We are trying out a new option here. I find that skype in the evening is often not good - too much internet activity in the neighbourhood I think. With VOIP we can call landlines and it essentially gives us a second phone line (for outgoing calls only though). If we make the premature teenagers (8 going on 16) use that line, then it keeps the main line free for incoming calls.
So we are going to trial ecomtel’s VOIP to see what the quality is like. One can do it as a prepaid trial, but I have gone for postpaid so it will appear on the bill and for convenience. There is a $5 monthly charge, but one can cancel any time. The prepaid mobile rates seem cheaper (0.25c) but then there is the inconvenience of having to top up …hmmm
Voip Rates to South Africa are the cheapest I’ve seen and local and national calls are 10c untimed. Calls to mobiles are 29c minute and to other evoip users free (just add 010 to the front of their voip a/c number). Compare to ecomtel’s landline rates which are also not too bad. Skype is not bad either.
If the quality is good enough, we can invest in equipment to make the calling process easier. It tags on to the internet connection and you plug your phone either into the normal landline jack or the VOIP one. Or one could get a ADSL modem that has phone jacks and QOS (Quality of Service) that will prioritise the voice traffic over the internet traffic.
For now we are going to use a “soft phone” with headsets on the PC’s and upgrade later if the quality is ok, and see what difference it makes to costs.
Internode has have a voip option where one can receive calls too, however the call costs are not as cheap, and theirr equipment is slightly more expensive, however may be better when we want to upggrade (has support for Extreme ADSL and some of the options have QOS built-in.
There are some places that offer a way to port a local number to the VOIP phone. This would allow incoming calls. Mynetphone also offer a good package (you can receive calls on some options), but their South african calls are more expensive. (Maybe a combination one day?)
An update
The evoip quality has not great (although we do not have the modem setup that allows us to ensure that the voice stuff gets priority over the internet or data transmissions). The voip or stype call quality can depend on many things (your broadband plan as well as your hardware (and your providers). Here is another fairly good discussion that goes into even more detail, particularly around which codecs are used. To test your current situation try http://www.testyourvoip.com. They have a java application that will make a call using your connection and report the quality. Ours is so-so, which is kind of what we have experienced so far anyway. We have a not very high speed broadband connection and no tailored voip hardware.
I disabled the prepaid ($5/month) but then my partner started workingfrom home when sick and hogging the phone, so I then when for the $5 prepaid as an option and set it up on the kids PC too. As backup phone it is useful without having to pay full line rental rates.
This whirlpool forum discussion on providers may be useful. It seems that what most folk do is have a variety of providers for different uses.