T-mobile Hotspot

[dacsmema]

I am looking at getting a T-mobile hot-spot for my service thus eliminating the need to do any sort of connection to the physical phone lines that come into my house. So, I want to get voip connection via the WiFi hotspot but am unsure of what equipment is going to be required for such a connection...Any suggestions how to go about this? Is this even possible?

-Dave

[Bink]

Anything that does SIP over Wi-Fi will work. That said, SIP over 3G will “suck.” SIP over 4G is better—but I wouldn’t recommend it—but it’s nowhere near as good as doing SIP over a fast wired Internet connection.

[dacsmema]

Well, that's just it. Our ISP isn't really all that fast. A medium speed dsl is the best we can get at something like 1100/330 or so. Cable is NOT happening because Comcast sucks and I refuse to even give them the time of day lol. Comcast is the only option in town for a cable ISP. *sigh* maybe I am stuck with it...

[Bink]

When it comes to VoIP, 1100/330 still might be better than 4G. While 4G is likely faster, VoIP is very jitter and latency sensitive and this tends to be better with wired Internet connections. As for Comcast, I agree ;) .

[christcorp]

Many people call bandwidth "SPEED". They are two totally different things. It's just that if you have more bandwidth, you can send more packets at a time, and therefor it can download/upload "FASTER". But voice (Phone) is in real time. If it takes you 4 seconds to say a sentence, 3mb dsl isn't going to get it there any FASTER than 1mb dsl. Bandwidth is not SPEED. For what it's worth, Voip using the g.711 codec, uses just less than 100kb of BANDWIDTH. Yes, that's KILO. Believe it or not, using the g.729 codec, you can run Voip over a DIAL-UP Internet Connection. I've done it. It works.

But speed is indeed an issue. Not bandwidth. Speed is also referred to as "LATENCY". When voip reaches past the 150-200ms latency range, you get problems. Remember; voice is real time. You can't RESEND a voice packet like you can a missed packet in a file you're downloading. Now; for what it's worth, a really good 3g cellular internet connection is pushing that 150ms latency time. So; if you have that 100-150ms (Possibly more on a bad day) to deal with...... Then, you throw in the additional latency of using your home WIFI........ You're asking for trouble. Will 4g be better? Yes. But you have to realize something VERY IMPORTANT....... Cellular was not designed with internet voice packets in mind. Why should it???? It's a cellular phone. It's already taking care of your voice calls. Now; FWIW; the newer 4g is being developed to make all your voice calls truly voip. But just like I've said about ma'bell and similar; they have their own dedicated network. When you have a dedicated network, you can accomplish a lot. Traditional VOIP, like VoipO is not on a dedicated network. It's on the INTERNET. And your voice packets have to compete with the emailers, gamers, netflix downloaders, etc.... But again; SPEED and BANDWIDTH are not the same thing. Your 1mb dsl is more than enough for Voip. Unless the latency (Speed) is too slow. Or; you're talking to grandmom while downloading a big torrent file. But most people who get into these conditions know how to use QOS to help a little.