yellowgowild

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with net-phones and if anyone could recommend one ad possibly explain how they work. My girlfriend is from Argentina and is always having to buy phone cards so I was thinking it might be easier and cheaper if we had an actual phone thats connected to the internet. Anyone know anything about these phones?

propaganda

Just use those cheap little instant messanger talk features though i cant imagine how long it would take for a message to get there...

Boner

I've been doing a bit of playing with various voip software lately.



Skype

Skype, http://www.skype.com/, seems to be pretty nice. It is PC-to-PC, and will work best if you and your girlfriend have a broadband connection. Voice quality is pretty good. Its free (for now anyway), and seems to be built to overcome problems with firewalls, etc. There are a lot of TFP users who swear by it. Both PCs will need to have the Skype software installed.



MSN Messenger

I've had really good luck with MSN Messenger's built-in voice support for PC-to-PC calls. I prefer it to all of the others that I have used so far. Latency wasn't bad and both sides could talk simulatenously without cutouts. However, I've noticed that it tends to be finicky with some firewall/NAT setups. It has been my choice for PC-to-PC. I think its audio quality edges out Skype, although Skype is still very good. The built-in support for PC-to-PC calls in MSN Messenger is free.



Yahoo Messenger

Yahoo Messenger's voice support always seems to work, but I think the voice quality is crappy compared to everything else available right now. Sounds about as good as a CB radio to me. Y! Messenger voice is free as well.



Net2Phone

I've played around a little with Net2Phone. I haven't made any PC-to-PC calls with it, but the PC-to-Phone support isn't bad. I carried conversations out using it and I was fairly pleased. Your mileage may vary depending on the speed and latency of your internet connection. Also, don't waste your time signing up through MSN Messenger. My account was screwed up for a week because of problems between MSN and Net2Phone. I finally ended up speaking to someone in India who straightened the mess out. Just sign up directly at Net2Phone.com. I believe $10 is the minimum to open an account. Net2Phone bills by the minute for PC-to-Phone calls.

You download the software from their site and use a microphone and speakers (or headset) to call out. I highly recommend getting a decent headset. Using a microphone and speakers usually results in an annoying echo for the person on the other end.

I don't know that the savings per minute would be worth the hassle of using your PC instead of the phone, but I don't know how much a call to Argentina would be.

TickTock

i find that teamspeak is really good! www.teamspeak.org

people use it for gaming but can be used for anything. you can create your own passworded channel and just the 2 of you can join it. it sounds just like phone.

hope it works for ya!

Moskie

I'll second Boner's notion that MSN is (just barely) the best option. Good quality, not too much dropout and delay. The only annoyance is that it requires MSN Messenger (*blech*) and it might take a few tries to get the connection established. Once you got it going though, it's pretty damn good.

Skype isn't bad, quality isn't as good as MSN, but you don't have to deal with MSN Messenger. My girlfriend and I use Skype to talk as we play Neverwinter Nights together Its a small app, so we don't notice any more system resources being used, and it doesn't appear to create any lag for the game either. We have noticed a bit of lagginess/choppiness with MSN though.

I've also had some recent experience with Dialpad, and didn't really like it. I experienced significant lag, which got really annoying. I was making a PC-to-Phone call between Europe and the US, so distance might have something to do with it, but it sill sucked.

As a side question: does anyone know of a thrid party client that I could use for MSN that also has the voice feature? I use Trillian, but then switch to the MSN Messenger app when I want to use the voice chatting.

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Kurl

Ventrillo is actually a lot clearer. At least from what ive used of both of them. We used to use TS for gaming but switched to Ventrillo shortly after. The only thing about it is that its a little more difficult to set up than TS is.

yellowgowild

Keep in mind we have to make a call to a phone not another computer.

Boner

In that case, I'd try Net2Phone. Or you could go to Sam's Club and buy one of their super cheap phone cards.