In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

To me it seems rather selfish for you to make calls at no cost with no regard to what it might cost for someone to call you when you don't have an alternative landline style number.

Not sure anyone makes calls for free, do they? inclusive or unlimited minutes increases the monthly cost of a package so technically not free but if you have a way then please share how to do it. I won't be engaging in a discussion about people being selfish as that probably won't end well.

You can open an account with Voipfone for absolutely no cost but you will need a laptop or mobile phone to make and receive calls. Likewise a family member can do the same. VoIP to VoIP calls on the Voipfone platform are free. With zero call credit you can actually call any other Voipfone subscriber using their landline number.

We gave up trying to get them to work on our corp network, and we ended up with 6 ADSL lines in one building each one for a dedicated SureSignal. Couldn’t get Voda corporate to do anything in less than 18months and we were leaving the site in 12, but when execs scream their phones don’t work, you get them working.

WiFi calling would have been so much easier!😂

That's pretty standard fare for any VoiP provider - free on-net calls.

Now if you know of any decent ones with (free / bilateral ) VoIP peering capability, that is net to net - now that would be interesting 😃

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

You can open an account with Voipfone for absolutely no cost but you will need a laptop or mobile phone to make and receive calls. Likewise a family member can do the same. VoIP to VoIP calls on the Voipfone platform are free. With zero call credit you can actually call any other Voipfone subscriber using their landline number.

On a light-hearted note, you're one of the only people I know who uses Voipfone so I may need your number, so I have someone to call 🤣

In reply to a post by dect:

On a light-hearted note, you're one of the only people I know who uses Voipfone so I may need your number, so I have someone to call 🤣

Spoken in jest, but you make it sound like hardly anyone uses Voipfone. OK they had a series of major outages a while back but I've always thought they appeared to be one of the better VoIP providers. Probably not the cheapest but they appear to be a decent choice

Can you think of any reasons why I should change my mind as they're on the list for when I have to move to VoIP/Cloud Phone or whatever the marketing 'droids decide to call it that week.

Edited by Tacitus (Sun 18-Sep-22 13:47:41)

In reply to a post by Tacitus:

but you make it sound like hardly anyone uses Voipfone. OK they had a series of major outages a while back but I've always thought they appeared to be one of the better VoIP providers. Probably not the cheapest but they appear to be a decent choice

Can you think of any reasons why I should change my mind as they're on the list for when I have to move to VoIP/Cloud Phone or whatever the marketing 'droids decide to call it that week.

I mean no disrespect to Voipfone as I would have the same issue with any VOIP provider if I was purely limited to free VOIP calls, they would be on my short list but I personally think they are too expensive for my needs but thats just my personal choice. As I have said before I use a different provider for incoming call than I do for outgoing so I wouldn't be wanting to pay Voipfone monthly charges for just incoming calls.

Edited by deleted (Sun 18-Sep-22 15:10:47)

Since I joined Sipgate Basic/Starter I have been a very light user, (ie. around £1.50 per month), but I have made a few calls now and then. - That said; the business model where accounts can sit there and never ever make a call seems to be unsustainable. - No critisicm of those who have used the system in that way since that was totally allowable under the rules but it does not seem to be sustainable..

At present the theory is that Sipgate will try to move existing Sipgate Starter customers to their light business offering next year at an additional cost of around £10.00 per month which is a riddiculous idea. - As I understand it no one has been notified of this change but new Sipgate customers cannot sign up to Sipgate Starter.

From my viewpoint Sipgate have for the most part been OK: they never seem to answer the phone but they do respond to emails after a few days. However, there are also negatives; ie. they try to lock you into an automatic card crediting system once you agree to it, (which you then need to contact them to remove it at their end which is whiffy), and if there is any money in the account when you leave there is a potention £6.00 fee with various hoops to jump through to get any money over £6.00 back but other than that they have generally been OK and I would probably stay with them if they had a more competative residential offering.

It seems that Sipgate's competitors have monthly fees of around zero pounds for pay as you go / £1.00 for pay as you go / £5.00 with inclusive minutes / £10.00 with inclusive minutes and most of the competitors seem better at answering the phone but some of whom have had cyclical reliability issues previously;

https://www.ukvoipforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=6

As above it seems that Sipgate in trying to push their residential customers onto a costly light business accout with a £10.00 monthly cost which seems like a Brain Fart and my guess is that they will come to their senses and may introduce a new type of Sipgate Starter for Residential Users with either a small monthly fee of around £1.00 per month or a £5.00 monthly fee that included 500 minutes of free calls. (I have no basis for this guess but should they not introduce something of this type they will no doubt hemorage customers).

For me; the main competitor to my VOIP line is my Mobile phone contract which already has unused inclusive minutes and with a £10.00 per month charge for a VOIP Phone fee for nothing I would probably just give up the VOIP phone and would just use the mobile phones instead but a VOIP cost of £5.00 per month, (as long as it included at least 500 inclusive minutes per month and an extreemly low VOIP call cost after that, would be within a range of acceptability.

Regards,
Fido

TBH I would have put Sipgate on my list. For residential use I too am a fairly light user, so Sipgate would have been ideal.

A&A also look good but I'm a bit put off by their use of Direct Debit. VoIP is hackable and it would be reasonable to be able to set a monthly limit on call costs. A limit on time/cost for individual calls doesn't do it since it would be possible for a hacker to rack up a number of relatively short calls and a large bill in a short time.

At present I pay iDNet £6/month for unlimited calls via PSTN. None of the VoIP providers will come anywhere near matching that. iDNet's current bundled VoIP offer is £15/month (inc vat), unlimited calls on a 2 year contract which includes a Yealink DECT base with one handset.

Perfectly reasonable offer but I already have a Gigaset base and handsets which will do both PSTN and VoIP. AFAICT Yealink DECT uses their own version of cat-iq which is not compatible with anyone else, so I would be buying a base plus additional handsets which I don't need. See RHS of the datasheet here:

https://www.yealink.com/website-service/attachment/p...

I can see iDNet's reasoning for standardising on one set of hardware to minimise support calls, but I don't need the hardware. Their call though.

In reply to a post by Tacitus:

A&A also look good but I'm a bit put off by their use of Direct Debit. VoIP is hackable and it would be reasonable to be able to set a monthly limit on call costs. A limit on time/cost for individual calls doesn't do it since it would be possible for a hacker to rack up a number of relatively short calls and a large bill in a short time.

Surely they are obligated (by the terms of the DD scheme) to work with you on any disputed bills prior to taking payment through the DD process.

I think you're probably correct, but IMHO it would be better to prevent it happening rather than have the hassle after the problem occurs.