion 6404VGP - two built in FXS ports for regular phones - one for the Uniden cordless, the other for the big deskphone. And if i want i can add several VoIP phones like the Linksys Colour Screen Cordless

Toll, bear in mind that iinet's naked plans include uploads in your monthly data allowance whereas in the standard phone bundle upload are still unmetered. Something to keep in mind if you seed a lot of torrents or other p2p.

At least they give you an extra 5 gig or something to try and compensate reasonably as long as you don't seed or anything like that

Does anyone have any experience with Engin?

does naked DSL mean you don't have to pay for a land line at all? I thought all DSL needed a land line for connection?

voip is starting to look real attractive nowadays, but only if you can ditch the normal line rental along with it. seeing as i'm probably moving soon i'll have to decide which way i want to go.

cerb - thats exactly what naked dsl means. DSL without the phone rental charge. f***ing awesome! :D

i'm not 100% sure how it works but i think rather then patching your line into a teltra box at the exchange they patch the line that comes from your house directly into your isp's hardware. someone correct me if im wrong?

Ok turns out I cant get ADSL2+ at the place I may be moving to.. :( I can get ADSL.

From what I've read it seems that you cant get Naked ADSL, only ADSL2+. That, really, sucks.

Does anyone know of a really cheap line rental so I can get DSL with iiNet?

Whenever I've looked, Telstra's budget plan has always been the cheapest bare bones landline phone plan for line rental. That said I'm on iinet DSL2+ and have phone bundled with them. Would have switched to naked and used voip if not for the upload counting.

seed me a river dan...

Hey my parents have got an Engin phone with the handset & we have been having trouble for ages with it. It cuts out half way between calls, sometimes does not even dial.
We have been onto the company so much to get it fixed and they keep changing this setting & that. I know nothing bout computers and stuff so I have no idea what they are doing & they ran some scan to see if our net drops out & it doesn't so is there anyone with Engin that has the same trouble????