Everyone likes to make a long distance call at low cost with mobility added to it. VoIP services have always been a solution for low cost long distance calling but there was limited mobility, but now with mobile VoIP users can make VoIP calls from their smartphones. Hence I have shared this article to educate people who doesn’t know how to use Mobile VoIP Dialer.
I had my phone stolen at the end of December – slap-bang in the middle of party season. With the festive fun, some hairy deadlines and a sluggish response from my insurance company that meant I didn’t get my replacement up and running until after Christmas.
It was annoying. But not as annoying as I’d anticipated. I used Facebook to organise my social life, Facetime to talk to my nearest and dearest and iMessage to chat with almost everyone else. I took my iPad with me everywhere and logged into wifi when and wherever I could.
It began to dawn on me…. I could give up my mobile and replace them with internet services. Wifi in London is pretty ubiquitous so I should be contactable most of the time. And VOIP services have come of age and are robust enough to use for work and play these days. Game on.
Research
I’m quite a heavy user of various communication platforms; Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Twitter, iMessage, Facetime – but most of my SMS or calling activity still happened through my mobile. If I was going to replace it I needed a service that would allow me to text and call everyone in my phone book not just people who were signed up to the same platform.
WhatsApp and Viber both relied on having an existing mobile number and contract – exactly the thing I was trying to give up. So they were crossed off the list almost immediately.
More promising was SkypeIn. They could provide me with a number that would allow me to call people and more importantly that would allow others to call me. But it didn’t support text. Hmmm.
So I hit google. Most of the solutions had the same problems… until I discovered Pinger.
Pinger allocated you a new mobile number that you can call and text from AND that other people can call and text back to.
Set up
The next step was to test the solution.
Pinger itself turned out to work well on my iPad. Texting worked like a dream. Calls were a bit laggy on occasion but not enough to be a problem. Less successful was the desktop application which let me text contacts but never seemed to receive them – presumably an issue to version 2.0. Satisfied that the software was going to perform ok it was time to check out the wifi coverage.
Most of my devices are configured to auto log-in to the wifi hotspots that I use regularly; home, the office, my boyfriend’s house and also the coffee shops, lunch places and pubs that I go to. The only time I wouldn’t have coverage in an average week would be travelling to and from work and going out to meet friends. I could live with a bit of down time on my journey to work…. but being contactable when you’re going to meet people felt more essential.
BT provide my broadband at home and as part of that I get access to their hotspot coverage. So I dug out my username and password and checked out the coverage – unsurprisingly it’s pretty good in London. That only left one problem, it didn’t seem like I could get my iPad to auto-connect to the service. Faffissimo. I fiddled for a couple of days, logging into the services on my walk to work, getting kicked out almost immediately. Grr. I’d come so far…. but this felt like it might be a deal breaker. I hit google again and discovered a BT wifi app that auto connects you to the network. Woo!
So in theory I was set. Pinger would give me an online mobile number that I could call and text to and from. I had wifi in most of the places I’d need it. What could possibly go wrong?
What happened?
It was a complete disaster! Why? The idea of ubiquitous wifi is a complete fantasy. Here’s just one of many experiences that sums up the problem.
On New Years day I stood for 40 minutes in the pouring rain trying to connect to a BT hotspot so I could call a friend to get directions to her house. I failed. Dismally. Three hours after I set off I arrived back at home sodden, hungover and hungry. Thanks BT. You cheated me of a roast dinner, hair of the dog and a Christmas present.
I did stubbornly continue for a bit. But the problems became more apparent. I’d arrive at meetings or venues, log into the wifi and discover that the time or place had changed whilst I’d been offline. GRRR. Or more often I’d simply not make it to my destination…. life without Google Maps is apparently impossible these days.
The future?
Like many new behaviours and opportunities it’s not the front end service that is the problem but the underlying plumbing. In this case I had a mobile number that I could use across any number of devices, and when I was connected to wifi it worked fine. The only problem was the patchiness of the wifi. And until that’s sorted, I’ll be sticking with my mobile phone.
