In case some of you haven't discovered it yet, and have a microphone
attached to your computer, you might consider Skype (skype.com). It is a
voice-over-internet-protocol service based in Europe that allows absolutely
free Skype user-to-user telephone calls, AND you can call out to land lines
for roughly $0.02 per minute. Those calls actually come from Europe, so
when calling a land line, you have to put a "+" and the country code ("1"
for the US) in from of the area code and number (e.g., the First Rays phone
number has to be dialed +12153409775).

My brother-in-law, the IT professional, turned me onto it while we were at
the beach, and I now have it on my home PC, my work laptop and my Pocket PC.
At work, the network managers have the particular ports blocked, but it
works if I use dial-up. Theoretically it has to have at least a 33.6k
connection, but I spoke to my brother-in-law just fine at 24k.

I spoke to my mother in Daytona Beach last night - she is anything but
computer literate - and she didn't even know I was using the computer!

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!

Hi, Ray,

How's the quality? My sister in NY uses a system like that sometimes, and I
could strangle her every time she calls me thru it. Lots of cut outs. From
what I've been hearing, though, the technology is improving.

Diana

I had a similar system and the problem is the conversation has to be
conducted so that only one person speaks at a time. If you both speak
at once you can not hear the other party ( similar to a radio
transmission or an over seas phone call and there is also an echo to
the speakers voice. I.E. you can hear your last word twice, I stopped
using it even though the calls were free.
Bob

With high-speed internet access, it's quite good. My brother-in-law, with
whom I tested the dial-up connection, said it wasn't bad at all.

Quality of the microphone does make a difference. I have a $15 Labtec.

There are over 1.8 million people online as I type this, and I've seen it a
million more and there have never been issues.

What's neat is that for $35 per year you can get a phone number for your
connection so land lines can call you, and for that again, an answering
service that works even when you're offline! Between my First Rays phone,
home phone, office phone and cell phone, all of which have both of those, I
don't see the need, but it's there if you need it.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
...
Hi, Ray,

How's the quality? My sister in NY uses a system like that sometimes, and
I could strangle her every time she calls me thru it. Lots of cut outs.
From what I've been hearing, though, the technology is improving.

Diana

LOL, that's probably the problem with my sister's system. She has high
speed, but she never stops talking! Thanks much for the info, Ray.

Diana

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 17:50:03 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:

With high-speed internet access, it's quite good. My brother-in-law, with
whom I tested the dial-up connection, said it wasn't bad at all.

Quality of the microphone does make a difference. I have a $15 Labtec.

There are over 1.8 million people online as I type this, and I've seen it a
million more and there have never been issues.

What's neat is that for $35 per year you can get a phone number for your
connection so land lines can call you, and for that again, an answering
service that works even when you're offline! Between my First Rays phone,
home phone, office phone and cell phone, all of which have both of those, I
don't see the need, but it's there if you need it.
As we speak I have replaced my land line Telephone Service with VOIP
I-Phone service and have had no reduction in quality. And for a flat
rate of $39 a month I can call anywhere in the US or Canada as often
and as long as I wish.

VOIP has advanced rapidly in quality and ubiquitous coverage. We use
it at work for controlling radios along the train tracks and for some
of our inter city telephone networking. That said there is a trade off
when using it over low speed data lines under 64KB such as dial up but
even there the newer compression algorithms have improved the
situation greatly.

Dave

One of the potential negatives is that VOIP providers do not (yet) have to
provide a 911 link. On a land line, it's pretty obvious where it's coming
from, but on the internet???

I am not advocating it for regular use, but it certainly has cut down the
cost of conversing with my Mom, or my wife and her sisters.

It seemed to be full-duplex when I spoke to my mother last night - no
cutting each other off.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Dave Fouchey" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 17:50:03 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:

With high-speed internet access, it's quite good. My brother-in-law, with
whom I tested the dial-up connection, said it wasn't bad at all.

Quality of the microphone does make a difference. I have a $15 Labtec.

There are over 1.8 million people online as I type this, and I've seen it
a
million more and there have never been issues.

What's neat is that for $35 per year you can get a phone number for your
connection so land lines can call you, and for that again, an answering
service that works even when you're offline! Between my First Rays phone,
home phone, office phone and cell phone, all of which have both of those,
I
don't see the need, but it's there if you need it.
As we speak I have replaced my land line Telephone Service with VOIP
I-Phone service and have had no reduction in quality. And for a flat
rate of $39 a month I can call anywhere in the US or Canada as often
and as long as I wish.

