Estate and Parcel settings for Voice

Well firstly it looks like the default is for land to have voice switched on, and you need the firstlook viewer to switch it off. I thought it was going to be the other way around?

Secondly, I've searched the knowledge base but can someone explain the options to me - under a parcel you have

Use estate spatial channel
Use private spatial channel
Disable spatial audio

Ok the last is straight forward, but what is the different between the first two? If I select private spatial channel does that voice enable the parcel even if voice is disabled on the estate?

1) Use a channel that stretches across the whole region, unless a parcel owner has chosen a different option for their parcel

2) Have a channel that is limited to that parcel, you wont be heard from other parcels or on the estate channel

3) have no parcel voice at all.

No matter what users will still be able to use group voice or person to person voice.

As far as the defaults go i think thats still early days, the default option for voice in the client is off, when the voice client is merged in with the normal client the parcel options will be available to all, even if voice is disabled for the parcel owner, but they may want others to be able to talk etc.

I tried the 2nd one and nothing happened. The parcel was still "voice disabled". Or is this one of those "Restart to Take Effect" deals?

Ive tried to enable it on My Region and no go.. Doesnt work.. I fly to Ahern to see if my settings are correct and voice works fine there.

Make sure the sim your region is on is one of the voice enabled ones.

http://www.secondlife.com/voicemap

I've also heard that region voice options shouldn't be messed with right now until they get it running a bit more smoothly.

Milo, they REALLY need to re-name that last option. "Disable spatial audio" makes it sound like that will disable ALL ambient audio - the birds singing and waves crashing on shore as well as the annoying noob shouting obscenities in Voice Chat. Re-name it as "Disable Voice Chat".

And why CAN'T I completely disable Voice Chat on my land? If I own a parcel on a private sim, or if I own the whole sim, and I do NOT want voice zombies chattering away with people elsewhere like rude people using cell phones in a restaurant and ignoring the people who are right next to them, why can't I enforce that? Do I have to ban anyone I suspect of using Voice entirely from my land to prevent them from staring off into space while they chatter with someone 20 sims away?

Is it really any worse than having them stare into space while they IM with someone 20 sims away?

You have the *right* to do tht if you like, but it seems rather extreme, to me.

It's been my experience so far that when people are chatting with Voice Chat, they tend to completely ignore any text chat or IM's that are coming in. It's like they close their eyes while they talk. Whereas when they are chatting via IM they are actively watching the text on the screen and tend to reply immediately to both text chat and IM's.