> Secondly, good codecs make a world of difference [...] quality in all 3 settings far surpasses what's on PSTN [...]
To be fair, this is probably true of any decent VoIP solution on the market. The problem is always that moment you have to connect to the PSTN and you're forced into a choice of G.711 or G.729.
I've tried using spark but unfortunately video calls don't seem to work at all when I'm on my corporate VPN (which is Cisco, btw). I really want to use it because it otherwise works on Linux (compared to webex...) but I need to be able to use it on the VPN.
Does it automatically report your political and religious affiliation to chinese ministry of public security? Lol, zing.
Secondly, good codecs make a world of difference. This is where I'll add the disclaimer that I'm in the collab side at Cisco. But I have the opposite experience using systems on my phone, my mac and with big telepresence units: the quality in all 3 settings far surpasses what's on PSTN, and if you're using good speakers or headsets, you can really appreciate the good quality.
In your case, it sounds like you might benefit from a better network access point at home.
Shameless plug #1: check out Cisco Spark. We still have some rough edges but I think the call quality is what you're looking for. I'm able to carry on a call and switch from wifi to LTE without dropping, or turn on VPN in the middle of a call and just get a few seconds pause before it recovers.
https://www.ciscospark.com/
Shameless plug #2: check out the new Sparkboard. It's got 12 microphones and does beamforming in order to filter our room noise away from whoever is speaking.
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/collaborati...