Disney Mobile calls it Quits

At 01 Oct 2007 17:14:01 +0000 dold@86.usenet.us.com wrote:

> Don't forget the bluetooth headsets. Those work fine for cordless
VoIP.


True. Re-pairing everytime I switch between phone and PC is a
hassle, tho'. I guess that's an excuse to buy more earpieces! ;-)


> Who would one of these "more typical" SIP providers be?


The small-fry- Voicestick, OneSuite, callwithus.com, etc.

> Callvantage seems Vonage-like, in that you are tied to one ATA, with
> silliness about E911 registering if there is a disturbance on the
> network.
> The softphone not only costs extra, it is a different number!
> The quality of the CallVantage calls is poor enough that it isn't
> suitable for a home phone replacement, but it is cheap, at $19.99
> for unlimited US-LD and good rates worldwide.

But with some pay-as-you go VoIPs charging $0.015/minute or less, you
need to be using 1000-1500/minutes a month or more for that $19.99 to
be a good deal.


> I've also thought about a Skype handheld like the Netgear
> SPH200W-100NAS, but haven't even begun to research that.

The problem with most if not all WiFi VoIP phones is the lack of web
browser. Too many public WiFi APs (including most hotels) require
you toagree to a TOS page in a browser before you get access to the
'net. This wipes out the ability for those phones to connect. When
I want to Skype over WiFi when traveling, I use my Pocket PC.

> My attempts at SkypeOut were less than satisfying a couple of years
> ago. I use Skype PC-PC quite well worldwide.

Skype's improved quite a bit in the connection to POTS department, IMO.
I just can't take a "phone" service seriously that needs my PC on to
work. (While the WiFi phones are cute, I like being able to hook
"real phones" into a VoIP box.)


> I had no problem with reliability, but quality is poor on
Callvantage. My
> housemates didn't like 10 digit dialing. Not 7, not 11, 10.

That can be fixed with most ATA boxes in their setup by editing the
"dialplan." (It tells the box to fill in the "missing" digits if
only seven are dialed, or drop the leading "1" if 11.


> Callvantage was easy to wire as a whole-house replacement for
landline.
> Unplug one wire, plug in another wire. No drama, no skills required.



Many people often forget the "unhook the local telco's line from the
entrance bridge/test interface" part and fry a perfectly good VoIP
box!



--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Larry wrote:
> George <george@nospam.invalid> wrote in
> news:wKudnRvss85HsJzanZ2dnUVZ_hydnZ2d@comcast.com:
>
>> And quite accurately. There is no 911 on Skpye.
>>
>>
>
> So what? Noone needs 911 service on Skype with their SELLPHONE in their
> hand loaded with its GPS!

911 service allows ER personnel to come directly to your house. The GPS,
especially on GSM phones, is not accurate enough to pin-point the location.

Skype is skating on thin ice with regards to the FCC rules on E911
service. "Skype is not a home phone replacement -- it's a supplement to
your home phone service."

Larry wrote:
> George <george@nospam.invalid> wrote in
> news:wKudnRvss85HsJzanZ2dnUVZ_hydnZ2d@comcast.com:
>
>> And quite accurately. There is no 911 on Skpye.
>>
>>
>
> So what? Noone needs 911 service on Skype with their SELLPHONE in their
> hand loaded with its GPS!
>
> Duhh.....
>
> Larry
You specifically stated that it isn't true that Skype doesn't have 911.
The whole point of 911 is that *every* telephone device should have it.
Just because you have a cellphone doesn't mean Skype has 911. How
about emergencies or the elderly, children or visitors who may not know
or have the time to think "lets see, There is this Mickey Mouse Skype
service on this phone so it doesn't have 911 so I need to get the
cellphone."

I have a relative who is alive today because of 911. He came home and
his wife was still out. He said he suddenly felt strange, dialed 911,
dropped the phone and *died*. They sent the police and paramedics and
they were able to restart his heart and bring him to the hospital.

ultimauw@hotmail.com wrote:

> I think Cell Phones are starting to kill off the land lines en masse.
> Just 10 years ago, it was *rare* to see anybody except business folks
> with cell phones, now there are so ubiquitous that even pre-teens
> usualy have one. The only appeal of services like Vonage is the price,

The average Vonage customer pays $28.38. Maybe this is a good price in
some parts of the country, if you make a lot of long-distance calls at
the ridiculous rates that AT&T charges for them. Of course you also have
to have broadband to your house, either cable, ($50/month in my area for
Comcast broadband), or DSL, at about $30 for naked DSL or $15+local
phone service.

