Why I have given up on the concept of VoIP

I have used VoIP for a while now but a recent reshuffle of pricing and the realization of the poor state of Broadband here doe not make it a viable option..

have played about a bit with Voip and must say, it's not all it's hyped up to be but certainly has possibilities if deployed in the right way.

If you can piggyback it on existing hardware or cabling which is already intact, it's cheap to deploy.
otherwise instead of running a cheap analogue twisted pair, you are running a thick CAT6 cable which can get rather expensive plus you need to buy the often overpriced equpment.

You can get a "national presence" or even "International presence" in a remote town which is ideal.
Of course, the links back to NZ suffer for major jitter and latency so this is often an impossible reality, use your cellphone instead.

You can roam around the place with it and it's like you never left.
but you are of course reliant on the internet and if it goes down, you are stuck.

It's often FREE to call between users...
but remember you still pay for your internet traffic.

It's not overly cheap... You need to buy the equipment, setup an account and often pay a monthly fee for it.

Recent "naked DSL" pricing with a VOIP line have proven to be nothing special on pricing. You are often better off getting a real analogue line installed.

Call charges are also not overly amazing, compared to regular "tolls" they are reasonably cheap but not when compared with most of the cheap calling cards*, you pay quite a premium using Voip!

Call quality, it's inferior to a landine, period, faxing is also a worry. If you take into account the real performance with delays, packet loss and jitter, it's really not worth the hassle.

It's certainly been a fun concept to play around with but the reality is, it's not yet ready for the mainstream and is an overhyped marketing tool..
Link