As president of the Sunshine Coast Computer Club for more than a decade, Peter Daley has answered more computing questions than he would care to remember. He also helps run a technology help line service called www.technologypals.com.au giving people help over the phone.
. How to save thousands on your phone bill
| Peter Daley
A telephone revolution is taking place. You can potentially save thousands of dollars in personal or business phone calls by making them over the internet.
These calls can be made for free over the internet if the person at the other end is using the same telephone computer software or a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) hardware device.
Yes, that's right, free phone calls anywhere in the world! Well, not quite – you do need an internet-connected computer.
The sound quality isn't always prefect, but it’s getting there.
There are a number of ways of doing this.
METHOD ONE
(A no cost way to try it, to see if you like it.)
You will need an internet-connected computer, preferably connected via a high-speed broadband connection, to get the best results.
Next, you will need to download and install one of the free VOIP software packages. Skye is probably the best known at present. It can be downloaded from www.skype.com
Skype has Linux, Windows and Apple Mac versions available. Then you will need to have a microphone headset.
METHOD TWO
(You're committed – you will need to buy a VOIP hardware device. So what if the call quality is not always the best? The monitory savings are just so great!)
Here are a few places where you can purchase one of the VOIP hardware devices from: www.myfone.com.au or www.engin.com.au or www.freecall.net.au. There are also lots of others available.
The advantages of these devices over Skype-type software systems is that the computer doesn't need to be on. You simply plug another phone or cordless phone into the VOIP hardware device, and connect it to your broadband router or modem.
As long as the modem/router is connected, you can make and receive calls. Plus, the hardware VOIP systems are more compatible with other VOIP systems, which means you can make free calls to friends and businesses that have these devices. You will need to know their VOIP device phone number or ID.
I choose the Myphone system, because it allows me to make 10c local calls here on the Sunshine Coast. Yes, there are fees to call someone's normal phone. Costs vary between the different systems, so shop around and do some research before committing to any of them.
Be aware that not all these systems allow 10c local phone calls through the VOIP.
International call rates through these systems to an ordinary phone are around 1 to 3 cents per minute to most English-speaking countries. Call rates are provided at the websites listed above.
The club is setting up a Myphone system at its Caloundra Technology Education Centre, so if you want a try it, come along one Saturday. I have probably saved around $1200 in the first year. Yes, I do make lots of calls, but I was also able to ditch our second phone line and value-add my ADSL connection by putting the VOIP phone on the ADSL broadband system we already pay for.
If you don't have a broadband internet connection and make only a few dollars worth of calls a month on an ordinary phone, there’s not much point in setting up one of these systems.
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Recent Comments
I have been using an ENGIN service for over 2.5 years now. And I still continue to use it, which means I guess I am reasonably happy with it. When I first started off I had a 512/64 ADSL Line and it worked fine with that. Today that same piece of copper can deliver a 4Mbit/384kbit service and the overall quality of the call is good.
I originally opted for the ENGIN service for 2 main reasons; a) cost b) total user friendliness! It could not be a geeky thing that was to hard for the wife to use. It basically had to work EXACTLY like a 'real' phone. ENGIN does this by supplying you with an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA). One end of the ATA plugs into your ADSL modem/router. At the other end of the ATA, you plug in a real/ordinary telephone; exactly like the ones you might just lug into a Tesltra wall socket. An ENGIN supplied ATA is pre-configured to find its way back to ENGIN automatically, and after an activation phone call (and a variable wait time) you are up and running. Pick up the phone and guess what? You get real 'dial-tone'. better still, when you want to ring a number, you ring it just like you would with a real phone - no 15 digit prefixes to ring before your real number! It actually behaves exactly like a real phone. Pay a little extra and ENGIN will give you a 'real' number - they even have Sunny Coast numbers now! What this means is people on real phones or mobiles can call you on your VOIP phone.
I have talked about ENGIN, as that is the provider I have been using. However, per the source article here, there are other VIP providers around; and they all offer similar functionality with varying plans and options.
Not sure if your ADSL line can handle it? Go to http://www.talkswitch.com/voip/ - If you then click VOIP Capacity test on the left hand side and follow all the instructions it will tell you how your ADSL Line is really performing and how many simultaneous calls you can expect out of it.
Can you get rid of the fixed line service phone service? I do know people who have done just that; but they do make sure they have a mobile phone service that can get them out of a jam in the event of an Internet or power outage!
For small business a VOIP service can be very cost effective. For example, You can have a Sunshine Coast number, a Brisbane number and a Sydney number allocated to you by the VOIP Service provider and it all comes in on the one physical VOIP line. If your VOIP phone is engaged (or worse till the Internet is down); you can set it up so that it goes to voice mail. Voice mail then gets delivered to your e-mail inbox (if you wish) where it can be played back at your leisure.
2 words of caution 1) do try and get the provider supplied ATA; or one that comes pre-programmed for the specific VOIP Provider. If you "Bring Your Own" (BYO) then if you are not technically comfortable, find someone who is to help you get your ATA online. 2) Get a Quality of Service (QoS) capable modem/router that can priortise VOIP traffic. When you have 3 bandwidth hungry kids online at the same time you are making a VOIP call; oh yes, you can lose packets resulting in a lower quality call.
Let me finish off by saying No, this is NOT a plug for ENGIN. I recently had a 3 week outage with them as my series 1 ATA could not hack some apparent programming changes necessitated by adding extra number to my VOIP service. I now have a current version ATA and am back on air again; but was I fuming? Oh yes .. my call costs jumped astronomically as I had to resort to the Telstra phone and the mobile.. So yes, VOIP saves you real dollars; and it is easy to quantify when you are temporarily with the service!