My local phone bill is about $17/month from AT&T. $11 (Vonage price-$17)
would buy 440 minutes of long distance on a provider like OneSuite
(2.5¢.minute). How many non-business users make 440 minutes of long
distance during peak times? Complicating things further for Vonage, is
free in-network calling on most cell phone plans. within circles of
friends and relatives that call each other a lot, the tendency is to all
migrate to the same cellular provider.

Vonage is like many products and services that base their entire
business model on comparing their prices to what the most naive consumer
would pay for competing products and services. It's like the
advertisements that quote the MSRP for a product, then add the
disclaimer that the product "may never have been sold at the MSRP."

Even more ridiculous than Vonage, is Skype, but for different reasons.
The average revenue per Skype user is estimated at 12-13¢/month, because
almost no one uses it for anything other than free computer to computer
calls. Skype gets away with not providing E911 capability because they
claim that it's not a substitute for a landline. Unfortunately for eBay,
they have the data to prove that this is the case.

At 02 Oct 2007 06:32:16 -0700 SMS wrote:

> The average Vonage customer pays $28.38. Maybe this is a good price
> in some parts of the country, if you make a lot of long-distance
> calls at the ridiculous rates that AT&T charges for them.

That'satually a goo price in MANY pats the country.

> Of course you also have to have broadband to your house, either
> cable, ($50/month in my area for Comcast broadband), or DSL, at
> about $30 for naked DSL or $15+local phone service.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that broadband+Vonage is cheaper
than POTS alone, only that if you're going to pay for broadband anyway,
you canvleverage it with VoIP for a little savings.


> My local phone bill is about $17/month from AT&T. $11 (Vonage price-
$17)

re you including all of the fees in that $17? My local seevice from
Qwest (Denver) is "only" $24.99, but that's before taxes (about $4)
and fees (about a buck for E911 and $6 for "interconnect fees")
bringing me to $36-37. Vonage is $25/month (the "average revenue per
customer" has no meaning in this discussion since we're not using the
"avearge" landline customer to compare them to.) and only has a
couple of bucks in taxes.

> would buy 440 minutes of long distance on a provider like OneSuite
> (2.5¢.minute). How many non-business users make 440 minutes of
> long distance during peak times?

Not the issue- you have far cheaper POTS services available to you
than most of us do- clearly a $25 VoIP isn't competitive THERE. Even
Qwest @ $36 is a vacation compared to the rural phone company I had
in Missouri- I paid over $50/month for LOCAL service with what is now
Embarq (Sprint/Union Telephone when I was there.)

Add to that a couple of bucks for LD service (the monthly fee for my
LD service before I make my first call) has risen from $0.99 to over
$3/month, bringing my "local" service to about $40.

> Complicating things further for Vonage, is free in-network calling
> on most cell phone plans. within circles of friends and relatives
> that call each other a lot, the tendency is to all migrate to the
> same cellular provider.


I'm surethat's a powerful marketing tool for many, but I've never
once in 20 years with cellphones, ever based my carrier choice based
on friend's or family's network.


> Vonage is like many products and services that base their entire
> business model on comparing their prices to what the most naive
> consumer would pay for competing products and services. It's like
> the advertisements that quote the MSRP for a product, then add
> the disclaimer that the product "may never have been sold at the
MSRP."


True, but Vonage is the li
e the AOL of VoIP- it's "VoIP for Dummies;" glossy brochures,
preconfigured hardware, you can buy it in stores- it Commands it's
price based on ease and convenience. Other VoIPs are cheaper, but
lack the capital and infrastrucre Vonage has (ok, had!) ;-)


> Even more ridiculous than Vonage, is Skype, but for different
> reasons. The average revenue per Skype user is estimated at
> 12-13¢/month, because almost no one uses it for anything other than
> free computer to computer calls. Skype gets away with not
> providing E911 capability because they claim that it's not a
> substitute for a landline. Unfortunately for eBay, they have the
> data to prove that this is the case.

Other than Larry, no one considers Skype as a VoIP player- they're
really a glorified IM program on steroids.



--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Todd Allcock wrote:

> I don't think anyone is suggesting that broadband+Vonage is cheaper
> than POTS alone, only that if you're going to pay for broadband anyway,
> you canvleverage it with VoIP for a little savings.

