[Asterisk-biz] Bounty for a residential number port for my asterisk service

[Peter Wemm]

What I'm looking for is somebody who can port my home phone 
(925-968-0766) to their VoIP service in such a way that is suitable for 
use from my home Asterisk box.

The catch is that it was once an SBC number, and was ported to Vonage a 
bit over a year ago.  When I last was able to look it up, it seems it 
is connected to Focal right now.

Given that we have an Asterisk box at home, my wife and I find ourselves 
on the phone concurrently an uncanny regularity.  We don't actually use 
it that many minutes, but we seem to be (un)lucky to manage to both 
want to use it at the same time.

There seem to be no shortage of VoIP providers who can port the number, 
but want me to use a locked ATA (bleah, I've already got that with 
vonage, no thanks) or a restricted residential plan.  These all seem to 
be focused on the "unlimited" plans (which actually have limits, 
bleah!) and try to build in ways to stop abuse, like put session limits 
in place, try to define what "residential" usage looks like and cut you 
off if your call patterns stop looking residential.

What I actually want is something that allows for concurrent use on an 
occasional basis.  If that means paying by the minute etc, then so be 
it.  Actually that tends to work out better for us anyway because we 
don't use that many minutes.  I'd be just as happy with a base plan 
that charged extra for time on additional concurrent sessions, or just 
about anything within reason.  Just so long as it isn't a 'business 
plan' that assumes I'm going to be making thousands and thousands of 
minutes of calls and prices accordingly.  I need concurrency, not 
minutes.

There seem to be no real shortage of VoIP providers who allow concurrent 
use, but don't seem to be able to port my particular number.  I don't 
know if this is because this particular switch (DAVLCA13) is poorly 
serviced or because Vonage/Focal has it locked or something.  (BTW, I'd 
love to find out if that is the case)

I'd be happy with a plan that looked something like these:
* simply pay by the minute, for the DID and for any special services 
[like doing an LNP port].  Kind of like voicepulse connect's no-frills 
wholesale service (except they dont do LNP), or teliax.com's 
pay-as-you-go service (except they don't seem to be able to port my 
number).
* one of the typical monthly residential plans, providing they dont care 
too much about occasional concurrent sessions that stay *well* within 
the expected monthly minute range for a home
or even:
* one of the typical monthly residential plans, so long as it allows for 
concurrent use or has a way of charging reasonable rates for concurrent 
sessions instead of blocking a call

I'm happy with either SIP or IAX2, with a preference for IAX2 as long as 
it is reliable.

Anyway, if you're a VoIP provider and can provide a reliable no-frills 
residential service that has provision for concurrent service, see if 
you can port my number above.  I'm offering an initial $500 bounty on 
top of regular new account costs for the first provider who can do what 
I want.

(This might seem odd for a residential user to care about this sort of 
thing, but its become a matter of principle.  I love teliax's 
pay-as-you-go service, but they just told me that they can't port 
my !&@#^%!&@# home number!)
-- 
Peter Wemm - peter at wemm.org; peter at FreeBSD.org; peter at yahoo-inc.com
"All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5