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On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 02:29:35 -0400, rickman<gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
Uh, I think about 10 posts ago I said a friend had already tried her
VOIP phone on my Internet connection and it seemed to work fine. So all
of the above jitter tests, etc are overkill if the connection passes the
acid test, no?
No. One phone call does not constitute a test. You don't have any
measurements, just pass/fail. You should see what happens under worst
case situations, such as you downloading something on another
computer, or running Bitorrent. Otherwise, you run the risk of having
it only work when nobody else is using the internet.
You used the WISP term which is the name the provider uses for this and
in fact the ISP company name is iWisp. I take it this is a generic
term? I thought it was a brand name. Is there just one major brand of
products doing this function?
Sorry. When talking telecom, everything is in acronyms. I tried to
avoid doing that but missed the WISP acronym. It's short for Wireless
Internet Service Provider. I used to work with one in Boulder Creek
about 15 years ago.
So I have to assume that the
products work for most, but not all and more important is how the
company deals with it.
That's typical with VoIP. The quality of the service is largely
dependent on the quality of the internet connection. If you have lots
of bandwidth, little jitter, and a proper router, you'll have no
problem. If any of these are lacking, you will have problem. I kinda
like the vendors where the review sites are full of billing
complaints. That means that the service works just fine and that all
that's left to complain about is the billing.
No one complained that NetTalk didn't have
reasonable support.
I worry a little when that happens. Quality products don't need much
support.
I pay about $26/month for my AT&T POTS line, with measured rate and no
long distance service. At $15/month, you're probably on Lifeline
service, which is effectively subsidized home phone service. Please
find a better comparison.
I don't know what "lifeline" is, but I assure you my phone service is
*not* subsidized. This is what a phone line costs from Verizon. I pay
$0.10 per call (which are typically few) and more than half the $15 is
taxes and fees. The actual phone connection is just $6-7 a month. I
think that is true about anywhere (...).
Sorry. I'm in AT&T territory and know little of Verizon POTS pricing.
I didn't know they could do it that cheap. I would probably use the
same plan if I could get it here.
Since you have two location, you can get two phones setup as
"extensions" on one phone number. That cuts your phone bill in half.
Outbound only service has no phone number, right?
Outbound only service has a phone number. For CallCentric is
1777-Your-CCID. CCID is your CallCentric user ID. You can't call
that number from the PSTN (public switched telephone network) but you
can call it from another SIP phone:
http://www.callcentric.com/faq/4/130
Then that is not a "phone" number.
Correct. It's really a CallCentric ID number.
Inbound only service
can't use 911, right?
http://www.callcentric.com/faq/23#159
The $1.50 fee is NOT included in the following services:
Pay Per Call outgoing service
Any incoming service
Under these products you WILL be billed for 911 separately,
at $1.50/month plus a one time $1.50 setup fee, if you state
that your are in the US or Canada.
The way I read this is that you can make 911 calls with incoming only
service.
I don't get that. They say they will bill you for 911, but they don't
say you can make calls.
The only question is whether the ingoing only service provides
dialtone. If it does, you can make 911 calls. If not, you can't make
911 calls. When I was using CallCentric, I had both incoming and
outgoing, so it wasn't an issue. I don't see it as much of an issue
as you're more likely to be buying both in and out service.
That's different, when you are cut off for non-payment you have no
dialtone. But then I don't know for sure, I haven't had that problem in
many, many years.
I vaguely recall some kind of regrettable incident, where AT&T
suddenly cut off service for non-payment, where the resident needed to
make an emergency call but couldn't. After that public relations
disaster, AT&T leaves dialtone and 911 service enabled for
non-payment. I'm not sure how long they leave it on, but when I took
possession of a rental house that had been empty for about 90 days, I
still had dialtone on the previous owner. Verizon may be different.
You are an amazing wealth of information I have to say.
I prefer the other type of wealth, where I'm somewhat lacking.
One thing I'm not totally clear about is the second FXS jack on many
adapters. The accounts seem to say they support a second phone, but in
what way? Does that second phone have a separate number? Does it use
the same number but you can have two separate calls on the same number?
It's usually a separate line with a separate phone number or a
separate phone extension on the same phone number as the main line. It
totally depends on how it's provisioned with plenty of creative
options. If you buy your ATA from a VoIP provider, it's most likely
going to be setup as an extension, where you can have two
conversations at the same time over the same internet connection (but
not via two different providers as the VoIP provider isn't terribly
thrilled with you using his equipment on the competitions system).
