Customer Reviews

Actiontec VoSKY Skype Call Center ( USB07051C-01 )

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

This is a must have, if you like skype. I never liked the pc calls in the early days due to the voice drops and the choppy sounds. But ever since skype came on to the scene, it has been a great experience. The voice quality is unbelievable. I have my folks from India calling me (I am located in US) from their PC using skype. Best of all it is free for me, as the internet connectivity is broadband for both my parents and me, so we can talk for ever without any per minute charges to the telecommunication company.

One issue with skype was that I am kind of tethered to the PC.
Well, not any more. With the vosky call center, I am no where near my PC. Infact I use skype from my mobile phone these days.
(see it is free after night and weekends for both incoming and outgoing calls). You might be thinking I have some of those fancy paid skype services such as skypein and skype out. Well No, nada. What makes it possible is this little product.
The setup is fairly simple. It has just three outlets. The telephone line goes to one of them. The other outlet connects to the telephone. The third one is a USB port which goes to the PC (with windows xp). I keep the PC always on with skype connected with my account. Now, I have setup all my family and friends with speed dialing numbers such as 1, 2 etc. Now all I have to call them from my regular phone is ##1.
Also dialing ## takes me to this vosky call center exchange. I can call any of my contacts with the preset speed dial numbers I have setup. Also, I can call from my mobile phone to my home phone number and access my callcenter(like those answering systems - password protected). Another cool feature is that I can put a wakeup call on any phones, whenever my contacts become online. So I do not have to setup a ren de vouz with my parents for a prearranged time for the PC calls. All they have to do is call my skype account, and my regular phone will ring. Also, from my phone, I can call my skype contact, and if they are offline, it gives me an option to
altert me when they become on line. So as soon as my parents sign in, I get alerted on my phone(or mobile).

Also, my PC has VPN, skype and call center software works in both mode. So thats is great too. Also, when the PC is off, my regular phone works as before.

Also you have the option to setup an answering system, which will route all calls to your PC as audio files.

Do not waste time buying USB phone/mic/speakers etc, when you can use your regular phone, anywhere, anytime.
I will post some pictures of my setup on www.emindshop.com

I have now purchased four of these for everyone in my family. I have two installed in Europe and two installed here in the USA.

The basic functionality is that it lets you use your home phone to talk on skype. When you get a skype call, your home phone rings. It works simultaneously with a land line as well. You can have skype and your land line connected at the same time. When you get a skype call your phone will ring differently than when a landline call comes in. It also acts like call waiting. If you're on a skype call and you get a regular call, you'll hear beeps just like call waiting and can flip between the two calls. It works with answering machines too. Incoming calls will ring the same number of times as your landline calls and your answering machine will pick up and they can leave a message just like a regular call.

The advanced features are amazing. You can setup the Call Center for skype call forwarding. I have mine set to ring 4 times and if I don't pick up at home, it will use my landline to call my cellphone and connect the skype call. I no longer worry about being at home to take a skype call.

The next cool feature is using the Call Center to allow you to make skype calls from any phone on the planet. With this feature enabled, the Call Center will answer your landline phone after a certain number of rings. It can make your PC act like an answering machine. When the greeting comes on, you can type in a secret pin code on the phone and it will then let you dial a skype call and connect you. Picture this: you're at work and have urgent news for your family in another country. Instead of making an international call or going home to make the call, you dial your home phone. The Call Center answering machine on your PC picks up. You punch in your pin and dial your skype speed dial number for your family and the call center connects you. You are now making an international phone call even though you're only paying for the call to your house.

When you receive skype calls at home, the skype ID of the person calling will show up on your home phone caller ID.

Setup is simple.

1) Install Skype and set it up on your pc
2) Install the software on the CD that came with the Call Center
3) Setup advanced Call Center features on your pc if you want to (it's optional).
4) Connect the Call Center USB cable to your computer
5) Connect your home phone to the Call Center
6) (optional) Connect your landline phone wire to the call Center

That's it. You're now in business.

Using this box has really improved my life! My parents in europe are not computer savvy and would have NEVER used skype regularly as it is complicated and confusing to them. Now if they want to talk to me, they just pick up the phone and dial ##1. If I want to call them, their phone rings just like normal.

Also, I am using a Cable Modem phone line (voice over IP) from my cable company and the Call Center works just great. I read some places saying it may not work well, but it does.

