[Asterisk-biz] Who uses only VOIP for their business?

[Tom Rymes]

On Nov 16, 2005, at 5:49 PM, Juan Cardenas wrote:

> I own a small call center and the implementation of VOIP has been a  
> nightmare. Since I operate 24/7 I tend to notice more than those of  
> us working 9-5 of system problems. I use Voicepulse Connect!  
> Service and their DID’s have had problems everyday at the most  
> crucial hour, usually 5pm. I have already lost customers do to this  
> and it makes want to ask, how many like me are out there. What  
> steps has you taken to make your VOIP solution for reliable. Server  
> wise, Asterisk wise everything has been great. It’s these VOIP  
> outages that kill me. If it’s not about calls that don’t ring in,  
> it’s busy DID numbers or you cant dial out. I don’t want to point  
> fingers at one company, but that’s who I use. I use another company  
> and on my first day which was today! their DID’s went down for  
> about 1 hour.
>
>  So I ask those other business owners out there, What are you doing  
> to help protect your business from outages.
Not to give a smart-alec response, but I protect myself from VOIP  
provider outages by not using one. We use a dedicated voice PRI for  
all incoming and outgoing traffic, and in five years we have only had  
one problem with the circuit, and that was extraordinary. (and we  
ended up getting a massive credit on our account as a result when it  
happened.)

<knocks on wood>

As you mentioned, you have already lost customers over this, so at  
the very least, I recommend that you use a traditional PSTN circuit  
(such as a T1/E1/PRI/BRI/analog) for incoming traffic and use  
multiple VOIP providers for outgoing traffic. IMNSHO, telephone  
service is too important to businesses (at least ours) to risk using  
VOIP for incoming calls. If your incoming provider has problems,  
chances are pretty high that your customers will notice. For outgoing  
traffic, on the other hand, if one provider is down, you can simply  
route calls out to a secondary, tertiary, etc provider and your  
customers will never know any different.

If you absolutely insist on using VOIP for incoming traffic, the best  
rule is to have multiple providers, because you can count on outages  
no matter who you use. I would talk to the various ITSPs out there  
and see what they can do to forward your traffic to another provider  
in the event of an outage. Unfortunately, though, I don't think that  
this service will be 100% reliable (ie: if they can't pass the call  
to you, they probably can't pass the call to your backup provider,  
either....)

My $0.02

Tom

PS: If you get your toll-free lines from a non-voip provider (ie: a  
long-distance company), they might be able to route your calls to a  
secondary VOIP provider in the event that your primary provider has  
an outage.

----------------------------------------------------------
Tom Rymes
Cascade Link Systems
www.cascadelinksystems.com
(603) 375-1414

Technology solutions for small and medium sized businesses.