[Asterisk-Users] VoIP dialtone?

[Brian West]

Does http://www.voicepulse.com/ work with *?

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003, John Todd wrote:

> At 3:20 PM -0500 8/20/03, Mike Ciholas wrote:
> >
> >Hi all,
> >
> >While pondering my choices for local dial tone service via a
> >bunch of POTS lines or a T1, I began to wonder if perhaps there
> >is another way.
> >
> >Are there VoIP dialtone providers?  That is, could I use only my
> >internet connection for voice calls and not have a separate
> >T1/POTS bank for that?
> >
> >I guess I am imagining a company that gateways between the PTSN
> >and the internet backbone.  Calls come in and get VoIP'ed and
> >sent to me as packets, perhaps IAX, perhaps something else?
> >
> >First question: Does such a thing exist?  Where?
>
> Yes.
>
> http://www.iconnecthere.com/
> http://www.packet8.net/
> http://www.nufone.net/
> http://www.coloco.com/  (not obviously visible on the home page, but exists)
> http://www.voicepulse.com/
> ...many others.  Use your favorite search engine to look up SIP long
> distance providers.  Some of the above (notably NuFone and Coloco)
> will provide IAX/IAX2 termination.
>
> >Second question: Does it work?  How well?
>
> Works great.  I haven't made a long distance call on my PSTN line in
> months, and I spend pretty much all day on LD calls.
>
> >Third question: Would you want it?  Why?
>
> Yes.  Cheap, portable, failure-tolerant.  Note that your phone
> service suddenly becomes as (un)reliable as your Internet
> connectivity, so ensure that you have those bases covered through the
> "normal" methods such as multihoming, facility redundancy, MPLS, etc.
> I would also suggest you have multiple outbound VoIP providers, with
> automatic failover configured in your Asterisk server.  This is
> easily done.
>
> >Fourth question: How much $$$?
>
> As little as $.01 a minute anywhere in the US, and great
> international rates, depending on providers.  Remember you can get
> multiple accounts, and send your calls to different providers based
> on static tables of who you think is cheapest for that dial prefix.
>
>
> To address your previous question of "is it ready for prime time" the
> answer is:
>
>    For basic features, absolutely.   I have several customers whose
> systems I have configured for their offices... and I haven't heard
> from them in MONTHS.  The systems have had 100% uptime, handling
> calls from POTS and VoIP lines.
>
>    For exotic features: maybe.  There is a HUGE list of niggly little
> features that everyone is in love with in their particular PBX.  Some
> of those features, Asterisk does exceedingly well, and others that
> are less frequently used, it does not.  However, this situation is no
> different with Asterisk than with any other PBX system that you might
> evaluate, so all things being equal I'd say Asterisk is a LOT better
> than a proprietary solution since you can get under the hood yourself
> and fix things that might need to be updated.
>
> JT
>
>
> >--
> >Mike Ciholas                            (812) 476-2721 voice
> >CIHOLAS Enterprises                     (812) 476-2881 fax
> >2626 Kotter Ave, Unit D                 mikec at ciholas.com
> >Evansville, IN 47715                    http://www.ciholas.com
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