A user’s guide to replacing your mobile with VOIP services… and surviving
I had my phone stolen at the end of December – slap-bang in the middle of party season. With the festive fun, some hairy deadlines and a sluggish response from my insurance company that meant I didn’t get my replacement up and running until after Christmas.
It was annoying. But not as annoying as I’d anticipated. I used Facebook to organise my social life, Facetime to talk to my nearest and dearest and iMessage to chat with almost everyone else. I took my iPad with me everywhere and logged into wifi when and wherever I could.
It began to dawn on me…. I could give up my mobile and replace them with internet services. Wifi in London is pretty ubiquitous so I should be contactable most of the time. And VOIP services have come of age and are robust enough to use for work and play these days. Game on.
Research
I’m quite a heavy user of various communication platforms; Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Twitter, iMessage, Facetime – but most of my SMS or calling activity still happened through my mobile. If I was going to replace it I needed a service that would allow me to text and call everyone in my phone book not just people who were signed up to the same platform.
WhatsApp and Viber both relied on having an existing mobile number and contract – exactly the thing I was trying to give up. So they were crossed off the list almost immediately.
More promising was SkypeIn. They could provide me with a number that would allow me to call people and more importantly that would allow others to call me. But it didn’t support text. Hmmm.
So I hit google. Most of the solutions had the same problems… until I discovered Pinger.
Pinger allocated you a new mobile number that you can call and text from AND that other people can call and text back to.
Set up
The next step was to test the solution.
Pinger itself turned out to work well on my iPad. Texting worked like a dream. Calls were a bit laggy on occasion but not enough to be a problem. Less successful was the desktop application which let me text contacts but never seemed to receive them – presumably an issue to version 2.0. Satisfied that the software was going to perform ok it was time to check out the wifi coverage.
Most of my devices are configured to auto log-in to the wifi hotspots that I use regularly; home, the office, my boyfriend’s house and also the coffee shops, lunch places and pubs that I go to. The only time I wouldn’t have coverage in an average week would be travelling to and from work and going out to meet friends. I could live with a bit of down time on my journey to work…. but being contactable when you’re going to meet people felt more essential.
BT provide my broadband at home and as part of that I get access to their hotspot coverage. So I dug out my username and password and checked out the coverage – unsurprisingly it’s pretty good in London. That only left one problem, it didn’t seem like I could get my iPad to auto-connect to the service. Faffissimo. I fiddled for a couple of days, logging into the services on my walk to work, getting kicked out almost immediately. Grr. I’d come so far…. but this felt like it might be a deal breaker. I hit google again and discovered a BT wifi app that auto connects you to the network. Woo!
So in theory I was set. Pinger would give me an online mobile number that I could call and text to and from. I had wifi in most of the places I’d need it. What could possibly go wrong?
What happened?
It was a complete disaster! Why? The idea of ubiquitous wifi is a complete fantasy. Here’s just one of many experiences that sums up the problem.
On New Years day I stood for 40 minutes in the pouring rain trying to connect to a BT hotspot so I could call a friend to get directions to her house. I failed. Dismally. Three hours after I set off I arrived back at home sodden, hungover and hungry. Thanks BT. You cheated me of a roast dinner, hair of the dog and a Christmas present.
I did stubbornly continue for a bit. But the problems became more apparent. I’d arrive at meetings or venues, log into the wifi and discover that the time or place had changed whilst I’d been offline. GRRR. Or more often I’d simply not make it to my destination…. life without Google Maps is apparently impossible these days.
The future?
Like many new behaviours and opportunities it’s not the front end service that is the problem but the underlying plumbing. In this case I had a mobile number that I could use across any number of devices, and when I was connected to wifi it worked fine. The only problem was the patchiness of the wifi. And until that’s sorted, I’ll be sticking with my mobile phone.
Article Source: http://www.thisispaper.co.uk/2014/04/23/a-users-guide-to-replacing-your-mobile-with-voip-services-and-surviving/
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