On a more complexicated ATA, like the SPA3102, the 2nd line can be:
1. A 2nd service provider with a separate phone number.
2. An extension on the same phone number as line 1.
3. A POTS fallback or pass through.
The last is a bit tricky. It's commonly used direct local calls to a
POTS line, where the CLEC provides a large number of bundled "free"
minutes, and switch automatically to the VoIP line, for toll and long
distance calls, which would be charged by the minute.
The NetTalk is the path of least resistance, but I do like the idea of
getting service with a provider and having my own "universal" adapter.
We'll see. NetTalk is so cheap it will be hard to beat on price unless
I lived in NY state (NetTalk actually has totally free accounts in NY
for local service).
Also available from CallCentric:
http://www.callcentric.com/dids/free_phone_number
The catch is that you have to be in New York state and you are
required to pay for E911 service. The service originates with
Telengy, which is a NY area CLEC and the parent company of
CallCentric. I don't know how NetTalk got into the puzzle, but my
guess is that they also get their DID (dial in direct) lines from
Telengy and may have a similar billing arrangement.
A lot of podcasts and even some low budget news shows like Democracy Now
use VOIP in the form of Skype. It is just awful. Words getting chopped.
Video going haywire.
Some of the network companies came from a telephony background. They
understood the things that make VOIP work. The problem was if you were a
telephony company, you had that big customer base and didn't have to be
so nimble in business. Nortel being a good example of how to have good
technology and totally fail. Lucent would have been tits up except for
the purchase by Alcatel.
So networking isn't about voice, it is about data.
Most people have full duplex conversations. I have a friend that has a
satellite hookup in his travel trailer. You have to say "over" a lot
during conversations. OK for ham radio, not so good for phone use.
On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 08:39:07 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:
Jeff,
Just one quick question - How do you interface your POTS phone to a
VoIP box? Do you know of a readily available phone line interface
card?
You probably don't recall the 1950's style long distance calls, where
half duplex was the norm.
However, we will probably need to expose an entire generation
to it before it will be considered acceptable.
Some day, computahs will be powerful enought to anticipate what we
will say next. Then, we can eliminate the latency and half duplex
problem by producing that the caller would be expected to say.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.120.6555&rep=rep1&type=pdf
See Fig 5. The Skype model has already broken down with too many
users and too few supernodes:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-supernodes-with-linux-boxes-hosted-by-microsoft/
Microsoft is moving away from peer to peer and installing central
servers. Until the transition is finished, Skype conferencing is
still a crap shoot.
Just one quick question - How do you interface your POTS phone to a
VoIP box? Do you know of a readily available phone line interface
card?
On 8/17/2013 7:40 PM, miso wrote:
Funny thing about Nevada refineries is you find them in the areas where
Nevada pumps oil. The Great Basin for example. So you have gas that
doesn't have a picoliter of OPEC oil in it, yet sells for the same price
as the rest of the state. I've done the Reno to Las Vegas run a few
times, and once in a while the podunk towns that get Nevada refined gas
don't get around to jacking up the price to match the rest of the state.
People often think the price of something is defined by what it cost to
make. The price of a commodity has only to do with the market, supply
and demand. Your places in Nevada that charge a little less have
nothing to do with their proximity to refineries or oil wells.
There is a section of central Virginia where the price of gas is some 15
or 20 cents lower than most places in the state. No special reason that
I can see. They are further from refineries and any natural resource
for oil than other areas. I expect it is the economics of the area.
They are a little less affluent than much of the state and when the
price of gas goes up a little, they cut back on usage more than other
areas I would expect.
Supply and demand... that's all it is. Ain't nobody in Nevada gas
stations doing you any favors.
Exede Speedtest.net video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8JORopoiEU
Note the 800 msec latency.
I don't think that is 800ms. I think we're talking Microsoft style CES
demos, i.e. faked!
I never met a happy satellite internet user, well other than they are
happy to get anything at all.
Once anything else is available, the
satellite internet is the first thing to go. But that means more free
dishes for me to play with. If you go on Craigslist, people spend a long
time trying to sell old satellite internet gear before just dumping it.
On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 13:25:04 -0700, miso <miso@sushi.com> wrote:
Most people have full duplex conversations. I have a friend that has a
satellite hookup in his travel trailer. You have to say "over" a lot
during conversations. OK for ham radio, not so good for phone use.
Play the video at:
http://www.exede.com/voip
I think you can handle the delay and possibly half duplex.
