Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Submitted by krzykat on Wed, 09/20/2006 - 8:49pm.
Hi - I know many of us are running traffic through our systems, and figure why not share info so that we can work to get the best rates and routes we can.
I've been playing with VoipCheap (not full A-Z, but has many popular routes) which has some really cheap rates and pretty good quality to most parts of the world. (but you must watch their rates closely as they change them frequently). Not sure how much to trust them to run any significant numbers across though.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/06/2006 - 5:22am
We recommend Unlimitel to our clients (and we use them in house here too). They're very localized to Southern Ontario, Canada, but they offer $0.01/minute calling to most of Souther Ontario, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver, and $0.04/minute to the rest of North America. DIDs are $2.50/month. I've been very pleased with their quality so far, and Stephan, the owner, is just a damn nice guy to deal with.
Alex
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/06/2006 - 8:49am
I use EXGN as my DID provider and for primary outbound calls. I use VoicePulse Connect as a backup. EXGN has DIDs for $1.49 per month + $0.0139 per minute (inbound and outbound), I believe. For residential, this works out much less expensively than the local telephone company. You can add a toll-free number for $0.20 per month + $0.019 per minute inbound.
This is the best deal I have found for adding multiple DIDs that have relatively low usage. For example, four DIDs with a total of 1000 minutes (inbound + outbound) would cost you $19.86 per month.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/06/2006 - 1:11pm
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/06/2006 - 1:22pm
Geesh, are there any good providers out there? I was with Vonage for a year and sadly they were probably the best of anyone I've worked with as far as reliability is concerned, but they were FAR from what I would consider a good company. Support at least was existent even if they were clueless.
EXGN for the most part has been OK, but we still have quite a history of problems. Are there any companies out there with good solid equipment, solid network, and actually some staff?
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/06/2006 - 1:25pm
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/06/2006 - 1:29pm
haha.. yeah I am pretty new to * and getting away from Vonage and the world of PSTN. So true though about them all being 2 man company's.
For the most part, a 2 man company isn't an excuse for poor support or service though. I have been in the Internet services business for 8 years and it's a 2 man operation and we have exceptional support.
But in any case, I will start a new thread as I don't want this one to get more off topic than I already made it.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/06/2006 - 3:28pm
If you want good customer service, try 0064 - 0064.co.nz. I sent them an email question and got an almost instant reply. The rates arn't too bad either, given the weak NZ dollar.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Wed, 06/07/2006 - 9:22am
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Wed, 06/07/2006 - 4:18pm
I have been very happy with Telasip. They have been very friendly on support, and even available on the phone! (gasp!)
They are Asterisk friendly, but their web page needs some work.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Fri, 06/09/2006 - 12:50am
I've had pretty good sound quality with TelaSip. Their support is VERY asterisk friendly, and they have about the best residential rates I have seen. $14.95 a month for unlimited inbound and outbound. (I think they have a soft limit of 2000 minutes though so people aren't using the residential plans for business use.)
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Fri, 06/09/2006 - 5:45am
What makes you think he's in any way from Telasip? The original poster asked for recommended ITSPs. Does that make me from Iristel or Unlimitel because I recommended them? Fire just gave his opinion on the offerings of telesip... Nothing more than what anyone else did here.
Alex
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Fri, 06/09/2006 - 6:34am
I have been using Telasip for quite a while and am very happy with it. Teliax is very good too. I also have EXGN which has been just fine. Telasip is probably the best deal. I also have a sixTel trunk and it is the only one I can get to send a FAX. I have an HP 5610 all-in-one FAX machine hooked up via FXS port on a TDM400. All other thunks fail on sending a FAX. I keep sixTel pay as you go just for that.
Robert.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Sat, 06/10/2006 - 1:07pm
I had terrible luck with Telasip. There was a problem that they didn't resolve very quickly and they were very rude to me. Even suggested that I leave, which I promptly did. Good luck with GalaxyVoice for DID (it's free in New England/NY, low cost otherwise I think). Outgoing I use a mix of VoipDiscount, Voxee, Plainvoip, VoipJet, and Callcentric. All good quality.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Sun, 06/11/2006 - 10:32am
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There seems to be a buzz about using Voicestick for free DID/incoming use.
Voxilla Forum member 'chandave' has provided
configuration notes for VoiceStick/i2telecom.com
A trixbox thread was created here -
Voicestick.com and i2telecom config
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/13/2006 - 6:33am
This is a great company, voicestick.com
Kind of low key! They don't loudly say it, but they give a free DID, and when you get the "welcome" letter there is a credit of $5 to try the out calling. Calling is 1 cent a min. and up it looks like.
Further, you can order a Plantronics m60 micro headset for $0.00 just shipping.
And they have this bridge I am playing with . I can make out calls on my cell! I call into the bridge with my cell and I get a VOIP dial tone.
These guys should be popular some day.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/13/2006 - 10:15am
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/13/2006 - 10:39am
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/13/2006 - 12:27pm
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I, too, was happy that my local exchange was available at Voicestick.
Still waiting for my area code (exchange?) over at Gizmo Project.
Like most, I am concerned about any incoming charges or reg. fees.
'ben77' over on Voxilla forums said he has not been charged for
incoming using Voicestick...2000+ minutes and counting.
