Posted on: 04-01-05 13:25:07
With broadband internet having been introduced in a few cities in India, I plan to install a broadband phone from a Canadian provider (and a 416 number) at my parents home there.
Wondering, would there be any technical constraints to doing this (apart from the fact that the typical household broadband seems to be a miserly 64kbps!) – any comments from the techies on this board, has someone tried this?
I use a US VOIP (www.packet8.net) connection here in Canada and have not got any problems, my company also uses this extensively in the US and Mexico and have never encountered any problems.
I dont have any experience of someone using this in India/ Asia. The broadband throughput of 64kbps may present some issues though.
I think the basic hurdle is to get the system and export it to India because system is supplied to the place where it will be billed. As you are going to pay in Canada it should not matter where the phone is installed. Does this appear to be a financialy viable arrangement. You will pay $20 here plus you pay Bradband in India which is still an expensive affair in India. You have the freedom to call unlimited and they can call back around 500 free min.
For the speed what I know is that during heavy traffic in US & Canada there is significant loss of one side stream. So probably 64Kbps may have loss of voice at one end. All these systems are tested on US & Canada connections which gives a very good voice quality. I know few people calling Australia, China and Taiwan with medium sound quality. But no feed back of calls made from there to Canada.
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Try overtaking child's imagination
The Primus website says that there gateway box can be carried and used anywhere provided there is high speed Internet connectivity available. Which implies that I could get a 416 Toronto number, go to India and plug in the gateway to a high speed connection there and use the phone as if I was in Toronto. Anyone calling that number would be billed as if he was calling Toronto. So if then you are in Toronto and call that number, it would be like a local call.
There might be some configuration changes required though.
Why don't you call up the Tech Support of any of these service providers and ask them?
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Diogenes
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The Cynic
Quote:
Orginally posted by DiogenestheCynic
The Primus website says that there gateway box can be carried and used anywhere provided there is high speed Internet connectivity available. Which implies that I could get a 416 Toronto number, go to India and plug in the gateway to a high speed connection there and use the phone as if I was in Toronto. Anyone calling that number would be billed as if he was calling Toronto. So if then you are in Toronto and call that number, it would be like a local call.
There might be some configuration changes required though.
Why don't you call up the Tech Support of any of these service providers and ask them?
Dio and JD, thanks for your replies.
Incidentally, I've subscribed to a Primus VOIP phone since the past 7 months, and am quite pleased with their service. Their tech support has told me that I can carry my voice broadband router to wherever I go and would be able to use my Toronto (416) number from there. I do carry the router when I head out to the States, am able to make local calls to Canada (and therefore avoid roaming charges on my cell phone!). My question however, had been directed towards anyone who has tried to use the system in India.
JD, I tend to find that using a Canadian VOIP (broadband) phone in India is actually quite cost effective. I anticipate that a broadband connection in India should cost in the region of about Rs 1,000 pm + the monthly charges on a basic broadband phone of about $22, totally equivalent to about $50. That effectively gives me unlimited calling to India as calls from my home phone to the VOIP phone in India would be local calls. The only thing I'm not sure about is the call quality on account of the slower 'broadband' in India!
You can get technical information from http://www.arcturusnetworks.com" rel="nofollow">LINK they are one of the few designers of VoIP gateway. I believe effect of speed can be answered by them as they are the people who sell this technology to primus, vonage, bell...
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Try overtaking child's imagination
Crenshaw
I don't know if it helps or not. The company I currently work for used VOIP across most of the countries - one of which is India. Very frequently I used to have conference calls with people in USA (at that time I was still in India). The quality of the call was very poor ie., I could hear what the person in USA was saying but they couldn't hear what I was saying. After a few more tries my colleagues in USA used to give up and call me using the regular landline.
Dakshina
