Who else thinks VOIP sucks?

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We've recently migrated from real telephone service at work to VOIP.
Really not sure why since I can't see much in the way of cost savings to make up for the loss in reliability, especially since we're actually paying to lease these cheap Cisco phones that can be purchased for less than a hundred bucks each. But then what do I know? I'm only a fiscal guy who deals with numbers all day long.
Sound quality is very tinny, so degraded service quality is also a part of the deal.
Another disadvantage is that when the network went down, you always had a phone as a backup. That will no longer be the case and we don't have anything close to 95% network reliability.
So far, I'm not too impressed and I think that the IT folks got sold a bill of goods by a vendor and they in turn retailed it to the senior decision makers.
We'll see how this probably permanent experiment works out.
I'm thankful to be very close to that permanent vacation known as retirement.
 
Yup I can't stand digital phones. There's actually a few research papers put out by the IECC that explain how the typical VOIP protocol just fails when it comes to transmitting audio clarity.

But it isn't worth fighting. The bulk of society basically said "ooh shiny new" and accepted VOIP, so now it seems like every call has at least one person saying "I could barely hear you" or a blip in network reliability means the sound comes through like a robot voice.

A few years back I did some consulting for a client who let me use an old dusty desk in a dark corner, but the phone at that desk was a proper analog phone on a real analog line. I couldn't believe how well I could hear people on calls! Even the fancy Polycom VOIP unit in the conference room with 3x the loudness couldn't match the signal quality of that old analog line.
 
I spend plenty time overseas and often in places not up to speed (sorry) on communication … Skype for Business saves the day with very clear voice from my little Dell notebook …
 
We have Vonage at home over the I'Net through Xfinity. You can't tell the difference between Vonage and Pac-Bell. Clear as a bell and all the audio quality you could ask for.

I'd be looking for another service, if I was in your shoes ...

It's good because when we have a power outage, Vonage takes the messages until they see their device back on line. Email transcribed to my wife's laptop and with an audio reminder that we have messages. Can login and listen if we want, etc.

They have a business side too. Vonage for Business. Can do lots of stuff like teleconferences, etc. X number of minutes of nationwide calling in the plan, Y number of minutes within NAFTA, and overseas is not bad at all
smile.gif
 
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I hate VOIP phones. We have them at work and I have a terrible time hearing anyone. Also hate when someone calls on Bluetooth and I have to hear the echo through their car stereo.
 
It's probably your Adapter. I'm using a Linksys SPA-1001 instead of the widely pushed other garbage adapters on the market like Grandstream and it's perfect. I regularly use it and I can't remember when I rebooted the adapter last it has been so long. It has no problem ringing an old phone with a real bell and I can hear everyone and they can hear me with the same clarity as a standard land-line. I have even faxed using this with the VOIP setting on my fax machine it's that good. It had previously failed with other VOIP adapters like Grandstream.

Unlocked-SPA1001-phone-adapter-Linksys-voip-gateway.jpg
 
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I use skype on linux at home; very clear, much better than POTS.

However, @ work we now are supposed to use skype for business (not even related to consumer skype) and we have to do it thru our underpowered PCs. The first five minutes of every conference call is dealing with sound issues, echoes (w/o John Diliberto) People quitting apps etc to get decent sound. Speaker phone, another 5 minutes. Guy on the call says we should get bluetooth headsets except we don't have 'unmanaged wireless' connections.

Giant step in the WRONG direction for what used to be just something to use (phone); now we have to fiddle with junk for basic communication
 
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Originally Posted By: fdcg27
We've recently migrated from real telephone service at work to VOIP.
Really not sure why since I can't see much in the way of cost savings to make up for the loss in reliability, especially since we're actually paying to lease these cheap Cisco phones that can be purchased for less than a hundred bucks each. But then what do I know? I'm only a fiscal guy who deals with numbers all day long.
Sound quality is very tinny, so degraded service quality is also a part of the deal.
Another disadvantage is that when the network went down, you always had a phone as a backup. That will no longer be the case and we don't have anything close to 95% network reliability.
So far, I'm not too impressed and I think that the IT folks got sold a bill of goods by a vendor and they in turn retailed it to the senior decision makers.
We'll see how this probably permanent experiment works out.
I'm thankful to be very close to that permanent vacation known as retirement.


Wow, I could have written this about my place of work. Exactly. Except that I am retired.

I spent the last few years sticking one finger in the other ear, trying to hear people over the tinny, [censored] phones. I called it Fisher Price Baby's First Phone. Even the decision maker said it was a mistake to rip out the POTS lines and go with this. But too late now!
 
