AT&T CallVantage Service VoIP Telephone Adapter
by AT&T
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Our Price: $48.90 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $18.98 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of AT&T CallVantage Service VoIP Telephone Adapter
Customer Review: Out of the box and working in 30 minutes
Summary: 5 Stars
VoIP is "voice over internet protocol", where your phone service is piggybacked on top of your broadband internet connection. You have to have a cable or dsl modem with an ethernet connection.
I hate the local phone company, I just can't stand paying near $50 for phone service when the cellphone bill is $35. I had to cut all the options on the phone service to get it under $50... but must have the "Area Choice" plan or I pay long-distance fees to call 10 miles to work. So the very best I could do was around $47 a month.
What really set this in motion was the new cordless phone my daughter got for Christmas. She wanted Caller ID and I figured, sure, why not pay $2 a month to make her happy? Geez - That's another $8.95 a month just for Caller ID!!
So I went looking.... Finally an alternative!
There's Vonage which is $5 cheaper, but I chose AT&T's CallVantage plan. For $29.99 a month you get unlimited local & long-distance calls and the feature set is awesome. Caller ID, 3-way calling, Locate me, it goes on and on. I can manage everything from a computer on the internet, 60-day call log, voicemail can be played on computer or forwarded to up to 10 email addys, it is unreal!
I got it hooked up and working within 30 minutes. The telephone adapter sits in between the cable modem and the router.
After I disconnected the phone plug in the box on the side of the house - to separate the house from the phone company - I plugged the telephone adapter into a wall jack. This "backfeeds" the house telephone jacks and allows every phone jack in the house to be serviced.
The quality of the connection is noticably better than the old Bellsouth phone service, gone are the clicks and buzzing noise.
I have noticed a decrease in my internet bandwidth when someone is on the phone, but I feel comfortable with the tradeoff.
There are port-forwarding issues with the current telephone adapter (a nice D-Link product) that may affect those of you that run ftp servers, but it is said they will be resolved with future products. Also, there is a Linksys wireless router with integrated CallVantage support that may resolve it.
BTW, they can usually port your existing phone number over, but that didn't work for me. I had to get a new number. Small price to pay. I'm saving $20 a month and getting unlimited long distance with every possible phone feature. Sweet!
Customer Review: AMAZING SERVICE, A MUST-HAVE
Summary: 5 Stars
If you have a reliable high-speed internet connection, this is a must-have service. I've had this for just over two months and have been told several times from people on the other end of the call that the audio quality is clearer than any landline connection. Unlimited calling paired with every imaginable feature makes this a must-have service. The "Locate Me" feature allows you to give out one phone number which will ring up to 5 - yes FIVE - different numbers at once -- for example, your home phone, cellphone, office phone, parent's house, whatever - all at once, and you can accept the call at any one of them by just saying "hello" and then pressing 1 on the phone when the automated voice says "AT&T..." Aside from all the advanced features and so forth, the service is INDESTINGUISHABLE from a regular phone line. You plug in your regular phone, just to the VoIP adapter instead of the regular jack in the wall. The adapter provides a dial tone which sounds exactly like the one provided by your local phone central office. All calling and receiving of calls works EXACTLY like any landline phone, so if you don't tell anyone the phone is actually using a VoIP service, they wouldn't know the difference. Overall you can't beat this deal. There's very little in the way of competition so far, the only notable exception being Vonage who may have slightly lower prices but when you use their service, people KNOW you're on an internet phone. When you use CallVantage, on the other hand, your call is routed via the net directly to a nearby AT&T Central Office that immediately patches you in to the Public Switched Telephone Network. The difference is night and day.
One caveat: the current first generation phone adapter being used by AT&T for CallVantage MUST sit immediately behind your cable or DSL modem and NOT behind any router or other device. This would not be a problem in and of itself, except that if you have a home computer network (LAN) you will not be able to forward more than five (5) ports for applications that need that done. Yes 5 ports total -- not ranges of ports, but 5 ports period. So if you run a P2P app, maybe a server or two, you'll be out of luck. For most people this shouldn't be a problem but be warned. AT&T is planning to have alternative adapters available by the end of September 2004 which supposedly will resolve this issue.
Customer Review: It really does work!