I bought two of these. They work great, in order to switch from the landline to the Vosky you have to press ## and then in order to type in a phone number you press 00+Country Code+Area
Code+Local Phone Number. It has worked flawlessly for me ever since I installed it. I use it with Skype 2.5 and it works perfectly. Make sure you install the drivers first before plugging the unit in, and don't get the two phone cables on the back of the unit mixed up as I did (if you are also using a landline, not required). You can only use the advanced features like call forwarding if you have an installed landline, otherwise its only good for using it with SkypeOut and recieving calls from Skype or SkypeIn if you subscribe to that service. If a Skype contact calls it shows their name on the caller id screen of your phone (if you have caller id on your phone). I can't recommend getting rid of your landline as tempting as it may be, because Skype does not support E911.

This thing is saving me lots of money, and it has already paid for itself.

It isi one good product. It answers my need with the call forwarding feature. It does it amazingly well. The voice quality is great; there is no problem with call dropping. I am quite happy with it.

My peers can call me from overseas with the Skypes service. The call is forwarded to my cell.

I wish Vosky had worked harder on the feature list. For instance, the pre-entered forwarded phone number can only be changed when you are in front of the computer connected to the Vosky. Why can't that number be changed remotely?

When you call a contact, there is only one option is available: call return by pressing 1. Why can't there be more features added to the firmware to handle addional tasks?

Bottom line, it is a really good device, worksk seamlessly. The build quality is good though it looks cheapy (the plastic). Forget the manual, very limited...though you don't really need it. Works right out of the box, say...20 minutes! Good luck

When my wife speaks during calls, the harmonics of her voice, for some reason, triggers the nearest touch tone to be auto-generated and injected into the call by some circuit in the Vosky box, causing the people we talk to to believe we are recording calls. This is very annoying and distracting! My voice does not match a touch tone and does not trigger this odd behavior. The device's software should allow the user to turn off this "feature".

Also, when I reboot my PC, I must reset Skype's audio settings each time, to use Vosky's USB device vs. the PC's audio ports. The other USB device I've used with Skype does not have this problem, and I must assume it is another bug in Vosky's implementation.

The Vosky Call Center is an amazing piece of technology, and not expensive either.

For its first trick, it allows you to receive and make Skype calls from a traditional type phone. As well, if you have a multiple handset, you can make and receive Skype calls from any phone in the house.

For its second trick, you can call the call center from any phone in the world, including your cell phone and make Skype calls virtually from anywhere. It's particularly useful when you're in your car and you want to call a Skype contact. Just call your home number. When the Vosky taped operator's voice asks you to leave a message, you key in your password, say, the numbers 1,2,3 and then the Vosky asks you for the speeddial number of your Skype contact.

I've called my son, who lives in Belgium, many times from my cell phone in my car here in Ottawa, Canada. All I pay for are the local minutes used on my cell phone, which, if I'm calling during evenings and weekends are free anyway.

The reception is clear and reliable.

Make sure you download the latest software for the unit.

Get one. Worth every penny.

I have used VoSKY Skype Call Center (USB07051C-01) for about a year now as my only home Skype In phone (paying $3.16 a month) after getting rid of Verizon (for which I was paying $50.00 a month).

PROS
It works most of the time although sound quality is not as good as regular phone.
Easy to set up.

CONS
Once in a while the phone will keep on ringing even after you hang up and then you have to exit out of the Vosky software and start again.
You need a computer.

In summary good value for money and the best way to use Skype as your phone until phones that can be used without computer like Skype Wi-Fi phones Netgear and Belkin come down in cost and their bugs are worked out; or a phone adapter like this product comes out that plugs directly to the router.

Update (September 2008): After having tried this device, Belkin Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype with Boingo Hot Spot Manager ( F1PP000GN-SK ), Netgear Netgear SPH101 Skype Wi-Fi Phone and Philips VOIP841 PC-Free DECT 6.0 Wireless IP Phone, I think the best way to use Skype as regular phone is Philips VOIP841 PC-Free DECT 6.0 Wireless IP Phone which plugs into router and you don't need a computer. Belkin & Netgear are buggy and have poor battery life. I don't know why Philips VOIP841 has been discontinued.

The idea of being able to tie skype into your basic telephone network was very appealing to me and so I bought the VoSKY call center. I worked fine at first but after about a week kept requiring me to restart the software every few days. Additionally, it didn't work very well with my existing answering machine if I wanted to allow external call in's, i.e. hooking into the phone network by calling externally, say from a mobile phone.

