Pay as you go on minute basis VoIP plans....

I'm new to this whole VoIP thing.
I looked into it some months ago but hadn't taken any action yet.
My situation is this:
I don't talk a lot on the phone. Currently, the cheapest plan I found
was BroadVoice in state calling which is $9.95 a month.

My question is: Is there a plan which you pay as you go along on a
minute basis?
I've found the website LiveVoIP which seems pretty cheap (you must of
course by initialliy lots of minutes - but still cheap). There are some
terms out there I don't quite understand: Asterisk, Sipura.
Can please somebody explain to me exactly what these things are and are
they complicated/complex to install?

Ideally (and it probably doesn't exist), I would like to have a phone
which I can use to call other people and other people can call me which
uses VoIP technology.
In order to minimize costs, I want to pay as I go by the minutes.

Any insights will be most helpful.

 

My question is: Is there a plan which you pay as you go along on a

Lingo's Lingo Link plan is $7.95 month for service plus 3 cpm for
outgoing calls. Incoming calls and calls to other Lingo users are
free. I don't know of anything cheaper if you want an incoming phone
number.

If you just want to call out there's all sorts of pay per minute plans.

 

Stanaphone / MutualPhone is the answer. 100% free. You pay as you go!

 

I haven't tried them, nor heard much about them yet, but GlobalVillage
sells you on a per minute basis for outgoing calls. 2.9 cents a minute.
If you want a phone # for incoming calls, its $3.95/month.

Asterisk is an open-source complete PBX system that runs on unix and
supports a ton of different hardware/features/protocols.
http://www.asterisk.org/
Sipura makes hardware VOIP gateways and IP phones.
http://www.sipura.com/

 

I have been using Net2phone which has no monthly fee and no minimums.
I do not like using headsets, so I purchased my service and IP PHONE
from www.communitech.com

Rates are about 2.5 cents per minute to a US land line, and the
quality with the Phone is very good. It is a no frills service, no
virtual phone numbers etc, but you just send them $25 or more at a
time and use it like a phone credit card...been using it over a year
on a normal Home DSL Line. I can check my remaining balance by
pressing a button on the phone.

Like you, I hate contracts and monthly minimum charges!
Jeff

 

I guess from following this thread that you're all in the USA. Here in the
UK we have www.sipgate.co.uk which gives you a free phone number and free
calls to other users of the same system and also some others like FWD. You
can register wherever you are in the world, but if you want a UK phone
number you have to do so from a British IP address. There is no signup fee
or monthly charge, you only pay for calls you make to the PSTN but note
that as the system is aimed at UK residents, charges are as though you
were here, wherever you actually are..!

Regarding your queries about Asterisk and Sipura, well Asterisk is
basically a software PBX that usually runs under Linux or some similar
system. Sipura (www.sipura.com) is a manufacturer of hardware, such as
the SPA-2000 ATA which allows you to connect ordinary analogue phones into
a VoIP system.

Hope this helps.

Ivor




Ivor

 

You're right, such a thing does not exist. While it is certainly do-
able, it is not economically feasible for a carrier to offer pay-as-you
go for each call. The settlement costs would, more often than not,
exceed the revenue generated by the call. This is why billing is either
done periodically (your traditional monthly phone bill) or as an up-
front purchase of a "bucket of minutes".

 

I've done some more research on the subject and also had an email
chat with a cool guy named Kyler which helped me a lot.
This is what I came up with:

There is a company called "Sipura Technology" which is a hardware
company.
For us "home users" (or any other), we would buy an ATA - Analog
Telephone Adapter. What this box does, is convert analog data from a
regular phone to IP packets. There are a couple of ATA they sell which
are around $100.
There is also a phone they sell. It is probably just a regular phone
with a built in ATA. Nice if you wish to eliminate cables and conserve
space.
Anyway, now that I have the ability to talk on a regular phone and
convert the analog signal to IP packets which are sent through the
internet, I need to find a provider which will accept these IP packets
and integrate with PSTN (public switched telephone network - "normal"
phone network). Not surprisingly, they charge you for it. Can't blame
them, they have to make a living. Anyway, it is *SO* much cheaper than
what phone companies charge us. Such a company is LiveVoIP.