Does Voicestick has a 'minimum frequency of use' requirement
(as some providers have) before tossing your DID back in the 'pool'?
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/13/2006 - 2:13pm
Voicestick looks like a potential good or nightmare company. Free is great, but that stipulation of free UNTIL .... I think they're going to get you. Plus their difficulty in keeping registered (read voxilla thread) and integration with asterisk I fear it will turn out bad.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Tue, 06/13/2006 - 8:37pm
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Wed, 06/14/2006 - 2:18am
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Wed, 06/14/2006 - 7:14am
Just for fun, I opened an account with Voicestick. While they did not have DID's in my area, they were free and the signup was painless. However, this does not seem like an Asterisk friendly service. I was unable to find any information on their web site about using my account as a trunk on Trixbox or Asterisk plain vanilla.
On the plus side the DID worked right away and their customer portal is not too bad. I am still evaluating the softphone (on a Mac) and it curiously lacks an "About" menu. Could be rebranded sjphone.
I took a look at the link for a possible config:
_______________________________________________
There are several difficulties using VoiceStick/i2telecom.com with something other than the SJphone client they supply:
SIP REGISTRATIONs must be 1 hour.
A SIP UA must re-REGISTER with a non-cached credential request. In other words, when it's time to re-REGISTER, the UA must request a new nonce and not try to use the old nonce. Anything else will cause the SIP Registrar to reply with a 401 Unauthorized.
The DNS SRV name _sip._udp.i2telecom.com exists and points to sip.i2telecom.com. But sip.i2telecom.com [208.51.102.100] is not the SIP REGISTRAR that supports VoiceStick accounts. As a result, your Asterisk/ATA's must not put i2telecom.com in the SIP Proxy definition...only in the Realm definition.
The SIP Registrar/Proxy for VoiceStick is really at 206.165.50.116 with a backup at 206.165.50.118.
For Asterisk (v1.2.x), I've been able to get it to work by:
Using the following registration declaration in sip.conf:
register => 1phonenumber:password:@i2telecom.com:5060/1phonenumber
Using the following [general] definition in sip.conf:
defaultexpiry=3600
Using the following peer definition in sip.conf:
[i2telecom.com]
type=peer
username=1phonenumber@i2telecom.com
secret=password
port=5060
host=i2telecom.com
fromuser=1phonenumber
fromdomain=i2telecom.com
context=from-i2telecom-com
outboundproxy=206.165.50.116
canreinvite=no
insecure=invite
disallow=all
allow=ulaw
dtmfmode=rfc2833
nat=yes
Using the following context definition extensions.conf
[from-i2telecom-com]
exten => 1phonenumber,1,Answer(i2telecom DID to EchoTest)
exten => 1phonenumber,n,Wait(2)
exten => 1phonenumber,n,Playback(demo-echotest)
exten => 1phonenumber,n,Echo
exten => 1phonenumber,n,Playback(demo-echodone)
exten => 1phonenumber,n,Hangup(i2telecom DID to EchoTest)
Forcing a:
/usr/sbin/asterisk -rx "sip reload"
every 55 minutes.
___________________________________________________
Looks like more trouble than needed....
Robert.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Fri, 06/16/2006 - 7:45pm
My setup is:
allow=ulaw
canreinvite=no
context=from-pstn
host=outbound.sixtel.net
insecure=very
qualify=yes
secret=xxxxx
type=peer
username=xxxxx
I am sending from a fax machine connected to a TDM400 FXO port. I suspect it is the ulaw part that makes it work.
Robert.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Wed, 06/21/2006 - 6:17am
I'm using www.junctionnetworks.com. I've been pretty happy with them using asterisk and IAX. Their support has been has been very good to me. They were able to get a local number for me in which i live out in the middle of nowhere. If you sign up with them they are able to set you up within minutes. That's what's nice about them.
I continue to have problems with losing my IAX2 connection with them have not been able to dectect the problem. I just restart asterisk every hour to bandaid the problem. I'll sign up with someone else or try sip. This is another topic in itself. Like the site...keep up the good work.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Fri, 06/23/2006 - 10:51am
I use sellvoip and they do have great rates but the Support is horrible. If you can get setup without any hitches then its the best. If you want a DID, it takes them up to a month or two to get it configured. It the system goes down, it may take a day or two for them to notice.
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Fri, 06/23/2006 - 12:29pm
Quote:
If you want a DID, it takes them up to a month or two to get it configured.
Dude... I'm all for people posting their favourites, but this just seems unreasonable to me. A few days at MOST is my expectation for DIDs.
Quote:
It the system goes down, it may take a day or two for them to notice.
A day or two to NOTICE that the system is down? Good lord! A few minutes is my expectation for this one...
Quote:
If you can get setup without any hitches then its the best.
From what you've just described, I wouldn't be using the word "best" within a mile of these guys. :-D
Alex
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Thu, 08/10/2006 - 7:53am
This thread seems to cover alot of setting issues for Voicestick
http://www.trixbox.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&...
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Sun, 08/27/2006 - 5:18pm
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Wed, 09/20/2006 - 12:53am
Re: Who's your favorite and least cost providers?
Wed, 09/20/2006 - 8:49pm
You use Talklite or you are Talklite?
http://www.trixbox.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4205&...
Guess there is no reason for Trixbox to sell advertising anymore since you have decided it should be free?
Member Since:
2006-06-01