CJ or others - Skype question

[Peaches]

Since CT is headed for the land of driving on the wrong side of the road (where he'll be closer to Austrailia, which scares me.......), I'm looking into VOIP so he can keep in touch with friends and family. Right now we use cell phones since LD is included in the minutes.

Besides the, ahem, radio problems which are now fixed, how has it worked for just plain vanilla "pick up the phone and call me" conversations? He will have DSL there in his room on base.

Are there any other carriers that are better?

[Hell Puppy]

Dont take trying to pipe it into a GonZo'd out mixer and hardware from australia and streaming it out over shoutcast as a representation of the quality of Skype.

When used straight up, it works very well..

I have not researched how it works behind a firewall if he's using government bandwidth by chance though.

If you have to resort to phone, shop around for international calling cards....they'll save you a bundle.

[Peaches]

Originally posted by Hell Puppy@Sep 8 2004, 09:30 PM
Dont take trying to pipe it into a GonZo'd out mixer and hardware from australia and streaming it out over shoutcast as a representation of the quality of Skype.

When used straight up, it works very well..

I have not researched how it works behind a firewall if he's using government bandwidth by chance though.

If you have to resort to phone, shop around for international calling cards....they'll save you a bundle.
There SHOULDN'T be any government firewall involved. Unlike now, he'll actually have his own computer, own DSL account through the local carrier, etc. Of course, what kinds of monitoring they have on those lines is a different story. He's actually going to be under the Intelligence squadron there so they may keep closer tabs on them than normal folk.

The international calling cards are Plan B - one I hope we don't have to resort to. I have my 1.9 cent a minute or something card from Costco but only use it to send faxes :awinky: The cell is SO much easier and cheaper. If I didn't have the cell, I'd probably try the VOIP.

Are they all (VOIP) relatively the same?

[gonzo]

Skype works like the bomb. You need a headset though. And to keep your friend Hooper out of your machine. Once you get Spyware in there....its gonna get garbled.

[Billy]

I have a skype account have not used it in a long time : (

[sextoyking]

Peaches,

Have CT signup at, www.packet8.net, $20.00 per month and he can call anywhere in the usa/canada 24/7

Since he will have his own dsl, he will take his packet8 small ata adapter with him to Japan.

Hook up his dsl to a cheap linksys router or whatever, then plug his system into 1 port and his ATA into another port. 5 minute setup easy.

1 port on ata plug into router, then other you plug a regular phone cord in there that goes to a reg. phone :)

So have him get it, or you before he leaves, pick an area code in the usa that might be local for you, if they have one, if not Atlanta, Dallas, wherever you want.

From Japan, he just dials 1-555-1212 it doesn't know or care he's over there. He can talk 24/7, 20.00

If he can get a local # to you, then you just dial the local # and it rings in Japan.

We have 6 ata's under our company account, 2 are overseas, and you can't even tell your calling 1/2 way across the world.

When I goto europe, I just bring my home ata with me, and call home / the mrs calls me at the local #, no more cell LD calls at 1.00 per min.

If you need help, let me know.

[Peaches]

Todd, that sounds AWESOME :) Thanks!!

[sextoyking]

Peaches,

It works so good, trust me. Even at the office in europe with Dsl, with only 128k upload it's 99.9 percent perfect all the time.

Unlike vonage, lots of uses even say they can use packet8 with 56k dialup, not recommended but I guess it works, since there codec specs are diff. or something like that.

Once you get the ata, activation is a 30 sec call, then you just pick up the phone like you would normally and dial.

I see lots of cities in GA, wonder if you are local to any