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Voice over IP

Posted on 28 Jun 2005 at 12:38

Call quality can be variable, but usually rivals a traditional circuit-switched connection and, with a wide range of software plug-ins and hardware peripherals reaching the market, it is a flexible option that will certainly grow over time.

The best conventional international deal is provided by Pipemedia. Its PipeCall service incurs both an installation fee and a monthly charge of £2.99, but once paid the European, American and Australian call costs are unbeatable. At less than 1p a minute for some European numbers, and with a dedicated incoming number thrown in, it really is a no-brainer for heavy users.

But think carefully about that subscription if you will mainly be calling within the UK. The £2.99 a month plus tax and the installation fee means you will be paying a few pence shy of £60 in your first year, and you could easily undercut that with sipgate. For the same price as a subscription to PipeCall, you could make 5,019 minutes of UK calls using sipgate's tariff-free service. You will have to provide your own headset or handset, but you do get a dedicated number with a UK area code and free voicemail thrown in to boot.

In the unlikely event you use up all those minutes and more, consider the sipgate1000 tariff. At £5.90 a month, it will push up your annual costs to £70.80, but will give you 12,000 minutes of calls to UK landline numbers, which is more than enough for anyone running a business from home, and almost half the price of BT's annual subscription to Broadband Voice Anytime. We have no complaints about sipgate's quality, either. There is no latency, and none of the people we called were aware we weren't using a regular phone line, even with the Softphone and a third-party headset.

All things considered, then, our overall recommendation is sipgate. The lack of a set-up fee and the free geographical UK phone number make it a sensible option for home and business users alike, and should deliver some of the best savings over the first year.

At the start of this feature, though, we promised to reveal which VoIP service actually delivered free calls without subscription, sign-up fee or catch, and that service is call18866. It is still in beta, but perfectly usable, and really does deliver UK-wide calls at no cost beyond a one-off connection fee of 2p. There is no contract and no subscription and, although we tested it using SIP-ready VoIP hardware, you can also use it from a regular landline phone. Once you have signed up, using your landline hardware and dialling the prefix 18866 before the number you need routes regular packet-switched calls through your call18866 account, allowing you to make cost-free UK calls from your existing phone.

The online invoicing service is itemised and easy to understand, and call quality is very good. As an added bonus, there is no need to set up a separate dedicated line. Calls made using VoIP handsets and headsets carry your regular phone line's caller ID details, so recipients will see your real landline number rather than an international, barred or unavailable line, making this a truly transparent service. We wouldn't recommend it for business use until it is out of beta development, but right now it is working, stable, and certainly one to watch.