We have no complaints with the main VOIP service at work; the audio is quite good and dynamic. although we do have some issues with some people using VOIP headsets on the laptops when remote; I'm guessing that some people are still running DSL and/or have other items fighting bandwidth and causing BT interference.
my home phone is Ooma and I'm also happy with it.

do you have to watch any group at work who pushes a solution. before my time, my work was "sold" on installing a major ERP system with the falsehood that it could all be installed in X time with only X dollars and that it would save money in the long run. WRONG on all counts. seriously though - who believed the sales pitch?!?!?!? everyone in the decision chain should own responsibility for that mistake! I could have told them that!!!
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
We've recently migrated from real telephone service at work to VOIP.
Really not sure why since I can't see much in the way of cost savings to make up for the loss in reliability, especially since we're actually paying to lease these cheap Cisco phones that can be purchased for less than a hundred bucks each. But then what do I know? I'm only a fiscal guy who deals with numbers all day long.
Sound quality is very tinny, so degraded service quality is also a part of the deal.
Another disadvantage is that when the network went down, you always had a phone as a backup. That will no longer be the case and we don't have anything close to 95% network reliability.
So far, I'm not too impressed and I think that the IT folks got sold a bill of goods by a vendor and they in turn retailed it to the senior decision makers.
We'll see how this probably permanent experiment works out.
I'm thankful to be very close to that permanent vacation known as retirement.

Somebody dropped the ball big time in implementation and min/max usage of funds...
missing:
-backup internet connection with automatic switching if main line fail.
-internet bandwidth allocation from main line or enough to handle X users with Y connections at the same time....

believe it or not, even the firms offering implementations have a lot of guys not knowing a LOT....
 
Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
I use skype on linux at home; very clear, much better than POTS.

However, @ work we now are supposed to use skype for business (not even related to consumer skype) and we have to do it thru our underpowered PCs. The first five minutes of every conference call is dealing with sound issues, echoes (w/o John Diliberto) People quitting apps etc to get decent sound. Speaker phone, another 5 minutes. Guy on the call says we should get bluetooth headsets except we don't have 'unmanaged wireless' connections.

Giant step in the WRONG direction for what used to be just something to use (phone); now we have to fiddle with junk for basic communication

Any chance you can get at least your computer HDD upgraded to an SSD?
any extra RAM would help too....
I just pray you don't have to use 32-bit operating system....
 
Originally Posted By: tomcat27
We have no complaints with the main VOIP service at work; the audio is quite good and dynamic. although we do have some issues with some people using VOIP headsets on the laptops when remote; I'm guessing that some people are still running DSL and/or have other items fighting bandwidth and causing BT interference.


Hotels wifi.... or cellular wifi

Originally Posted By: tomcat27
... before my time, my work was "sold" on installing a major ERP system with the falsehood that it could all be installed in X time with only X dollars and that it would save money in the long run. WRONG on all counts. seriously though - who believed the sales pitch?!?!?!? everyone in the decision chain should own responsibility for that mistake! I could have told them that!!!


YOU TOO BROTHER?!

The best story I have is I left my former place because of no pay increase. After 3.5 years, many people, consultants, team managers, the implementation is not yet finished. And they expected me to do it??? one guy???
 
Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
We have Vonage at home over the I'Net through Xfinity. You can't tell the difference between Vonage and Pac-Bell. Clear as a bell and all the audio quality you could ask for.

I'd be looking for another service, if I was in your shoes ...

It's good because when we have a power outage, Vonage takes the messages until they see their device back on line. Email transcribed to my wife's laptop and with an audio reminder that we have messages. Can login and listen if we want, etc.

They have a business side too. Vonage for Business. Can do lots of stuff like teleconferences, etc. X number of minutes of nationwide calling in the plan, Y number of minutes within NAFTA, and overseas is not bad at all
smile.gif



I have had Vonage for several years. The sound is great assuming you have decent bandwidth. They transcribe voicemails to emails and I have a Vonage app on smartphone that allows it to act as an extension to my home phone. I have received calls to my home phone in Mexico on vacation.
 
For all those quick to defend current VOIP tech, are you telling me this has never happened to you?

(the video is an exaggeration but it illustrates the problem)
 
voip is fantastic, don't blame the technology when your IT department is a complete failure.

Seriously, under 95% network reliability is trash-tier.
 
Originally Posted By: leje0306
For those unaware, smart phones produced in the last three years use the same technologies.


yeah.... and just wait till the carriers FORCE you to use VoLTE, like verizon when they decommission the voice side of their CDMA network at the tail end of 2019. I always make sure Wifi calling and VoLTE are disabled unless needed.

Biggest Issues I've seen with VOIP are having to do with poor implementation (network redundancies/bad wiring or equipment/overtaxed network/bandwidth issues/poor QoS implementation, etc.) and of course, having a [censored] ISP doesn't help. Analog PBX systems worked and worked well for a LONG time, but they're complicated, messy, and (sigh...) antiquated. I will admit that comcast has really hammered out a lot of reliability issues we've had in the past in SE MI, but not nearly enough to not have wireless failover backup (Which in reality sucks for VOIP - too much variance in latency, even with LTE). Fortunately, I work for small business with 3 and 6 total lines, so comcast gets them all - and in the building with 6 lines there's a semi-smart/updated analog PBX system behind that with about 20 phones and a call waiting/hold message system (it plays advertisements for the business and Africa by Toto - I added that.)

Virtual #'s and PBX systems can offer BIG savings and great options for scalability and portability for businesses, but at the cost of reduced inherent reliability over copper (or coax). Then again, even AT&T is giving out VOIP adapters for phones.... putting a box between the PHONE CORD and the PHONE... makes total sense, right? It blew my mind when I saw the complicated mess of adapters and wires in my neighbor's living room.
 
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