You probably don't recall the 1950's style long distance calls, where
half duplex was the norm. Cell phones do the same thing. When the
error rate or lost packets start to climb, they revert to half duplex
before giving up and dropping the call. In a cell phone to cell phone
call, the accumulated latency can easily add up to a full second. It's
still full duplex but you still have to tell the other person when
it's time to talk. I have no problem using half duplex or saying
over. However, we will probably need to expose an entire generation
to it before it will be considered acceptable.
Some day, computahs will be powerful enought to anticipate what we
will say next. Then, we can eliminate the latency and half duplex
problem by producing that the caller would be expected to say.
Exede Speedtest.net video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8JORopoiEU
Note the 800 msec latency.
On 8/18/2013 11:09 AM, rickman wrote:
On 8/17/2013 7:40 PM, miso wrote:
Funny thing about Nevada refineries is you find them in the areas where
Nevada pumps oil. The Great Basin for example. So you have gas that
doesn't have a picoliter of OPEC oil in it, yet sells for the same price
as the rest of the state. I've done the Reno to Las Vegas run a few
times, and once in a while the podunk towns that get Nevada refined gas
don't get around to jacking up the price to match the rest of the state.
People often think the price of something is defined by what it cost to
make. The price of a commodity has only to do with the market, supply
and demand. Your places in Nevada that charge a little less have
nothing to do with their proximity to refineries or oil wells.
There is a section of central Virginia where the price of gas is some 15
or 20 cents lower than most places in the state. No special reason that
I can see. They are further from refineries and any natural resource
for oil than other areas. I expect it is the economics of the area.
They are a little less affluent than much of the state and when the
price of gas goes up a little, they cut back on usage more than other
areas I would expect.
Supply and demand... that's all it is. Ain't nobody in Nevada gas
stations doing you any favors.
Oh, I never said I don't understand the pricing. I just think it is
funny. When the gas in the podunk towns is cheap, they probably didn't
get the fax from HQ to screw the public.
On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 13:21:16 -0700, miso<miso@sushi.com> wrote:
So networking isn't about voice, it is about data.
I beg to differ somewhat. What the user hears is the voice. If the
underlying technology isn't together, the voice suffers. Call a VoIP
vendor and try to complain that their protocols are broken (as I've
done a few times). They act dumb or claim it's someone elses
headache. The VoIP vendors know about voice, not networking.
On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 18:34:22 -0700, miso <miso@sushi.com> wrote:
Exede Speedtest.net video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8JORopoiEU
Note the 800 msec latency.
I don't think that is 800ms. I think we're talking Microsoft style CES
demos, i.e. faked!
That's why I posted a video instead of a screen dump. It looks quite
real to me.
I just sent email to my customer with Exede satellite internet service
asking him to run the same speed test. We'll see what he gets.
On 8/14/2013 3:53 PM, Don Y wrote:
Hi,
On 8/14/2013 12:18 PM, rickman wrote:
On 8/14/2013 2:01 PM, miso wrote:
SIP has a wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol
This doesn't tell me anything that I need to know to understand the
usage of "SIP call" in the context it was used.
Most modern businesses use SIP and a linux box to act as the PBX. Or use
something like Ringcentral. If we are talking about a home user, I don't
see SIP being all that handy. There are all sorts of phone plans for
home use, or just use a cellphone. For a SOHO, I would say the goal is
to get one phase of AT$T out of your life.
SIP phones? Well, they talk SIP. Hook 'em up to a network and beat your
brain trying to set up Asterik. SIP phones are old hat enough that they
show up in Silicon Valley surplus stores.
Great, all I need now is to understand what is meant by "SIP calls".
SIP is "Yet Another Protocol". One designed to implement the sorts
of features that you would encounter in a "high end PBX" -- but,
operating over IP networks (instead of hard-wired copper to the
PBX!). Contrast this with Skype's protocol...
It lets you initiate calls, receive calls, "transfer" calls, etc.
(calls can be all sorts of multimedia, not just "voice").
Just like having a HTTP-capable browser allows you to view
web pages, a SIP-enabled IP phone lets you participate in
voice comms over IP. E.g., you could have a gopher-enabled
client to access similar types of information "on the 'net"
but it wouldn't be able to access information served in HTTP
format! (similarly, an HTTP-enabled client/browser wouldn't be
able to access gopher services -- if any are still running! :> )
All you need to know is whether or not the handset you are using
to make your calls (or the ATA, etc. acting on your behalf)
supports SIP.
I appreciate your effort, but the issues of the protocol are not what
I'm asking about. The VoIP provider talks about "Free outgoing SIP
calls". I need to know what this means in their context.
I'm not sure I can deal with a company that has no phone support, no
email contact, in fact, no contact info at all! WTF???!!!