Sipgate and Voiptalk Comparison - provided by thecaretaker

Here is a comparison between Sipgate and voiptalk. Both companies
provide similar products.

Firstly, my needs. I want an ip phone provider that offers me a local geographic phone number, who provides voicemail services on a pay as I go basis. Both Sipgate and voiptalk offers these services but in slightly different ways.


Website
I'm a simple fellow who needs a clear, simple and easily understandable web interface to control my account. Sipgate is the clear winner here. I find their website account section very easy to navigate and understand. voiptalk offers the same options but is much harder to find my way around.

Accounts
Both offer a free account. However, with Sipgate, you automatically get a geographic number for free. voiptalk provides you with a 08700 national rate number. If you want a local number, you have to sign up for their pre-pay silver option. But at only £2.99 per month isn't going to break the bank.

Tariff
Both offer similar tariffs for the free service. However, if you do pay voiptalk for a their pre-pay silver account (to obtain similar features) voiptalk rates are much lower at just 1p a minute to the US, Australia and for UK calls. Even calls to mobiles are cheaper. So what you spend on your £2.99 subs, you can easily make up if you use your phone regularly.

Voicemail
The same applies to voicemail. With Sipgate, voicemail is free but you need the pre-pay silver account to have this function with voiptalk. Also, you can specify how many rings sound before the voicemail cuts in with Sipgate, you can't with voiptalk.

So far, it looks like Sipgate are the clear winners, but hold on. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. A number of other factors like quality and reliability also matter a lot to me and it is in this area, voiptalk wins hands down.

Speed
I have noticed a short wait from the time you dial a number to the time the connection starts ringing at the other end with Sipgate. This maybe due to Sipgate being based in Germany and it takes longer for calls to get routed from the UK. The same test with voiptalk and connections ring almost instantaneously.

Sound quality
Sound quality does seems better with voiptalk. It's a subtle difference, but voices do seem louder, sharper and crisper using the voiptalk service.

Reliability
Reliability is the main issue with Sipgate. I admit this has improved recently, but I still frequently find I get engaged tones. When switching to voiptalk, the call rings and connects to the person I want to speak to every-time. Incorrect engaged tones are a frequent occurrence and a user could be easily fooled into thinking the caller is unavailable.

Although my phone tells me I am connected to the service, I often get stuck with no connections and have to dial a second time. I have never had such issues with voiptalk. The service is always available and works well every-time.

Billing
I've not had any issues with either provider over billing.

Conclusion
I tend to feel that voiptalk is more focused on the business user and therefor I feel this has an influence on the reliability of their service. It also means you need a little more background knowledge of how to set your phone up. But once set up, voiptalk clearly provides the more reliable service.

For beginners, Sipgate is much easier to understand and set up your phone, they provide specific set-up guides showing your phones configuration page using all your own details. So all you need to do is copy it from their website into your phones configuration page and reboot. Easy! However, in saying this, I have a Cisco 7940 phone and this option isn't available for my model.

All service are provided free with Sipgate. To get the same level of options with voiptalk, you need to buy into their pre-pay silver package. However, calls are much cheaper by doing this.

Now I have a little knowledge under my belt, given the choice between the two companies, I place my money on voiptalk. What I need is a reliable, good quality phone service. Lets face it, you only need to set your phone up (and configure your router) once. Once your phone is set up, you want to enjoy your experience making lots of free and cheap calls around the world and voiptalk will let you do this.

Marks out of 10
Sipgate 7/10
voiptalk 8/10

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