SIP Provider for Small Business (that's not Vonage)

You'll find many of us who disapprove of using VoIP as a primary business circuit here because of the inherent problems that come with delivering VoIP over the open internet.

That being said, I like Voice Pulse, but I really haven't used many others. DIDs are $11 each per month, unlimited inbound and all calls outbound (in the US) are billed at right around .01/min. That only gives you 4 channels, though, so you'll probably have to pay more for extra channels, and they run $20/month each. It probably works out to a little more than that vonage deal does, but it may be worth it for better customer service. I've never had a problem contacting someone when I needed help.

I only use them at home, and to give our company a local presence in a few markets around the country. I'm sure others will have their own pet VoIP providers too. :)

Much like Vonage, VoicePulse has a special area for SIP trunking:

http://connect.voicepulse.com

Or follow the "Asterisk users" links at various places on their main site.

Edit:

I'll be eagerly awaiting your "my customers are complaining about voice quality, help!" post.

Yes, $11 per number + usage is all you pay, unless, of course, you get more channels.

No, I think that VoIP over the open internet is a risky proposition for many reasons that have already been covered in these forums. Just because it's been reliable and it's reliable today is no guarantee that it'll be reliable tomorrow. There's no QoS, so there can't be. If your network utilization goes up, or a router at ISP X goes out, you'll have reduced quality or no service at all. And ISP X may be an ISP in the "middle" that you can't even complain to.

We'll be putting in a hard line for backup. Besides that, we have a) cable from Cablevision, b) DSL from optimum online, and c) a T1 from Covad. I'm not very worried about all our internet going out. One of the three go out all the time, and we survive.

And with any VOIP account you get make sure they will failover toa pots / cell phone if the inet is down or the PBX is down.
CVP does NOT offer that service or they did not...............
Vitelity does.......and there is no channel limit with them.

Because if the problem is outside of your network, then QoS on your network doesn't help you at all.

Consider the following scenario:

You<->Your ISP<->Some Other Carrier<->TSPs ISP<->TSP

If the problem exists with "You" then you can fix it.

If the problem exists with your ISP, your TSP or your TSPs ISP, you can probably make a phone call and have things taken care of.

If the problem is in the mysterious land of "Some Other Carrier" then there's nobody you can call that's obligated to listen to you. Your ISP might be able to make a call, but the more networks it has to hop around, then the less likely it is that you are to be able to identify, isolate and have that problem dealt with.

This scenario isn't as far fetched as many people think it is.

That quote says it all. Should be fine is simply not good enough.

If you want to trust your business to that type of attitude you get what you pay for.

Scott

I don't want to hear anything, by engaging in debate I advocate my position and hopefully stimulate critical thinking.

If you follow my posts I am very consistent in my advocacy that voice of the public Internet is not business class.

Managed Voip transported across a carrier class network can provide equivelent grade of service and reliability to circuit based telephony.

So I do not understand what "tweaking a system means"? Do you know what change management is?

Anything less than a MOS score of 4.0 and 4 9's of reliability is a compromise. My SLA's to my customers are letter for letter equivalent to the telco's.

When you pitch running Voip across a DSL, Cable Internet or an unmanaged T1 to your customer do you tell them the exact risks?

We run into this all day long, if you want to run your $50.00/mo Voip circuit over your $75.00/mo Internet connection good luck to you. If after explaining the differences in service the potential customer does not want to spend the money we tell them to have a nice day and walk away from the deal.

It's the same reason we recertify the entire cable plant before we install at the customer premise. We either do it right or we don't do it.

Scott

I was speaking of the customers premise wiring, poor choice of words on my part.

I own a regional ISP

Spent my entire carrier in telecom, Since 1979

I spent most of my day today working with our outside plant contractor on the specifications for the cable entrance at a customer site. The customer moved to a SONET product with dual entrance. One aerial and the other underground. Complete path diversity.

That's not tweaking, that's verification that system is installed to specification.

My message was a bit terse, however is that not what I said? Telephony delivered via IP or TDM must meet service level criteria. I clearly stated my position that voice over the public Internet is "best effort". Managed services are designed from the ground up to meet quality and reliability metrics. These metrics are then guaranteed to the customer with a Service Level Agreement.

"Carrier Class" is tossed about too casually. Our core POP is certified TIA-942 Tier IV compliant. Our nodes are Tier III. We monitor key metrics with a managed service point at the customer premise. These metrics are used to manage our network to the SLA.