Perhaps, though if you're paying for broadband anyway, Voicestick is a
better deal than Vonage, and is likely to be around longer since they
seem to have a business plan that doesn't rely on massive advertising
with annoying background sounds. Voicestick also has some features than
Vonage lacks.

Actually, I probably could run Vonage or Voicestick over our free
community wireless network, if it'd work at only 1Mb/s, but the
reliability is a big factor.

In alt.cellular.cingular Todd Allcock <elecconnec@americaonline.com> wrote:
> At 01 Oct 2007 17:14:01 +0000 dold@86.usenet.us.com wrote:
> > Don't forget the bluetooth headsets. Those work fine for cordless
> VoIP.
> True. Re-pairing everytime I switch between phone and PC is a
> hassle, tho'. I guess that's an excuse to buy more earpieces! ;-)

I bought two, after going through the re-pairing excerise a couple of
times. I have a pocket sized headset for cellular, and a larger headset
for PC. Plantronics touts their ability to switch seamlessly.

> > Who would one of these "more typical" SIP providers be?
> The small-fry- Voicestick, OneSuite, callwithus.com, etc.

Darn. I want name recognition and flexibility from the same vendor. ;-(

> need to be using 1000-1500/minutes a month or more for that $19.99 to
> be a good deal.

I was using it as my home phone replacement, so with unlimited LD it was
cheaper than the basic landline.

> The problem with most if not all WiFi VoIP phones is the lack of web
> browser. Too many public WiFi APs (including most hotels) require
> you toagree to a TOS page in a browser before you get access to the
> 'net. This wipes out the ability for those phones to connect. When
> I want to Skype over WiFi when traveling, I use my Pocket PC.

I wonder if that's behind the T-Mobile "hotspot@home" signup. There's
something about pre-authorized hotspots. The Netgear page mentions some
ISP roaming standard.

> Skype's improved quite a bit in the connection to POTS department, IMO.

I expected that with the eBay involvement. At least they would be
US-centric. I have had Skype-out calls arrive at my home from Australia
and Germany in the last couple of days that sounded good, undetectable from
"being there". i should just cough up a few bucks and try it again.

> I just can't take a "phone" service seriously that needs my PC on to
> work. (While the WiFi phones are cute, I like being able to hook
> "real phones" into a VoIP box.)

A piece of software on the PC, or a standalone ATA... same-o.
Some of the other Skype WiFi phones are not self contained, and have a
widget to plug in. I plugged my "real" phones into the Callvantage ATA.
I don't mind it being PC-only. The WiFi phone might be less handy. I'd
carry more junk when I had the laptop already.

> > housemates didn't like 10 digit dialing. Not 7, not 11, 10.

> That can be fixed with most ATA boxes in their setup by editing the

I didn't see that with Callvantage. I think it was even answered as a FAQ
with "because that's the way it is" or words to that effect.

> > Unplug one wire, plug in another wire. No drama, no skills required.

> Many people often forget the "unhook the local telco's line from the
> entrance bridge/test interface" part and fry a perfectly good VoIP
> box!

That's just bad hardware design. There's no excuse for frying
telco-certified parts at telco-certified line voltages. Once upon a time,
I did some work where our gadget sat inline with telco, and we routed LD
calls, and let the local calls go through. We weren't trying to drive
volts out the same connector, but still. Nothing fried if you hooked it up
backwards. The ATA should be able to detect line voltage, and post a red
blinking error message on the management page.

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

At 02 Oct 2007 17:11:38 +0000 dold@86.usenet.us.com wrote:

> Darn. I want name recognition and flexibility from the same
vendor. ;-(


Sadly, I think you won't get that- I suspect advetising is the single
largest expense with the big guys like Vonage and CallVantage.


> I was using it as my home phone replacement, so with unlimited LD
it was
> cheaper than the basic landline.

Absolutely.


> I wonder if that's behind the T-Mobile "hotspot@home" signup.
There's
> something about pre-authorized hotspots.

No- the T-Mo service isn't really VoIP in the tradtional sense- it's
more like "GoIP"- the actual GSM packets are delivered via the
internet instead of over the air, which is why you can seamlessly
sWitch between WiFi and cellular mid-call.

> The Netgear page mentions some
> ISP roaming standard.


The T-Mo service has the same problem as the Skype phones- no way to
authenticate with a browser- you can put in a WEP/WPA key, but that's
about it.


> I expected that with the eBay involvement. At least they would be
> US-centric. I have had Skype-out calls arrive at my home from
Australia
> and Germany in the last couple of days that sounded good,
undetectable from
> "being there". i should just cough up a few bucks and try it again.


