Im looking for discussions from those who have had VOIP service for MORE THAN 6 MONTHS!! (As you are the best reviewers)

I am one who has been on VOIP for about 2 years now and it is utter crap!!

The network keeps dropping calls,the level of audio is slihtly lower than a landline and its just not as secure going over the internet and all!!

You can get basically the same UNLIMITED PLAN (http://www.phonetvinternet.com/phone-service/landline.php) with one of these long distance companies for US/CANADA and maybe more and have MUCH BETTER quality of service!!

I wouldnt mind ditching this VOIP crap and getting back where stuff sounds good and the network is reliable!!

Who are you with? :)

VOIP can sound fantastic, or terrible, I've experienced both ends of the spectrum.

Here are a couple things I would look at:

1) What connection is this over? I had a ton of VOIP issues until I got a high-quality connection via FIOS. For whatever reason I always had issues with my Comcast internet connection and VOIP. Watch your utilization rate as well, if your line is saturated then the call quality is going to stink.

2) What's your ping time to your provider? See if you can figure out where their trunk is and if you have irregular pings. I've heard it's more important to have consistent pings then the lowest ping.

3) Maybe your provider stinks? In my area it seems that everyone who has Comcast telephone has issues (sorry, not trying to slam Comcast here).

Regards,
Jerret

I am using MagicJack for last one year, considering the distance between USA & India and the 256Kbps DSL at my end, the voice quality is crystal clear and no delay/latency/echo.

Who are you with? :)Yes it might be that too!!

We have Time warner and they are complete crap...... Nothing really good to say about ANYTHING THEY PROVIDE!!

Quality of Service for VoIP has many factors
#1 Bandwidth - data loss, consistent delay characteristics (called jitter), latency leading to echo
#2 Network Equipment - Some of the routers that you buy in BestBuy for $50 and trying to use in office with 10 people for Voice and Data simply will not work.
#3 You - A lot of us thinking that you know a lot about network and you trying to go an tweak something that already works... and this is causing a problem. Simply don't touch if it works if it does not, call your service provider they can help.

P.S. There is no such thing as a QoS over a public internet! If your VoIP service provider tells you that they do a QoS for you over public internet it is a BS. You can only control a QoS with VoIP if you have a P2P line from your VoIP Provider in many cases in now days VoIP and Data are from the same vendor than thous guys can control your QoS.

If you see a router like D-Link or Linksys that has a "QoS" this is just making a priority your traffic and in many cases it just making more problems for your communication.

Personally I've been using VoIP at home for quite a while now. By using Asterisk I have been able to select the best providers for incoming and outgoing calls, as well as have multiple numbers. I use a digital cordless phone connected to my VoIP router and the call quality is just as good as using my landline 99.9% of the time. It takes a little bit of setup, and I still pay line rental & my broadband bill, and while I wouldn't 100% rely on VoIP for my calls any time soon, I am using it for around 80% of the calls I make and I have managed to save quite a bit of money :)

Good service - very happy. There are some good and some bad. It's certainly getting better in general. Part of it depends on the quality of your internet connection.

I've been with Teleblend for over a year now and am very satisfied with their VOIP service. I have not had any downtime or any quality problems.