VOIP Experience

[Furu]

I have just about had it with CenturyLink and my copper landline. The technicians tell me the company is not doing any upgrades to the equipment and that it is just failing due to age and they have issues getting repair parts. I have lost my "reliable" land line three times in the past three months. Cell phone only is not an option as coverage is at best pathetic and unreliable.
I am looking at going VOIP. I currently have DSL through the phone company which is actually more reliable than the phone line (don't quite grasp that but they are different technologies.)
Considering going to Starlink for internet and VOIP with it. Have read a lot of conflicting reports which is not surprising so thought I would see what is the feeling on here.
Starlink has a glowing number of people who love it.
What I am looking for are the negatives.
Reports are that there is NO support other than to send new equipment. Can't even call to talk with sales reps to ask questions.
Questions
1. After you buy the $599 equipment what happens if it breaks and you are told you need to get a replacement unit since there is no technical support.
2. How does it connect to existing systems. Does it just plug into the RG8 cables that are in the house or is there a rewire required.
3. For VOIP it seems you have to buy a separate unit to plug into the Starlink and then have to buy a VOIP phone.
Can that VOIP pone then power the old phone wire in the house or be plugged into the legacy wireless phone system that was used with copper wire phones?
4. If you have a second "home" in another location (500 miles away) can you pack up the system and take it or do you have to have the mobile RV plan to do that (50% more per month)

Probably more things to consider but that is what I have at the moment.

 

[dodge man]

My only experience is where I worked. Before we got decent internet speed it wasn’t that good, calls breaking up, dropped calls etc. After we got higher speed internet it was pretty flawless.

I asked my wife, she used to work for the phone company, and she said there is a piece of equipment, I assume some kind of box, that the phone plugs into and the internet plugs into the box. She isn’t sure if phones might have this built in now?

Do you get enough cell signal that a booster antenna on your roof would work?

 

[Chewwy]

Can’t help with your questions but VoIP numbers appear to be the preferred type of phone number for scammers and robocalls.

VoIP phone numbers are relatively easy to fake. And the caller ID information can be easily manipulated.

 

[Furu]

Can’t help with your questions but VoIP numbers appear to be the preferred type of phone number for scammers and robocalls.

VoIP phone numbers are relatively easy to fake. And the caller ID information can be easily manipulated.

Scammers and robocalls are all so called businesses. VOIP is much cheaper for businesses than the legacy landline.

 

[Furu]

My only experience is where I worked. Before we got decent internet speed it wasn’t that good, calls breaking up, dropped calls etc. After we got higher speed internet it was pretty flawless.

I asked my wife, she used to work for the phone company, and she said there is a piece of equipment, I assume some kind of box, that the phone plugs into and the internet plugs into the box. She isn’t sure if phones might have this built in now?

Do you get enough cell signal that a booster antenna on your roof would work?

Boosters have not worked in the past.

 

[ultrarunner]

Cut phone from 12k per month $1200 per month at work.

It’s has pluses and minuses but only as good as the internet and your router and cabling.

Last week the phones were horrible but a new router fixed it…

 

[plowhog]

I have three Starlink systems. Had them for coming up on a couple of years now.

There are occasional quirks here and there, but never a problems. Based on my experience many of my rural neighbors bought SL. Installed it in some horribly obstructed locations and it still worked. Yes I use my for wifi calls.

The only time SL did not work was in Yosemite. But I was camped up to the edge of a granite wall thousands of feet high that blocked the view to the satellites. Not really the fault of SL.

 

[ponytug]

We use VOIP over Starlink. One downside to our system is that since Starlink reassigns the IP address and it can take awhile before the VOIP system realizes that your VOIP link has moved. Outgoing calls are fine, but incoming are routed to voicemail. No biggie for us. I am told that there are other systems that hack this, but I don't know if I believe it.

However, I would not do VOIP. Just turn on WiFi calling on your phones and use Starlink.

Starlink does have tech support, and I have used it a number of times. When we had a failing cable/router, they FedExed us a replacement router and cable. I'm working on some minor glitching at the moment with them that is increasing our latency in bursts. Just bear in mind that the big cheese seems to view customer support as a loss leader, so this isn't the Apple Genius Bar.

You can use the Starlink WiFi out of the box, and / or plug in their Ethernet adapter and use your existing hardware. If you aren't set up for 1gigabit networking (in your cabling, switches, router, access points), I would use their WiFi, as Starlink does routinely hit 0.1-0.2Gbits/s.

If you get and pay for the RV version, you can move it, but it costs more per month to have.

All the best,

Peter

 

[ericm979]

If your internet reliably has good bandwidth, wifi calling should work.

Our local telco Frontier is terrible. They buy systems from other carriers and then don't maintain them. They won't even put downed lines back up. We dropped the land line years ago.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

If your internet reliably has good bandwidth, wifi calling should work.

I jumped in to say this also. I've used WIFI calling before in the same situation and it worked well. Doesn't cost anything, just have to turn on the setting on your phone and be hooked up to the wifi.

 

[Furu]

1. We use VOIP over Starlink. One downside to our system is that since Starlink reassigns the IP address and it can take awhile before the VOIP system realizes that your VOIP link has moved. Outgoing calls are fine, but incoming are routed to voicemail.

