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US CELLULAR
309-221-1427
Skype:afepub
309-740-1427
SIP:(SIPgate)
415-520-8393
google voice*
646-543-1427
(rings other 3)
.
SIP Phone Service:
The saga continues...
Oh what do you do with your old traditional home phones once you drop old Ma Bell (POT: Plain Old Telephone company) ? Well at one time Skype had a hardware device to ring them, however the downside was it required a PC (usb based hardware) to be running.
"SIP" is the standard for VoIP (voice over IP) and SIP based phone service has been around for some time, so hardly new. Maybe some of you view it as the ugly grandfather to the proprietary Skype service (not compatible with true SIP) but in fact SIP is what most every other Voice over IP based provider utilizes (Vontage for one).
The main perk of SIP is the standard methods it use so highly affordable devices like the Linksys PAP2 will bind home lines with Internet lines. After that you just need to pick from the hundreds of offerings of SIP service providers in the world (pick and Internet phone service) to program it to use.
One affordable solution we initially used was Gizmo5 however it came to a horrid fate once Google took over and here April 3 2011 terminated all of several thousand users. Google Voice is no more SIP then Skype is so once again home phones go dead.
Additionally Gizmo5 allowed free calls not only to other SIP services, but to many cell phone numbers as well... WONDERFUL !!! Well that is history now....
Currently as of April 4 2011 we are now using SipGate as a provider since Google turned Gizmo OFF! On the up side SipGate (lite) it is FREE to get enrolled on. It is FREE for incoming calls. It is under 2¢ to make calls (I don't use it to make calls) and getting an incoming phone number is FREE (only free call for you if you live in CALIFORNIA) Call quality seems questionable so far, no gizmo, but it does ring the home phones again.
Evil Google Voice does have one perk. When you call it all the other 3 RING! Of course that is about all Google Voice is good for. At least it is a Chicago Illinois prefix and enough selection I could match the last 4 digits to my cell and my Skype numbers.
As an ISP we have a bit of a philosophic aversion to some of the Skype license fine print and basically lean away from peer to peer type software that looks to set up shop on unsuspecting PCs (those who don't read the fine print and risk) rather then have true services and servers. And although we will admit a proprietary solution that has built in phone conversation encryption security has it's place too, the web was built on open source solutions where software and hardware to mix and match with has so many more possibilities when services are built to be shared upon. Our solution for Skype is use the hardware Belkin device that works more like a desk phone and plugs into a router, no PC required. We are not much happier that tried and true quality solutions like Gizmo get ate up by giant creatures like Google in the name of a replacement that is not remotely similar in function or hardware. Still looking for a true quality SIP solution to replace that.
Thus is the world we live in. Leave it to people with huge intelligence to shoot themselves in the foot constantly. Ma Bell is laughing behind it's outdated and deteriorating expensive lines as the techs make their job selling inferior service for tons more easy. Skype is sure giggling and the dumb move Google made now that the Google number can not do much more then ring the Skype number!
"World is full of smart stupid people" I always say. Proof again. Ma Bell is laughing as we try to find a new age replacement agian.
Preston
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