Utterly OT : Tesco Phone.

Is it compatible with anything else, e.g. skype or proper VoIP standards? I'm going to be setting up a VoIP PBX at some point soon, which should be able to offer out teleconferencing services to VoIP phones. A lot of these free/cheap internet phone things are quite heavily locked in though.

Yeah - I've been playing with one. After a few teething problems it works ok from this end of the world - if only NZ ADSL wasn't hobbled by the deliberate introduction of jitter specifically designed to f*ck up VOIP traffic (and thus preserve the phone company's revenues) it would be perfect.

Yep works on Skype too. Though it's controls default to the Tesco software you can set it so that incomming skype calls go through it and dial out via skype and use it just selecting it in the audio options. Best of all three worlds I guess.

Lee D

I think the Tesco one isn't VOIP (from a article I read) how it works I don't really know but hey! If that means it would be better for you then winner! :-)

Lee D

It's sending real time voice information over an IP network so it's definitely VOIP at it's most fundamental level. The quality of service issue varies - sometimes it's fine for me, at other times I'd be better off with 2 tins and a bit of string.

Yes I have the Ethernet adaptors which plug into the router

That's interesting, I gave one to my daughter to use in NZ and Oz, to 'phone home but she found the Internet cafes were so expensive it was cheaper to use a 'phone card.

I'm told fring and an italian provider of uk geographic numbers is the way to have totally free calls to UK geographic numbers and present a valid caller id, voippix.org is a blog that reports on these things. A young friend of my daughter has a "3" mobile phone that runs fring and makes calls for no extra costs over the cellphone contract. Personally I don't use a 'phone enough to worry about cost but it is handy to have another 'phone in the house.

Skype too. Though it's controls default to the Tesco

I don't think this works with the ethernet adaptor but would be interested to learn that I'm wrong.

This will have to have an effect on broad band costs!

AJH

Typical init!

We used laptop and camera in the 110 in the South of France. Parked up by the Campsite reception to sing Happy Birthday to Ma back in England. 5 Euros got us 30 mins of Wifi so again expensive if you were to pay for it.

These new Vodaphone Broadband modems look the ticket mind - coverage seems a bit confined to the major towns and cities but once the prices become a bit more realisitic then it'll be awesome with regards to the possibilities out and about.

Before long Landrovers will be Wifi'd to the nearest local stealer beconing you in to have your tyres blown up for £80 an hour :-) .... it's the future I've seen it!

Lee D

They work in a couple of the major cities here - and they are bloody good. £25/month gets 3GB of data at Vodafone NZ's ridiculous charging rates.

All internet in NZ is moderately expensive - which is understandable given the distance we are from the rest of the world. International calling is fairly cheap though - under £15/month will get unlimited phone calls to landlines in most of the western world.

andrew heggie uttered summat worrerz funny about:

Don't think it will via the ethernet version.

Yep , I guess if you handle alot of calls then you'd feel it but I have a

2gb account and the schpeill on the Tesco site states that the impact is relatively minor. I guess no more than if I were to play online for hour at a time.

The orange payg 3g card had the option for 25MB (I know a young man that managed 1GB without comment!)for GBP1/day in UK, you just book it for the remaining day till midnight with a txt message but orange stipulate you cannot use the phone as a modem. However they only seem to enforce this by using some sort of proxy or hogtying the dns servers, if you know the actual ip address of the server you were able to get around the problem. Even so fiddling around with cellphone and laptop in a b&b was a handful so I tended to read e-mail straight off the phone. I just wish I knew of a decent cellphone cum pda with a long battery life and bigger screen than my moto razr that was affordable.

AJH

I wasn't meaning so much the effect on bandwidth, I connect at a max

512kb/sec on an unlimited account and VOIP works ok as long as I don't attempt a big transfer simultaneously. I was thinking the local loop provider (BT here) would be making a loss on the provision of the copper pair to the house if their telephone income dropped, so they would be bound to up the cost of maintaining the circuit to the adsl provider.

Now that's something that I know nothing about, in fact computer games have passed me by completely though someone at uk.rec.walking has got me interested in flight simulator as a way to fly through a virtual 3d copy of the landscape.

AJH

andrew heggie uttered summat worrerz funny about:

Memory map does that, neat. They have a demo on their sites. I did a fly through of Snowdon showing the peeps at work the route we were taking. A few though I was taking the urine until they got there. To their credit they all managed it up and down with some team peer pressure :-)

Lee D

Your ADSL router may support traffic shaping/QOS. If you set it to give priority to VOIP traffic (and/or limit the maximum bandwidth available for ftp) it should still work ok.

I've used a Nokia as a Modem with them on the same deal, I managed to mess it up and called them, they were kind enough to tell me what I had to type in to the laptop. This was over a gprs connection mind and all graphics switched off to get something resembling speed... or is that --- movement.

Lee D

As does Anquet but apparently the aerial photos and rendering are better in flight simulator.

Crib Goch?

AJH

andrew heggie uttered summat worrerz funny about:

Ah withit now!

Nah, we did the Miners Path up and the Pyg Track back which was fine and enough for me as an Advanced Desk Driver. Was my first outing since the Duke of Edinburgh awards when I had hair.

I understand Crib Goch is due to be closed this comming year, have you heard owt?

Next time I'm going to do the Watkin Path which I've been told is much more testing than the Pyg.

Lee D

Up the Watkin and down the ranger or vice verse is a more remote and enjoyable walk IMO. You can start and finish at the pub by the llyn. It's more ascent than you're used to starting from Storey arms though. There's a farm at the bottom where the dogs intimidate...

I don't know the position about the crib goch route following the recent tragedy, I had to abort it last autumn because of queues and high winds but I'll be back.

I didn't get to North Wales this year and so I'm still holding a series gearbox for Tom!

AJH