2. When we had a failing cable/router, they FedExed us a replacement router and cable.

3. If you get and pay for the RV version, you can move it, but it costs more per month to have.

Peter

1. How often does Starlink reassign the IP address for your unit since they do not use static address assignment?

2. Did you have to pay for the replacement router since you bought the original unit for $599?

3. yes the RV version is 50% more per month and would be great for RV travel lots of moving around. I am wondering if you can use the home unit in a different location (house 2) or does the system know that is is not at your address (house 1). This would not be a common occurrence.

 

[timbatrader]

I don't know if its available where you are but over here (New Zealand) some cell phone company's offer WiFi calling once enabled on your cell phone the cell phone works like normal even outside of cell coverage as long as it can connect to a Wifi network. I have a high power "whole farm wifi modem" which means my cell phone works up to 500 meters from my house several advantages only one phone bill instead of landline plus cell, my cell phone works anywhere I can get Wifi so at my neighbours down the road even overseas without roaming charges

 

[JJT]

We dropped the DSL and copper land line this summer with a switch over to fiber. We've had 2 VOIP outages in the past 6 months for a few hours each. The copper land line was 99.9999 reliable, maybe one outage a year for an hour. DSL was a different story, multiple outages every few months for a few days. The land line number converted over to VOIP. The DSL + landline bill was $50 more per month than the current fiber bill, with a price lock for 2 years. Overall we're happy with fiber, its 300 times faster than our old DSL, much more reliable and cheaper.

We're 10 miles away from a cable provider, so that was not an option for internet.

NY state has a big push to get broadband to rural communities. I would not be surprised to hear the fiber providers get an incentive for every rural customer they sign up, they were quite aggressive trying to get us to convert.

 

[Oz_Kioti]

We use VoIP with our existing analog Panasonic "cordless" phone system. The base unit plugs into an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) which is a small adapter box made by Cisco. After programming it, it then takes an ethernet cable from the router to complete the connection.

Our Panasonic system consists of the base unit, and two additional wireless unit/handpieces, so we have two in the house and the third in a shed. Works well, and doubles as an intercom as well.

Now - the main issue with the VoIP, at least in our case, is that we have to use it somewhat like the old walkie-talkie system, in that if the person on the other end of the call is talking, they can't hear any interjection I might make. So you have to wait for them to stop talking (or take a breath) before you speak. You get used to it, but it's still annoying.

I have not heard of the concept of using your smartphone with wifi though - I'll check that out and see if we have that function available here.

 

[Chewwy]

Scammers and robocalls are all so called businesses. VOIP is much cheaper for businesses than the legacy landline.

None of the couple of dozen businesses I do business with are VoIP. Likely because cellular services are readily available and are also much cheaper than landlines.

 

[plowhog]

the RV version is 50% more per month and would be great for RV travel lots of moving around.

One of my neighbors in an obstructed environment was having difficulty with wifi calling and Starlink. It would drop out, then come back in about 5 seconds. He always warned callers not to hang up, just wait.

Then he upgraded from SL RV system to SL residential. He said those problems immediately went away.

 

[Furu]

We dropped the DSL and copper land line this summer with a switch over to fiber. We've had 2 VOIP outages in the past 6 months for a few hours each. The copper land line was 99.9999 reliable, maybe one outage a year for an hour. DSL was a different story, multiple outages every few months for a few days. The land line number converted over to VOIP. The DSL + landline bill was $50 more per month than the current fiber bill, with a price lock for 2 years. Overall we're happy with fiber, its 300 times faster than our old DSL, much more reliable and cheaper.

We're 10 miles away from a cable provider, so that was not an option for internet.

NY state has a big push to get broadband to rural communities. I would not be surprised to hear the fiber providers get an incentive for every rural customer they sign up, they were quite aggressive trying to get us to convert.

Fiber is coming. They say 2 years out

 

[dodge man]

My wife worked for the phone company for about 37 years before she retired and my son works for them now. They are 100% fiber now so people that still have “land lines” are really using some form of VOIP rather they know it or not.

 

[goeduck]

We use VOIP over our Xfinity coax connection. The modem/router has a built in RJ12 phone port. I had to sign up for the service (about an extra $10). I use my cell only but the wife is deaf in one ear and she hears better with a corded phone.

 

[BryceSteiner]

When I'm in southeast kentucky we use Starlink RV. This is where cell service is spotty at best and may not get a hint of a signal for hours. DSL isn't available for us and the land lines are virtually non existant (especially since I found a big section of underground phone trunk in my beaver dam).
It works very well most of the time. It will go down during heavy rain. Our iphones work just fine as phones when SL is connected. We use it with our computers for video uploading to our youtube channel / graphics and newspaper publishing when we are pretty much off grid.
Disadvantage is it's a little pricey. It's nice that we can turn on and off the subscription when we come and go. Sometimes we get charged a full month and other times we just get charged by the week. I'm not sure what is actually going on with that. It's nice too that I can take it when I travel to other places in those trips because we have found that most of the cabins we have stayed at have terrible internet, contrary to what their descriptions say when we are investigating to stay.