[Shop-talk] Off topic VOIP phones and services

[Steve Shipley]

At 05:42 PM 3/5/2010 +0430, eric at megageek.com wrote:
>As you know, I'm stuck here in Afghanistan.  I have been tasked with
>finding a VOIP provider and phone to use.
>
>Since I have no friends back home that want to talk to me, I haven't used
>any of these services to any extent.  I do have a free "Voxalot" account
>to call an IP phone in my house to talk to the housesitter, but it's a
>pain to use and maintain.
>
>So my first questions is, can anyone tell me which is better Vontage or
>Skype?  (and why?)
>
>I have a pretty good internet connection here finally (1mb down and 512
>Up), but we need a REALLY good speaker phone for calls back the US.
>
>Which company is better and which speakerphone works the best with them? I
>know that "magic jack" lets you use any standard phone, but it has
>advertising built into its paid service.

I bought the MagicJack and a cheap Uniden phone and it doesn't
work very well.  Generally one side of the conversation gets dropped.
My first year of service ended this year and I haven't renewed.  Might
be a problem with the phone rather than the service, of course, but
I haven't given up my POTS.