If you're going to lug the laptop around, why not? It's cheap
enough, and it works pretty well. If you have a PocketPC or Symbian-
based phone you can even use Skype from them.


> > I just can't take a "phone" service seriously that needs my PC
on to
> > work. (While the WiFi phones are cute, I like being able to hook
> > "real phones" into a VoIP box.)
>
> A piece of software on the PC, or a standalone ATA... same-o.


For traveling, no problem. For home landline replacement I'd rather
nothave it PC-based, all else being equal.

> Some of the other Skype WiFi phones are not self contained, and
have a
> widget to plug in. I plugged my "real" phones into the Callvantage
ATA.
> I don't mind it being PC-only. The WiFi phone might be less handy.
I'd
> carry more junk when I had the laptop already.


True enough!


> > That can be fixed with most ATA boxes in their setup by editing
the
>
> I didn't see that with Callvantage. I think it was even answered
as a FAQ
> with "because that's the way it is" or words to that effect.


Depends on what model ATA they use, orif they allow you to access the
settings. They might "lock" customers out of it to prevent them from
screwing things up.


> > > Unplug one wire, plug in another wire. No drama, no skills
required.
>
> > Many people often forget the "unhook the local telco's line from
the
> > entrance bridge/test interface" part and fry a perfectly good VoIP
> > box!
>
> That's just bad hardware design. There's no excuse for frying
> telco-certified parts at telco-certified line voltages.

Agreed, but many VoIP ATAs look like something hobbled together off
the parts wall at a RadioShack! ;-)


> Once upon a time,
> I did some work where our gadget sat inline with telco, and we
routed LD
> calls, and let the local calls go through. We weren't trying to
drive
> volts out the same connector, but still. Nothing fried if you
hooked it up
> backwards. The ATA should be able to detect line voltage, and post
a red
> blinking error message on the management page.

Agreed!

Take care!

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in
news:4701d442$0$79947$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> Larry wrote:
>> George <george@nospam.invalid> wrote in
>> news:wKudnRvss85HsJzanZ2dnUVZ_hydnZ2d@comcast.com:
>>
>>> And quite accurately. There is no 911 on Skpye.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> So what? Noone needs 911 service on Skype with their SELLPHONE in
>> their hand loaded with its GPS!
>
> 911 service allows ER personnel to come directly to your house. The
> GPS, especially on GSM phones, is not accurate enough to pin-point the
> location.
>
> Skype is skating on thin ice with regards to the FCC rules on E911
> service. "Skype is not a home phone replacement -- it's a supplement
> to your home phone service."
>

Notice how you completely fail to read my post......

YOU CALL 911 FROM YOUR SELLPHONE!! CELLPHONES NOW HAVE GPS IN THEM!!

THIS IS NO LONGER A PROBLEM FOR SKYPE!!!

DUHHH......(c;


Larry
--
Please - Turn OFF cruise control when
you turn on windshield wipers!

George <george@nospam.invalid> wrote in news:-
aKdnTlyf71CpJ_anZ2dnUVZ_i2dnZ2d@comcast.com:

> How
> about emergencies or the elderly, children or visitors who may not know
> or have the time to think "lets see, There is this Mickey Mouse Skype
> service on this phone so it doesn't have 911 so I need to get the
> cellphone."
>

There is noone here so hobbled without Sellular 911.

Those people, the elderly, children, etc., etc., don't even have
computers....so this "problem" brought up EVERY TIME by the SELLULAR
plants, is no problem at all.

I do have the cops programmed into my Skype, but that may be stupid, too.
My system has a 2KW UPS, so I may have internet to call on Skype, but
Sellular is much more reliable than any landline.

Here, try this test:

Go into some friend's house who has a landline phone. Cut off his main
circuit breaker, plunging the house into total darkness. Dial 911 and
see if you can contact them.

I've tried this test in many houses, not in reality but virtually. THEY
HAVE WIRELESS PHONES THAT REQUIRE 120VAC TO POWER THE BASE STATIONS!
They have 120VAC-powered superphones that WON'T MAKE THAT CALL in the
dark! Look around anyone's house and note all the phones that RUN ON
PHONE POWER ONLY....They're getting far between! You can't dial 911 on a
120VAC-powered phone!

Keep your Sellphone handy....(c;

Larry
--
Please - Turn OFF cruise control when
you turn on windshield wipers!