I am testing some VOIP at home to move a expensive landline.

I know we recently had similar questions and OOMA was a popular service mentioned, which service isn't the question.

I am testing VOIP.MS. Very cheap, a little harder to setup but great info from VOIP.MS. Using their Softphone App on an Android phone ~ it works pretty well. I will either get an ATA Adaptor to use existing analog phones or get an real SIP IP phone or both, in the future.

One of my concerns is that we regularly give out out landline number for things in lieu of using our cell numbers. As a result we don't get too many spam texts (or other spam-calls for that matter).

I wanted to also get text messages too which is beneficial sometimes.
SMS texts do work well but the more extensive MMS (pics, etc) are more of a challenge. MMS will come it but remain in limited fashion on their site making retrieval more cumbersome. You cannot sent out MMS at all except going through their web portal.

Other features including forwarding, caller ID, voicemail, etc > all are fine.

Anyone have any success with full featured texting or with VOIP.MS for that matter?
Just testing everything out before I port over the main number.
Seems a common problem among all VOIP providers.

I've been with voip.ms for well over ten years. However, I don't use them for SMS or MMS. I have done office-wide installs for several customers who have never registered complaints about the texting feature set. But I don't really know the answer to your query. Forwarding a DID to your cell phone is straight-forward, and does support SMS (and maybe MMS) pass-thru. This would eliminate one possible constricting factor, whether the phoneset itself has the ability to display and store the message. Getting started is cheap and low-risk, maybe just try it?

I would definitely recommend using a "real" SIP phoneset over an ATA or softphone, especially one with HD audio. I like the models offered by Grandstream with the color LCD displays. These, like most stand-alone SIP phones have an embedded web server for phone configuration, and can also be provisioned via TFTP, XML, or LDAP.

During my office roll-outs I found that many people are so accustomed to the semantics of POTS technology that they expected no more from their SIP phones than "to just work like a telephone," and were confused by advanced options.

Of course, you can always go "whole hog" and set up an Asterisk server. There are multiple add-ons for Asterisk that support all manner of texting options.

Yeah, I can forward SMS texts to my cell phone (or email but haven't tried that) or pickup MMS to the online portal.
The text part is only a bonus but it cloud be helpful on not gumming up the personal cell phone.

Looking at some Yealink models of SIP phones.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Looking at some Yealink models of SIP phones.

One of my clients did an extensive trial of various manufactures/models. The Yealinks were OK, but for price/features/performance the Grandstreams beat them out. Mitel was another favored manufacturer. And while Polycom kicks butt in conference rooms, their individual use phones generally suck.

Don't ignore the need for HD audio. Many SIP brands fall short on their microphones. I think this is why VoIP in general has a poor reputation among long-time telco provisioners.

As for where to buy, voipsupply.com was my go to back when I was active in this support space.

I used magic jack for decades.

Right now it is on sale on Amazon for 39.88 for the adapter and a year of service.

You can send and receive texts via the app on your phone.

They will port your landline number for $20.00

Includes 12 months of service
Free unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada
Free mobile companion app (calls to your home will simultaneously ring on your smartphone)
No Monthly Bills
Free Caller ID
Free Voicemail
Free Call Forwarding
Free 411
Free magicJack-to-magicJack calling worldwide
Low international outbound rates

If you travel internationally, you can plug it in and call the USA for free.

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
I used magic jack for decades.

Right now it is on sale on Amazon for 39.88 for the adapter and a year of service.

You can send and receive texts via the app on your phone.

They will port your landline number for $20.00

Includes 12 months of service
Free unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada
Free mobile companion app (calls to your home will simultaneously ring on your smartphone)
No Monthly Bills
Free Caller ID
Free Voicemail
Free Call Forwarding
Free 411
Free magicJack-to-magicJack calling worldwide
Low international outbound rates

If you travel internationally, you can plug it in and call the USA for free.

If any SFites are following this thread, this feature list applies to just about every SIP provider. WRT to MagicJack, it is plain Jane ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) that gives you a phone jack into which to plug your old-style Bell system deskset. Most SIP phones have more advanced featuresets to include multi-line conferencing, and extended phone directory/speed-dialing.

Payment plans and costs for SIP service are all over the map. You can pay a yearly fee (like MagicJack), or pay by the minute (like voip.ms), and pretty much any way in between that you can imagine. Run the actual numbers based on your usage pattern to do a true all-in price comparison. Whichever provider you choose it is almost certain to be a fraction of what people expect to pay for a "land line," even including the cost of the Internet service.