Summary: 5 Stars
I became convinced that VoIP was ready for prime-time after using a sophisticated Cisco VoIP phone at work with excellent voice quality and a whole range of features. AT&T CallVantage sent me a slick advertisement listing all of their features and the savings was substantial (and no FCC taxes!). Since I have worked with computers and networks for a number of years, I was willing to take the risk.
I had some initialization problems with the D-Link VoIP Gateway, but fortunately, when I called customer service a very knowledgable professional spent a lot of patient time helping me re-initialize the gateway. He was friendly and very courteous.
I also had some minor voice quality issues, but I called customer service and they changed my configuration to provide a higher quality of service. I haven't really noticed any problems since.
One feature I really like, not mentioned by other reviewers, is that I get an email sent to my work account whenever a voice message arrives. I can click on the link in the email to quickly bring up the CallVantage web site and click on the link to the voice mail to hear the voice mail message played through my computer, using headphones for privacy. The email lists the caller ID as well, so I know who I need to call back right away.
Another basic point that potential customers should realize is that all your existing phones will work with this telephone adapter, since it hooks into the telephone wiring already in your house.
I had another complication because my alarm system uses the phone line to dial a central office. The CallVantage installation guide states that this adapter will not work with alarm systems. However, I called my alarm company and they came out to make some minor wiring changes and now the adapter and alarm system work well together.
Customers should also be aware that AT&T is beginning to support an SIP router, which is supposed to be more sophisticated and reliable. However, after several calls, I haven't been able to get them to ship me one yet, probably because they are back-ordered.
Customer Review: AT&T CallVantage VoIP service rates excellent!
Summary: 5 Stars
Recently signed up with AT&T CallVantage over cable broadband. The sign up was easy and AT&T handled the porting of my existing telephone number with a high degree of professionalism. Email updates were provided to me throughout the process, which really only took about 1 week rather than the expected 2 weeks.
After signing up, AT&T checked to see that they could port my existing telephone number. That same day, I received an email stating that my telephone number could be transferred and an expected date for completion. At this point, AT&T fedexed the TA to me. On the day that the fedex was supposed to arrive, a customer service agent called me to let me know that it was on the truck for delivery and gave me some brief instructions as to what to do. I followed the simple and clear instructions given by the agent and included in the quick start guide that came along with the TA. The installation was very easy. I hit only one minor snag during the process: the TA didn't activate properly online. So, I called the customer support number that was given on the webpage in case this occurred and they got me up and running within a couple of minutes. The customer support person was engaging, intelligent, and professional. As it turned out, I just needed to try the online activation again. SIMPLE!
Once I was up and running, I made some phone calls to ask people about the sound quality. To my ear, I could not discern any difference whatsoever in the sound quality between CallVantage and the regular phone system. It is crystal clear with no degradation or latency. The friends on the other end indicated the same, that they could not tell any difference whatsoever.
So, excellent voice quality, ease of use/installation, combined with the unlimited local/long distance and all the extra features like voicemail to email and conference calling, do not disturb, and locate me. . . makes me a happy camper.
I highly recommend AT&T CallVantage.
Customer Review: Comment on routers and the telephone adapter
Summary: 4 Stars
Just a couple of quick note about using the Telephone Adapter (TA) with routers. This is going to be of more interest to people who do advanced configuration with their network setup. If you just want to plug it in and go, then everything will work just fine with the instructions in the box.
1. I have seen some comments here about not being able to put the telephone adapter behind a router. It is true that AT&T strongly recommends you put the adapter in front of the router (between your router and your cable/DSL modem), so it can reserve the bandwidth it needs for phone calls. But, at least with the model that they sent me, you CAN put it behind a router if you'd rather do so. You're just risking lesser sound quality if you try to do heavy internet access while using the phone.
2. The telephone adapter has NAT functionality, but is not as configurable as most dedicated routers. If you are already using a router and don't want to yield that kind of control to another device, then you can still hook up the TA as AT&T recommends (in front of the router), because it allows you to set up your router as a DMZ client. That means all traffic gets forwarded to the router just like it always did. You won't have to worry about copying your port forwarding settings to the TA or anything like that. This stuff is only of concern to people who have done advanced configuration on their router, but for those people it is quite important so I thought it worth mentioning.
I've only had the service for a few days now, so I can't comment on the quality other than to say it's working well so far.
Giving 4 out of 5 stars because there does not seem to be a software interface to make phone calls at this time. I sure hope they add one.