Now, if you want to have a "regular" phone number, you can buy such a
number from LiveVoIP. This is called DID - Direct Inward Dial.
Basically, they (LiveVoIP) buy the line from a regular phone company.
When someone calls that number, they intercept the call, and convert
the signal from the PSTN to IP packets and send it through the internet
to your ATA which will make your connected phone ring.

As far as 911, it seems that currently you won't be able to call it
through VoIP. As far as fax goes, I don't know either. Some may
experience difficulties and other may not.

 

Sorry to state: "SUCH THING ALREADY EXISTS"

There is no monthly charge for US telephone number with
http://www.MutualPhone.com and http://www.stanaphone.com.

You pay only for the minutes you make outgoing calls to out of network
numbers!

Sekhar.

 

That's well over twice the going rate.

--kyler

 

Note - calls to the US are charged at 1.5 p/min (see
http://www.sipgate.co.uk/user/tarife.php )

So with the exchange rate $ / £ running around 1.8 (so equiv to 2.7 cent /
min) it may work out cheaper than some US telcos you have been recommended
in this thread (which seems crazy, but who says telco pricing makes any
sense). The big drawback would be incoming call costs for someone who calls
you.

not sure if sipgate have a US based gateway, but if not you may find the
extra latency for crossing the atlantic twice a bit painful as well...

 

Thus spaketh stephen:

You can get a USA number from http://phone.ipkall.com/ipphone/ and enter the
Sipgate details, in place of the FWD details.

 

have you looked at sipphone.com
they offer a good veriety of choices for voip

MK

 

Jonathan,
yes, try http://www.cuvoice.com, it accepts per minute call, no monthly rate
required if you just want to make IDD calls either using PC to IDD or using
a Gateway adaptor to call. No hidden cost at all, pay what the rates stated
in the website. Sign up as a basic subscriber. It cost US$0.02 per minute
for US call or US$0.018 for most of European countries, Hong Kong at 2.5
cents per minute and Singapore at 2 cents per minute

Regards,
John

 

But calls from the US to the US would still have to cross the pond twice.

Ivor

 

True.

 

{{{{{Welcome}}}}} wrote:

[snip]

I've had excellent quality calls from friends in the US calling my ipkall
number routed to my Sipgate number, but I haven't been back to the States
since I got Sipgate. Next time I go I'll take my Sipura ATA with me and
see what call quality is like.

Ivor

 

The setup messages would but the Voice stream shouldnt, As I assume
sipgate have a peering agreement with US gateways so the calls Voice
stream will be between the ATA and the Gateway so wouldnt cross the
Pond even once. For Ip to UK they would use a UK gateway. Remember the
SER that Sipgate uses for all their systems is based in Germany. which
is 66mS away, Freeworld dialup is in the US 110mS away and voiptalk in
london is 18mS away.

Ian


Ian

 

Broadvoice's BYOD plan is $1 cheaper, I think.

I'm using Libretel for incoming ($6/month) and Gafachi for outgoing
($0.02/minute to US, Canada, western Europe, etc., pre-paid in $20
increments). For a week or so I was having problems with completing calls on
Gafachi during peak periods, but that seems to have resolved itself.

miguel

 

I've now relegated Gafachi to my backup outgoing provider. Problems
with them not honoring reinvites and not passing on the caller-id
makes them less desirable than providers that get that right.

1) I want people to be able to call me back by hitting the call-return
button on their phones and gafachi goes out of their way to clear
the caller-id leaving only an "out of area" indication on the
called phone.

2) Their proxy has a bug and/or configuration problem that causes it
to drop the sip connection when your side tries to reinvite. A
functional reinvite is needed if your end uses a local proxy to set
up the call, but you want the audio to go directly from your phone
to their proxy for a bit better latency.

(FYI: I'm currently using teliax as my primary provider, they have
similar prices at $5/mo for local DIDs and 2cents per minute for
outgoing.)

-wolfgang