We do not try to be all things to all people, we serve one region consisting of two LATA's.

Alex -
Quick answers - we are a small shop - no SONET The LEC has several OC-48's in the colo center. Fujitsu FLM's - Our DS-3's are trib'd off those

I was not clear in my statement last night. I was speaking simply to retest the customers wiring (if it was ever certified to start). It's the only way to make sure you don't have layer 1 problems from the start.

Our Internet feeds are two 100Mpbs links from Level 3 and Qwest BGP peers

Internet Router: Cisco 7603 (Dual Router Processor)
Perimeter Security: Netscreeen/Juniper NS-50's HA pair (Also terminates customer VPN's)
POI Router - Cisco 7513 Dual RSP-4's - 3 Channelized DS-3's for T1 loops to customer prem
DS-3 For DSL PPPoE terminaltions - Gig for metro fiber q in q terminations
Data Center Switching - Foundry FastIron
SIP Gateways - Cisco AS5400's
Voice Service Level Assurance Platform - Edgewater Networks
Network Management - What's Up Gold and Solar Winds Bandwidth Manager

Be it ever so humble it's all ours and paid for.

Scott

I have been using sole VoIP for over a year.. We have backup equipment ready to go if failure comes..

We use 2 VoicePulse accounts one for incomming one for outgoing they have great support and free incoming minutes.

Each account comes with upto 4 channels without incurring extra fees.r

We use Vitelity for rollover lines they charge 0.014 per minute but they have good audio quality and g729 support.. As well there DID's are cheaper and 800's are cheaper.. They also don't limit your amount of concurrent channels..
They also have a failover feature to forward calls if your server goes down..

We have about 6 did's 1 800 number and service about 24 extensions 10 of which are in remote locations off our comcast cable internet account all for under $70.00 amonth
Though are bills are mostly based on usage and very..

Hi ya all,

For what it's worth and a little late...I thought I would toss in my two cents worth on using strictly a simple VOIP solution for one's business needs.

I live in my vehicle...no I am not a drunk, homeless, stereotype who takes a shower once a week. My business is such that I will shortly be spending 6 months up north in Canada and 6 months down South in the US. I want a phone which all my customers can reach. I can't have a regular business phone line that will work in both markets seeing as how I live in my vehicle.

So...a VOIP toll free solution seems like the only thing I can use. For better or for worse.

To be sure...it's getting frustrating trying to find good service and price and reliability. I am still hoping to find all three. My experience so far has not been good.

I just thought I would throw my two cents in for what it's worth.

Carlos

Howdy

VOIP for a business line is tricky, i used vonage for a long time and they were decent with good customer service (you could actually get someone on the phone and they answer emails). I now use Broadvoice. Broadvoice comes with good phone connectivity the majority of the time BUT, there's a BIG BUT - they have ZERO customer service. No one answers the phone except this 1 old lady who knows nothing about fixing any problems, and she hung up on 3 of my employees when they called. We waited on hold for at least 25 minutes each time only to get the same person. We emailed then and got a generic response 3 days later which had nothing to do with our question. I would STAY AWAY from broadvoice if you were considering them.

My 6025B-TR+B with suppose to be 3 yr warranty just failed. The server makes one long and 2 short beeps on bootup which indicates problem with onboard video. After few minutes it boots with no video and sometimes crashes.
Their 24 hours server hotline exists only for informational services and suggestions. They informed me that I have to request RMA. I did and received email that approval takes 1 business day(!) Lucky me the server is still running even with no video.

After 1 business day I'm receiving email that since full 1 year of warranty is over, no cross-shipment (advance shipment) is available. (And of course no onsite service as well).
Here is their email:
=========================================================
We are unable to process your request as cross-shipment due to your 6025B-TR+B is over the first year of purchased (warranty on parts have expired). Please use RMA# ***** to return product for repair only.

Supermicro provides 3 year limited warranties for our systems based on Supermicro's original invoice date. 1st year parts and labor which qualifies for cross-shipment. The remaining 2 years only have labor warranty and we may only issue RMA number for repair.

** Be sure to have the RMA number clearly marked outside of the package or it will be rejected by our Receiving department **

Return Merchandise To:
Super Micro Computer, Inc.
RMA DEPARTMENT
880 FOX LANE
SAN JOSE, CA 95131
=========================================================

Since I'm running domain controller and a lot file storage, shipping for repair is not an option. I would advise not to use Supermicro for mission critical phone system setup.