FreeTalk Review Provided by fred

I purchased the Freetalk ATA adaptor just over 2 months ago now and here is my review.

Initial Set Up
The initial set up for Freetalk is very straightforward. You simply register your adaptor on the Freetalk website and then connect it to your router and then connect a phone of your choice to the Freetalk ATA and you are off!

Call Quality
The call quality of the service is very good. There have been occasions when I have had slight echo but this is quite rare to be honest. It is far superior to any softphone I have used eg Skype and never suffers from lag/dropouts or delays. Most people do not comment on what kind of device I am using when I call them. They are more interested in the number I am calling them from! I have also noticed that if I change dect handset the perceived call quality changes slightly! I mainly use a new Philips 511 dect handset with Freetalk but have tried others out too. Trial and error I would say although the differences are very slight and I do have very good hearing! I once called the Freetalk Technical helpline and they admitted they use lower bandwidth for calls than Vonage and the user cannot adjust call bandwidth, unlike Vonage.

Pricing
The cost of the service is a two tier set up. You can either pay £79.99 for 1 years service up front or £6.99 per month (plus £19.99 for ATA). This is £1per month cheaper than Vonage which operates a very similar service. The only gripe I have with the pricing is that if you are on a call and it exceeds 1 hour duration then you will be charged 2p per minute thereafter. I have not exceeded the hour duration to date but have come close. Of course if you end the call and re-dial then you would not incurr any charges-inconveniant though. There is a 14 day trial period too in case you really do not like the service. If you wish to terminate the service during the first 12 months of use then there is a termination fee of £23.99.

Features
One of the plus points of the service is the ability to enjoy many calling features for free which would be chargeable under domestic telephone providers. I really like Caller Display and personalised voicemail. There are loads of features including Call Waiting/Call Fowarding/Three Way Calling/Anonymous Call Blocking to name but a few.

Billing/Website
My experience with Freetalk's billing wasn't what I expected. I did not receive a bill for almost 6 weeks and I had to contact them 2 or 3 times to establish the reason why there was such a delay. They announced it was due to server upgrades and sure enough my bill arrived after the upgrades were complete. The website also has a listing of new UK dialling codes but it isn't updated very quickly from what I have seen so far and I still am unable to get my local dialling code. This needs to be improved upon. The website is very easy on the eye and very simple to navigate. I do enjoy the online account features and being able to call logs right up to the very last call made/received.

Conclusion
Overall I highly rate the Freetalk service. It has never fallen over and call quality is very good. The only downside is that calls that exceed one hour incurr charges and some UK dialling codes are not yet available. I would rate the service as 8/10 overall.

Fred.

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