How does OBITALK perform on satellite Internet?

[regeone]

I have a cabin out in the woods beyond the reach of any terrestrial broadband Internet services.  As a consequence, I have satellite Internet service with HughesNet.  I also have a land-line phone service which is costly to maintain.  I'd like to ditch the land line for VoIP service in order to save money.

HughesNet has its own service called HughesNet Voice.  One of the raps I've heard against satellite phone service is the latency issue.  Supposedly HughesNet's latest generation phone service has minimized that problem.  However, service is $40/month, and I'd like to push the cost even lower, if it's possible.

My question, then, is whether OBITALK can be plugged into the HughesNet modem and, through Google Voice, offer me phone service on a par with HughesNet Voice.  Or am I going to miss out on some technical wizardry that makes conversing by phone over satellite possible or bearable?

[ProfTech]

I can't speak about Hughes but my son lives in the woods and has Exede. I set him up with an ATA using Callcentric and it isn't bad. There is a slight lag but I don't really even notice it much. The bigger problem might be "how much is my satellite internet actually down" because when it's not working you aren't going to have phone service. I worked with satellite for a few years and have heard all the horror stories about it going down in a rain or worse ice storm. And if the dish loads up with snow you might be in trouble too. But there are at least two or three good ATA's available for under $50 and you can set up a Callcentric account to test with for little of nothing and no contract.

[regeone]

Sorry for my technical ignorance, but if I have the ATA box, do I still need the Obi?

Can you recommend a specific ATA?

Thanks!

[TrapDoor]

Given the distance to a geostationary orbit, I see a minimum latency of 240 milliseconds round trip plus whatever is imposed by the satellite and groundstation as they handle the data. Add in the latency for ground-based VOIP. Any buffering of the data by Hughes will add latency. You will need a clear line-of-sight path to the direction of the satellite from your location. If their modem utilizes an external ATA, find out if it is proprietary. If not, I would expect an Obi to work. Jitter may be an issue.

But a suggestion - since you already have a landline, get a Hughes rep to call you through their service and see how it sounds or tell you of another customer in your area. Ask them to run a couple of ping tests and report the results. Get them to pick a busy time of day when the satellite is most likely to be heavily subscribed. One test is worth a thousand words.

Good luck.

[ProfTech]

The Obi 200 is the least expensive of their "modern" ATA's. The Grandstream HT701 is another one, very similar. I haven't used the 701 so can't vouch for it but have used an older one and it worked Ok but lacked features. If you use the "Obitalk" web page to set up the 200 you shouldn't have much trouble getting a plain vanilla setup running. You can set up a Callcentric account for testing [outbound calling only] for $1.50 per month and a $2 or $3 setup fee. Once you're good with everything you can port your landline number to Callcentric for around $15 [one-time fee] and then your total service should run less than $10 per month if you don't use it much. If you have a cellphone that works out there they will forward your calls to the cellphone if the internet is down. *Warning* both ATA's require a connection to your network using  the supplied ethernet cable. This means you must have a router or switch with an open port. Most modern home network setups include a Wi-Fi router that usually has 4 ports, but not all. *BTW* I don't have anything to do with Callcentric but did use them for about 2 years. I just think they are a good service and pretty easy to work with. They might be slightly more expensive than some of the others but they offer a lot of easy to use features, IMO.

[GregoryZ]

Regeone,

I've been using Exede now for a couple of months, along with Google Voice.

The ATA I have is the OBi200.

As for Issues, there seems to be a couple.
When I answer the phone, it seems to take a few seconds for the caller to hear me.
Once in a while, folks tell me my conversation is "Choppy"

I'm pretty sure that these issues are due to the Latency of the Satellite technology.  Some times, it's because of QOS issues, as I am surfing while I am talking.

These issues, I find are very minute, and acceptable to me.  For the cost, I can't beat it. 

I know that Exede service is Faster then Hughes.  I'm really happy with the Exede Service, and combined with the OBi200 & Google Voice, I'm able to do what I need to do.

Like Huges, Exede also offers their own ATA.  I've not tested it.  So I can't say if it is better then a BYOD situation.

I due owe a disclaimer here. 
I was job hunting, when I got my Exede Service installed.  Now, I'm an Independent Installer for the Exede Service.    I'm truthful in saying I like the service, and that it is working well with the OBi and GV.

For a last remark, I'll just say Private Msg. me if you want to get the Exede Service.    I get a commission 

[SteveInWA]

Regeone:

Just to clarify some terminology in this discussion:

"OBiTALK" is a name the Obihai uses to describe their own calling system that is used to make and receive telephone calls between owners of two of their hardware OBi boxes.  It's also used to describe their online web portal pages, used to configure their devices.

"ATA" is a generic term for Analog Telephone Adapter, a device that converts your analog voice on a regular, analog telephone, into Voice over IP (VoIP) packets.  You plug a standard telephone into the RJ-11 phone jack on the ATA, and then the ATA plugs into your internet (satellite in your case) service via an Ethernet cable.  We assume that the Hughes service includes a box inside your house, that consists of a satellite transceiver and ethernet router/switch combination.  The ATA plugs into that box.

The OBi family of hardware boxes are ATAs.  So, following ProfTech's posts, you would buy a OBi (a model 200 is my recommendation), and connect that to your Hughes network.  This is an alternative to whatever hardware that Hughes themselves offer to perform the ATA function.  It's either built into their all-in-one box, or it's a separate box.  It'll have a regular phone jack on it, too.

The significant difference between an OBi ATA and, say, the Grandstream HT -701, is that the OBi product also works with Google Voice and OBi's own OBiTALK service.

TrapDoor did a great job explaining the latency issues, which are a matter of physics, and can't be overcome.  Then, there's the weather-related issues.  You'll have to decide for yourself it it's something you can live with.

[TimSmith]

I live in Trinity County, CA. We have Hughes satellite service which for browsing the web does fine. 20 MB download speed.

We tried the OBitalk 200 and the people we called could not understand us. The audio was very choppy and the words were cut off after they heard the first couple of words.

I checked my ping and its about 800ms which of course will never work. I knew it was a long shot, but thought I'd give it a try. I'm returning the unit to Amazon.

I wonder if the Hughes phone package would work any better. Hard to see how it could but maybe...

[dircom]

Off Topic,
I have a friend in Belize, who has internet thru a microwave link, with a small antennae on a pole
any ideas how an obi might work in that situation?  they have @800K down and @400K up
and are a couple of miles out of town I think
I tried to get her to run a voip test on myspeed.visualware.com, but it wouldn't run on her Ipad she said.

[drgeoff]

Off Topic,
but I have a friend in Belize, who has internet thru a small microwave receiver on a pole
any ideas how an obi might work in that situation?  they have @800K down and @400K up
and are a couple of miles out of town I think

Should be OK except for the possibility of choppiness when their other devices are active on the internet.

[RFC3261]

which are a matter of physics, and can't be overcome.

And yet, Scottie kept saying "Ye cannae change the laws of physics!", and then he found a loophole.  Maybe one needs to work on that FTL communications method they used (or come up with your own tachyon array).

[Ostracus]

Well no physics change, but that's the idea behind LEO satellites.

[dircom]

Well, my friends have the Obi in Belize now
works pretty good on their microwave link

I called on Obitalk, GV, and IPcomms, same perceived voice quality on all three connections