[asterisk-biz] Does VoIP Really Work for Serious Business?

[mustardman29]

I have to disagree somewhat.  Echo is inherently a BIGGER problem with VoIP
PBX.  Mostly because of larger delays.  This article is what clued me in on
it.  The bottom line is you really need to use hardware echo cancellers for
VoIP PBX's if you want to be sure you won't have echo problems.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8424


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt [mailto:mhoppes at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 11:38 AM
> To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] Does VoIP Really Work for Serious 
> Business?
> 
> Echo is a problem not of voip but rather with the caller or 
> callees phones or wiring.  A good echocanceller can deal with 
> the issue
> sometimes.   However, on our Nortel phone system going ot the PSTN we
> get echo sometimes.  Echo is just delayed audio.. I've heard it happen
> on our Nortel, even on my amateur radio.   Echo happens.
> 
> Dropped calls.  Yeah this happens on our Nortel too. (absolutely no
> VoIP) and I've seen it happen on the PSTN as well.
> 
> Choppy audio?   Get a provider with a better SLA.
> 
> On 3/7/06, Voip Xpress <voipxpress at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Discussion...is VoIP really ready for serious business use.
> >
> > We have been installing Asterisk for customers for about a 
> year now, 
> > and we are beginning to wonder if parts of VoIP are really 
> ready for 
> > serious business.  Long Distance in particular is a problem.
> >
> > We use 3 LD providers, one a Tier 2 provider (ie buys from 
> L3, Sprint 
> > etc) and a couple of  others lower down the food tree (that 
> are often discussed
> > on this message board).   We still find that almost all 
> customers complain
> > about dropped calls, echo, dead connections from time to time.  My 
> > guess is that maybe 75-90% of calls are connected with 
> decent quality.  
> > The rest are problems for various reasons, and customers 
> are getting fed up with it.
> >
> > We have a primary carrier for each route based on quality and cost, 
> > and fallback to another carrier if the call cannot be 
> connected, but 
> > we find invariably that carriers take calls and then dont 
> connect them.
> >
> > We are at the point of stopping offering LD service.  We make a few 
> > c/min, but the customer disatisfaction is just not worth 
> it.  People 
> > wont accept Skype quality 10-20% of the time.  There is 
> still a good 
> > business case for customers to install VoIP within the 
> enterprise, and 
> > for Off premise users, but to save a few c/min on LD is not 
> worth the 
> > trouble.  We have considered connecting customers up directly to a 
> > carrier to cut out the connection through our own servers.
> >
> > We have also have mixed success with origination...busy signals, 
> > missed calls and have stopped taking new users.
> >
> > So...are we alone.  Is it possible to get VoIP LD to be as 
> good as TDM 
> > 95% of the time, and if so how?  We dont have the time to try calls 
> > with every carrier to every area code every day!
> >
> > (and please, no responses from VoIPjet, Voxee, Junction, broadvoice 
> > etc etc saying how you are different.  We know that you all suck to 
> > varying
> > degrees!)
> >
> > Help!  VoipXpress
> >
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