Voip has interested me from both a technical and cost saving perspective. I have tinkered with it but have not been overly impressed with the quality or ease of use until recently.

I tried a few providers using a “soft phone” and headset both paid and unpaid through my desktop but really didn’t think it was that good and was on the verge of giving up. However over the last month or so I noticed on a business forum a lot of discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of voip itself and then some further discussion on hardware. This led me to look again at the possibilities and providers.

It seems that not all providers are the same, now there’s a surprise. Call charges vary, to non-geographical numbers in particular, as does the cost of acquiring and using a geographical number. I didn’t want to go for an 0845 or an 0800 number, instead I wanted a 0117 number for Bristol where I’m actually based. The various providers also offer a variety of different services, some useful, some not so useful and some very necessary.

From my tinkering days I’d already got an 0117 number but not used it much, so decided to use this to see if things had improved. Number portability is an option with some providers, so no problem there, except that there maybe a charge. Fortunately I have a number with a fairly decent provider so I began to try again.

The breakthrough, if I can call it that, was when I decided to spend some of my hard earned on a proper phone and bin the headset. Using the combination of “softphone” and usb headset or handset was not working, and I felt assured by the forums that the quality of the line should be as good or better than a normal land line. So lashing out on a Grandstream GXP 2000 I’m pleased to say I’m delighted and so far it is all working very well indeed. Calls are clear and sharp and the ‘phone does what I want it to do. Combined with the facilities offered by my provider I actually feel in control of the whole setup.

Glad I went back to it.