layout: post title: Unlimitel plus Question about Yak VoIP in Canada created: 1106025794 categories:

• Canada
• VoIP

Wow...been a while since I commented on VoIP. I had been testing a service from Unlimitel, helping check on cross-country latency. It worked very well (much better quality than Talkbroadband), although their VoIP router was a pain to set up. I especially enjoyed the voicemail-via-email feature. I'm done with testing, and since they only currently offer numbers for Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto, I'm shipping the system back (note to Stephan: I haven't gotten around to getting it packaged up yet, will try to get to that this week).

In any case, this comment from anonymous user "Daniel":

Hello: Has anyone tried Yak's new VoIP product? I just saw their ad in the Toronto edition of the Metro and their packages begin at $12.99 a month. Any feedback would be appreciated. original comment in Talkbroadband post

See what I dug up in the full post.

I looked around a bit, and didn't find any first hand reports of people using Yak. I also couldn't find information on what equipment they are using. I did find this list of area codes available in Canada.

The features page has a few more details. It looks like the Yak "VoIP Caller" product is mainly for making calls, with limited features -- at $9.99USD, this is probably the Canadian product.

The "VoIP Communicator" is the full-featured product, and you can apparently get numbers in the US, Canada, or the UK, and even get a second number (at additional charge). At $14.99USD a month, that's the one I would pick. Even has voicemail-via-email, although they call it unified messaging. Can't tell if the softphone (either XTen Pro and/or XTen's Eyebeam) is an extra cost or not.

Hmmm...I initially scoffed at Yak (silly name, look to be aiming downmarket), but it might be worth a try. Before February 28th, looks like no install charge, either. Put your own comments on Yak or anything else VoIP-related in the VoIP forum.

Update: I did find out what equipment they are using, and it looks good! That is, checking out the installation manual overview (PDF), the pictures look like the same box that I currently have from Unlimitel -- the Mediatrix 2102. This unit can be (as I mentioned at the start) a bit of a pain to configure. Specifically, it does not support NAT, so you have to install it between your broadband modem and your router. This will also screw up things like iChat, although Skype works great.

The good news is that voice quality is excellent, although that may have as much to do with Unlimitel's network.