VOIP has advanced rapidly in quality and ubiquitous coverage. We use
it at work for controlling radios along the train tracks and for some
of our inter city telephone networking. That said there is a trade off
when using it over low speed data lines under 64KB such as dial up but
even there the newer compression algorithms have improved the
situation greatly.

Dave

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 18:41:45 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:

One of the potential negatives is that VOIP providers do not (yet) have to
provide a 911 link. On a land line, it's pretty obvious where it's coming
from, but on the internet???

I am not advocating it for regular use, but it certainly has cut down the
cost of conversing with my Mom, or my wife and her sisters.

It seemed to be full-duplex when I spoke to my mother last night - no
cutting each other off.
FCC has recently mandated 911 support be provided by VOIP providers
Ray that problem should be corrected shortly. Dave

I had heard it was being worked on, but I didn't know the law had passed.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Dave Fouchey" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 18:41:45 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:

One of the potential negatives is that VOIP providers do not (yet) have to
provide a 911 link. On a land line, it's pretty obvious where it's coming
from, but on the internet???

I am not advocating it for regular use, but it certainly has cut down the
cost of conversing with my Mom, or my wife and her sisters.

It seemed to be full-duplex when I spoke to my mother last night - no
cutting each other off.
FCC has recently mandated 911 support be provided by VOIP providers
Ray that problem should be corrected shortly. Dave

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 18:55:49 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:

I had heard it was being worked on, but I didn't know the law had passed.
Rule Change to existing Law Ray, We had to provide 911 Address for all
our VOIP locations.

Dave

I saw a news piece recent in which folks died because their VOIP provider
did not offer 911 calling. In the article, it was stated that it was not
presently required.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Dave Fouchey" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 18:55:49 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:

I had heard it was being worked on, but I didn't know the law had passed.
Rule Change to existing Law Ray, We had to provide 911 Address for all
our VOIP locations.

Dave

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 13:04:25 -0400 in Ray wrote:

My brother-in-law, the IT professional, turned me onto it while we were at
the beach, and I now have it on my home PC, my work laptop and my Pocket PC.
At work, the network managers have the particular ports blocked, but it
works if I use dial-up. Theoretically it has to have at least a 33.6k
connection, but I spoke to my brother-in-law just fine at 24k.

Talk with your brother in law. If you have broadband at home, odds are
he can find something that'll let you tunnel through most firewalls
using the https port (Instant messenger ports are also frequently wide
open with respect to destination IP address).
However, if you work for a company in the financial industry (Bank,
brokerage company, insurance company, General Motors), DO NOT DO THIS.

--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 20:17:45 -0400 in Ray wrote:
I saw a news piece recent in which folks died because their VOIP provider
did not offer 911 calling. In the article, it was stated that it was not
presently required.

I could be mistaken, but the last big one of those in the news was
because the customer failed to follow the instructions of providing
information to the voip provider so that 911 service could be provided.
If you opt for something like that, call 911 and let them know that
you are testing to make sure 911 1) Works and 2) is going to the right
center. Check back issues of Risks Digest (comp.risks) for details.

That said, if an ice storm or hurricane takes out power over an extensive
area you may not have enough juice to get to your ISP, and your ISP
might be lacking juice as well. Your Plain Old Telephone Service
will frequently still be working so that family members can call at
4am to check to see if you're dead from hypothermia or hydrogen monoxide
poisoning. To be fair, my POTS tends to go out when lightning hits the
substation next to the phone bunker for my area.

--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil

Ray wrote:
I saw a news piece recent in which folks died because their VOIP provider
did not offer 911 calling. In the article, it was stated that it was not
presently required.


I guess I'm safe, because I still only have dialup at home, and they
aren't going to be fixing that anytime soon... I suppose I could do
VOIP over dialup, but that seems kind of silly. *grin*

Rob

--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit

An alternative for Skype is available in the US. More information is
available at www.livephone.us

We've used "Stanaphone" to supplement our telephone.
Our area is unique because the internet provider requires telephone
service for the high speed connection.

The program download for the "softphone" is free, calls between
Stanaphone users is free, and calls in the US are less than $.02 per
minutes.

Quality is much better than the older version of "Bamba phone" and
others, even though it is half duplex. That is pretty standard anymore
using cordless and cell phones. I know when my parents canary was
singing they could not hear me talk. They were using their main
telephone back in the late 1990's.