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

[Paul]

Mike Fedyk wrote:

> Michael Welter wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>>
>> [switch from one provider to another, then another and back ]
>>
>> Rather than burning a bunch of time with customer service, I'm now
>> bouncing around to whatever vendor that is working.  Eventually, as
>> in the TelIAX case, their problems get fixed.  Hopefully, NuFone will
>> start accepting calls someday.
>>
>> So, I would recommend having a current accounts with several vendors.
>> And you might want to read about ChanIsAvail.
>
> http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/index.php?page=Asterisk+cmd+ChanIsAvail
>
> Yes, let asterisk deal with the flakiness of the VOIP providers. 
> Though how do you deal with this for incoming calls?  Have the
> incoming numbers forward to another number on another provider if they
> don't go through?  Anyone have any details on a setup like this?

You want failover to happen as far upstream as possible. Deal with
companies like pilosoft and txlink unless you are ready to deal directly
with their vendors. First time I saw Alex using the "reseller of a
reseller" phrase was back in January and the importance of the factor is
obvious to me. I think that either of these companies could get me DID's
with failover implemented at the carrier level. That way when Alex
spills coffee into the rack I still get incoming calls.