As for Actiontecs support, not the best. When the software gave me USB troubles, I was on the phone with them for about an hour, digging through the Windows registry - better idea is to write software that DOESN'T corrupt the USB setup in the first place. As for their online forums, most of the replies are "update to the lastest version". When the auto-update service told me there was a new version I upgraded, only to have it run into a USB problem. I had to uninstall and put the original software back on, then ignore the auto-update. Now, before you say "it was probably some freaky hardware you had" - no - I was running both basic Asus and then Intel motherboards with standard sound cards so nothing special which to me, if Actiontec can't play nice with basic integrated sounds cards and other hardware - what can they play with?

Additionally, my wife always complained about a "beeping" noise on the line whenever she would talk to people (in Canada, Hungary, Romania) - this beeping did not occur when using traditional long distance service. To try and troubleshoot I upgraded and then downgraded the version of Skype I was using - nothing changed. I've now purchased a Linksys CIT400 and presto! beeping has disappeard. Dropped calls have disappeared. Now the CIT400 is about five X the price - but it works and works well thus far.

Do yourself a favor, spend the extra money and save yourself the stress.

I purchased the VoSKY Call Center and am delighted with it. I had been using a LinkSys CIT200 portable phone with Skype and, while that worked very well, there were occasional issues with its connectivity.

I installed Call Center without removing the LinkSys drivers and encountered zero problems. I use Call Center as a way to connect four wireless Uniden phones PLUS my regular land line and it works fantastically. Call Center worked right out of the box, with no configuration issues or even minor head scratching.

Another reviewer here tells you to find another product, but listed several issues that I simply didn't have.

1. Annoying beeping noises - no strange beeps for me, though on VoSKYs forums, a couple of users have reported this.

2. NO RETURNS ACCEPTED - odd issue - many manufacturers ask that defective products be returned through the retailer. The VoSKY forum shows that they do seem to issue RMAs on some problems.

3. Cannot be used with Skype 3.0 - Wrong! I installed Call Center on an existing Skype 3.1.0.144 program and everything works fine.

4. Cannot be used in Canada - don't know - it works great in the US.

5. Cannot be used with any cordless telephone. Somebody must have 'issues'... this is Call Center's principal reason for being. (Did the reviewer think, somehow, that Call Center would magically connect to a wireless phone?) You CAN connect wireless phone systems to Call Center. Yes, if you want to use Call Center with a land line, you have to be able to plug a cord into it, so it has to be located near both your computer and a land line connection. Check out Unidens's DCT646 series phones - they work great with Call Center and don't cause any interference with a Wireless G network.

6. DIAL 001 on every call - not true - Call Center easily allows you to use Skype's one or two digit speed dial numbers for outgoing calls. Skype, in general, requires that you enter 001 to call a US number, so blaming Call Center for this is silly. VoSKYs forums suggest that you can skip the 001 code by changing your Skype configuration to US settings. I haven't tried this, as 95% of my outgoing calls are to speed dial numbers.

7. Software problems - The other reviewer complained that the Call Center configuration software wouldn't open unless a land line phone connection was established. The documentation that comes with Call Center plainly describes this. The call center configuration is simply there to allow Call Center to interface with a landline, so why you would want to open this configuration without a land line connection is also silly.

8. Poor sound quality - I haven't experienced any sound quality issues since installing Call Center that I didn't have before with Skype. Read ANY Voip forum - Vonage, Packet 8, Sunrocket, Skype - and you'll see that VOIP calling has quality issues. Blaming quality issues on Call Center is like blaming the postman for those darned credit card bills that show up in your mailbox.

Bottom line: Call Center allows me to use my wireless phones in any room in my home and make Skype or regular phone calls. The installation was easy, the product documentation complete and tech support on line friendly and efficient.

If I could give this zero stars, I would. This product worked for a very short time. There is absolutely NO tech or customer support. The firmware has not been updated since May of 2007. I put it back in the box months ago because I got so tired of their only suggestions: instead of using the current version of Skype, I was told by VoSKY's tech people to use Skype version 3.2 or earlier! Every bad review you saw above this one? I have one word: Ditto! The call quality wasn't bad, but I couldn't take all of the skype restarts, and the constant vosky request to update software for which vosky has no update! In short, this product does not do what it is advertised to do!