Using My Pc As A Phone

[hellohello]

Hello! I'm newbie with internet phones. What do you use? I'm wanting to call from Thailand to the US and Europe. Which service works best? THX

[StrongView]

Hey,

I am using iConnectHere.com for my calls. I got 1000 mins per month to the US and Canada for $10.95. Then I got an incoming call feature added, where people in NY (you can choose most major cities) could call me locally and it would ring here. Had some issues and call quality was always different. Sometimes excellent, sometimes bad.

So, I decided to look around. I signed up last week with Packet8.net. My understanding is that the quality is consistently excellent and it rivals front runner Vonage. I am waiting for the hardware to get here...so I can't personally say how nice it is...but I'm excited to see. The nice part is $19.95 unlimited incoming and outgoing phone calls. With the 3% Fed tax, it's $20.55 total per month. Comes with 3 way calling, caller id, etc.;.. and so on. They have incoming phone numbers available in most every state...I think only the state of Maine is excluded. As far as calling Europe, they have packages for that, but also per min rates. Calling Rome is 2 or 3 cents a min. Anyway..check out a few and read some reviews on ZDnet.com

http://www.iConnecthere.com

http://www.packet8.net

http://www.vonage.com

Good luck,

Matty

[dseawarrior]

Thanks Matty!

Great info... !

dseawarrior

[hellohello]

Thanks Ill try it!.. I forgot to mention I'm on a Mac (OS 10.3) . I downloaded a copy of Xten SIP phone. Which is compataible with Mac's but a wee bit confusing setting it up. But I wont give up yet! Anyone out there into Macs?

[ChiangMaiThai]

Ordered Vonage a month ago. Still trying to get it to work with TSpeed. Works fine with the other ISp's, but they cost 10,000 baht a month...

In the mean time I use glophone (voiceglo.com) Get a number in the US, rings here... Usually pretty good quality, but sometimes I hesitate on business calls as its not perfect.

[bubba]

Thanks Ill try it!.. I forgot to mention I'm on a Mac (OS 10.3) . I downloaded a copy of Xten SIP phone. Which is compataible with Mac's but a wee bit confusing setting it up. But I wont give up yet! Anyone out there into Macs?

I am on Mac OSX 10.3.4 and have been using Sipphone with now problems. The Xten client really should not require configuration, but you may have to fiddle with some router and firewall settings. If I can help anyone, just send me a PM.

Sipphone provides free computer to computer and 800 calls to the USA. The latter can be a major baht saver if you have to call back to your bank or a company with an 800 number, since otherwise you would be paying the usual rate from Thailand. Calls to the USA are now 2.3 cents/minute, and Sipphone have a promotion where if you purchase at least $20 of calling, you get one free five minute call to the following countries:

USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, UK, Ireland, Italy, San Marino, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Chile, and Argentina.

Audio quality has been fine for me, with only a bit of lag, which is definitely tolerable at these prices!

[francois]

hi'

Skype is far the best

and now house call from PC possible, and better than this, available for Linux

francois

[bubba]

hi'

Skype is far the best

and now house call from PC possible, and better than this, available for Linux

francois

Francois:

I have never used Skype, since they do not offer a Mac OSX version. But I am curious, why is Skype "far the best"?

[KhunPadThai]

For those of you who are VOIP users, how bad is the latency when you are making international calls, such as between the US and Thailand? I am considering getting one of them to reduce the cost of my wife's calls to her family in Central Thailand. However, I haven't been able to find a review of these services that discusses lag on international calls. Also, I understand that some VOIP services are better than others. Do you users find that the lag is noticeable? distracting? unbearable? not a problem?

Khun Pad Thai

[george]

Please note that ip phone service is not legal within Thailand, as I understand it. TiT.

[regpye]

My Thai wife and I (AU) are using PC 2 PC connection for free. It is the best quality I have found, and I have tried about a dozen different systems.

The software you can find on my website, it is free to use. To register is cheap too and worth every cent. The guy that wrote the software is working on some other communication stuff that will come along later, and if this is an example of what he can do, it will be really great.

Internet Phones

Just click on the Internet phone button on the menu to find out all about it and download.

[bubba]

PadThai:

I am using the Sipphone thing for calls from Thailand to the UK and USA fairly regularly. Yes, there is a slightly perceptible lag, but it is not really bad enough to be annoying. After using it for about 5 hours or so, I have not yet had a dropped call. One caveat: I use it with a 128k "broadband" (not very broad!) connection, and it looks like it is consuming about 100k of up and down. I guess it might adjust audio sampling rate depending on connection speed, as some applications such as this does.

You have to buy a minimum of US$10 of time to get started. If you buy $20, they actually give you one free five minute call each day. Might be worth a try at that rate anyway.

[francois]

hi

Please note that ip phone service is not legal within Thailand, as I understand it. TiT.

who cares?

if it true, there is only one reason to it ... toxin does not get a dime from it

don't be fool, use what you like, nobody can check this

why is Skype far the best ... just because, it gives all possibilities of a normal phone and even more than this, and it real cheap

give it a try ... if the link is not censored yet

skype web-phone

cheers

francois

[ChiangMaiThai]

My latest update for anyone following the Vonage and TSpeed story. On two different occassions last week TT&T spent 3 hours with me at their head office trying to get Vonage to work. I've got nothing but good things to say about them. They aquired usernames for all the ISP's and we tried them one by one. They all work except for hinet. As they explained it CAT blocks ports because their major revenue comes from ld phone calls and there's nothing TT&T can do about it.

(I've got nothing but bad things to say about CAT. When I told TT&T I e-mailed CAT, they just laughed and said 'no reply right?'. The whole company is worthless as far as I'm concerned)

Anyway, I switched to JInet at 2500 a month. It works with TT&T lines. 512/256 shared between 10 people. Its about 50% as fast as TSpeed and 1500 baht more, but Vonage finally works and its truly amazing quality.

Skype- Clear, but a delay of 1-2 seconds on calls to US. Okay for friends, but not for business.

Voiceglo- very little delay, but sound quality is maybe 80-90% of a regular phone.

And since its all illegal, this is purely a work of fiction.