blueface.ie??

balrog_beag

Anyone using this VoIP service at the moment?? Signed up just before Christmas and got a whole two weeks of a free trial.
They give you an 01 number (and 076 VoIP number in 2005) that can be dialled from a landline phone and all you need is a soft SIP client running over a broadband connection or if you want to be fancy you can go and buy an ATA and use an existing analog phone.
Quality has been pretty good up to now but I was wondering if anyone knew about these guys and how serious they are about this.
Don't want to hand back my Eircon line and find out in two weeks that they are already gone out of business.
I suppose quality may be an issue with regards to QoS over an ISPs network but have been using Skype over my NTL connection and have been impressed with this so far.

-Toppy-

Yeah, im fairly interested as well, I am after getting fixed wireless bb in, and I wouldnt mind getting something like this in.
-Toppy-

Jokah

I actually know both of the guys personally. Cool dudes and come from a very experienced background.

From talking to them, they are taking it serious and have tried to get me on board several times. At the moment I have no need for a landline, so the appeal is not there for me personally. I have referred some of my friends to them, but that's about it.

Not much info really, but its something.

Blaster99

Is it a big deal if they were to go bust, incidently?

I would say NTL will do their own VoIP so you will have choice in a while. When they do VoIP it's fairly likely they will also implement proper QoS for their own service so it will probably be the one to go for.

jimmycrackcorm

"Dublin geographic telephone number
(use to replace your current analogue line and stop paying line rental!).
Allocation of new Irish 076 VoIP number
(allow incoming calls from PSTN in 2005).
"

Are incoming PSTN calls only for 076 numbers as suggested? i.e. the Dublin geographic number calls are outbound only?

If it works then it is a huge saving on line rental.

Blaster99

The Dublin number is for incoming calls also.

Jokah

Of course its a big deal if they go bust. I hope they won't.

Going bust is a nightmare for any company....

So why the question??? what do you want me to say?????

wideband

Hi
I see eircom are going down the VOIP route early this year with the initial roll out targeted at large corporations that already have significant communications networks to ferry data between offices throughout the nation.

Heres the main points from http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9571117.html

A version of the technology aimed at smaller businesses, as well as a service targeted at consumers, will be launched later in the year.

In Ireland, several companies are already offering the service including Esat BT, VoIP Ireland and Blue Face, to name only a few

Here in Ireland, the communications regulator ComReg laid the groundwork for new VoIP services earlier this year by introducing a new prefix, "076," for VoIP phone numbers. However, the regulator has yet to rule on whether telecoms offering VoIP will be bound by all of the same rules as traditional landline providers, which are obliged to offer access to emergency services as well as other facilities.

zap

comreg have told the VoIP operators that they must inform their customers that emergency calls may not be available and they should not rely on VoIP to make these calls.

Moriarty

Indeed zap, but it's pretty much a given that anyone that gets voip will also have a mobile phone.

wheresthebeef

Mobile Phones are also not intended to be relied upon in an emergency. Mobile Phone Manuals always instruct you that due to the nature of GSM Networks, it may not always be possible to access the emergency services and so you should not exclusivley rely on a mobile phone for this purpose.

-Toppy-

Ill just leg it out to the payphone outside, Oh wait the reciever has been cut for the last two months and eircom couldnt be bothered to come out to replace it, even though I have been on twice about it
Typical
-Toppy-

aphex™

wheresthebeef wrote:

Mobile Phones are also not intended to be relied upon in an emergency. Mobile Phone Manuals always instruct you that due to the nature of GSM Networks, it may not always be possible to access the emergency services and so you should not exclusivley rely on a mobile phone for this purpose.

What, like when everybody else is calling them? Whats the point then? they already r on the way.... or overwhelmed

I wouldn't trust Eircom if my life depended on it!!!

jimmycrackcorm

Firstly the minimum amount payable is €9.99 which I guess is a kind of line rental - though far cheaper than eircom.

Secondly, Mobile rates are dear - consider that most others have off peak rates and subtantial numbers of typical household calls are to mobiles -"where are you" etc/

Thirdly Packages such as UTV Talk have free off peak calls to the Uk.


Now if someone could just come up with a VOIP adapter that could also take two Pay as you go sims ( for Voda / O2 (meteor)) that would automatically redirect outgoing calls with the appropriate sim - then that would be cool.

steve-hosting36

The market is likely to have several more voip options very soon, as many people have publically and privately admitted to be putting things together.

Infini

Has anybody tried SIPPS the VoIP client from Nero AG. I'm not sure if it works here.

aaronc

balrog_beag wrote:

Quality has been pretty good up to now but I was wondering if anyone knew about these guys and how serious they are about this.Don't want to hand back my Eircon line and find out in two weeks that they are already gone out of business.I suppose quality may be an issue with regards to QoS over an ISPs network but have been using Skype over my NTL connection and have been impressed with this so far.

Speaking as one of the founders of Blue Face I can say that we won't be disappearing anytime soon. It has taken us a year to get to this stage and we're focusing on coming up with some interesting products rather than just a quick buck.

We recommend to everyone who is thinking of getting rid of their analogue line that they try out our services (for free) for at least a week to get an idea of the quality of their internet connection. While we would like to be able to tell everyone to go straight ahead unfortunately the quality of connections provided by ISPs is currently a bit of a lottery. Some people get great quality others don't.

Aaron

Infini

aaronc wrote:

While we would like to be able to tell everyone to go straight ahead unfortunately the quality of connections provided by ISPs is currently a bit of a lottery. Some people get great quality others don't.

Cable modems would offer great quality then would'nt they?

steve-hosting36

Not necessarily, the problem is up-speed and qos on the voice traffic, to prevent your bittorrent from degrading your phone call

aaronc

That's a smaller problem you can always turn off your bit torrent app. The bigger problem is the other bit torrent users on the same ISP you can't turn their apps off.

Until ISPs implement QoS/MPLS they can't give you a guarantee for even a single kilobit of bandwidth. 512Kbps on a 20:1 contention ratio means your chances of getting a reasonable quality VoIP call are rather like attempting to get to work on time; it's ok if no one else is on the road but if everyone leaves at the same time everyone arrives late or in this case gets a bad call.

On my home ISP I reliably get very good quality late at night and on weekends. Most evening’s quality is poor and during the day it can vary. Conversely we have people who are fairly happy making a call at anytime but they are normally either on 1Mbps or a business connections.

A common myth with VoIP and the internet in general is that the backbone of the internet itself is the busy part. However, since the half a dozen or so tier 1 ISPs charge for every bit entering their pipes unless a major router goes down or cable gets cut once your packet makes it past your ISP it's not going to have too many problems until it reaches a similar ISP at the other end. The VoIP quality problem can easily be solved by each ISP giving the voice packets priority to the VoIP gateways, however until it’s in their interests or they are pressured they are unlikely to bother.

Aaron