[asterisk-users] Opinions on the best wholesale origination/term providers

[Brad Templeton]

I've been losing patience with my current provider, a small company
called Sellvoip.  Their termination is good, and they are
asterisk based, but they are understaffed and have no concept
of customer service.  So I'm shopping.

I am interested in the opinions of others on the providers they
work with.

Here are my criteria, roughly in order

a) Decent quality, low latency. 
    In particular, this means they probably tie into the PSTN at
    multiple points, definitely east and west coast and also in
    Europe.  I don't want a California caller calling California
    to have to send their packets to the east coast and back.

    (This made me discard RNKVoIP, which was high on my list)

b) Fair pricing.  I've seen blended rates down to a penny, and
    non-blended down to half/cent in the big city Tier-1s.  I
    don't expect the lowest possible price but I don't want to
    see 100% markup either.   For a blended rate, let's see
    under 1.5 cents to the USA and Canada.  (Canada is actually
    down to .8 cents at some providers now, others charge more
    for it.)

c) Origination, also at a fair price
    Which seems to be about $1/month for DID in USA, $2 in
    Canada, and close to 1 cent/minute.  But I can pay more
    to get other factors.  I guess I can go to another firm
    for origination outside the USA in a pinch.

d) Reliability very high.  Duh.

e) Decent customer service.  If things go down you fix them and
   I can reach you to fix them.  I don't need handholding, I
   know my tools, but I do need you to fix problems.
   If you know your Asterisk, linux and SIP even better.

f) Decent automated interface.
   So I can get DIDs, configure IPs, billing etc.

g) Static IP authentication
   It's faster.  Though dynamic IP registration as a backup is
   handy.

h) Global termination
   I don't want to have to manage and support too many different
   providers.  That's work for me.  So give me good global
   termination prices too.   That knocked out termination.com/icall
   Though if I can't get all I want, I guess I'll buy global from
   one company and domestic from another.

i) No high minimums
   I am just testing my software apps right now so I'm not
   going to bill minutes until much later when they ship.
   So I can't give you tons of minutes per month.  I don't
   mind prepaying.

j) SIP, and decently implemented.  Asterisk/SER is fine.

Now we get to my "nice to have" list

o) IAX as well as SIP.   Makes testing stuff easier.

o) DTMF via SIP-INFO.
    This lets me have native bridge for the voice but still
    hear the DTMFs at my server, which would be handy.

o) Origination worldwide

o) Toll free origination

o) Cheap toll free termination.  (Why does this cost money anyway?)

o) Don't want E911 service now.  Might want it in future.
   Don't want to pay now.

------------------------------------------------

So here's what I have found that come close

    sellvoip -- good quality, low latency, good price.  Online tools suck,
        customer service nonexistent

    rnkvoip -- most of what I want but east coast gateways only.  Good
        customer service but som unreliability in equipment

    telcommone.net -- Looks fairy good so far.  $2/DID in small
        quantities, but comes down eventually.  Very good term prices.
        Claims to enforce instate calling prices.  (Old world thinking)

    termination.com -- very good prices but USA only

    terravon -- 1.7 / minute.

    trxtelecom -- offers free 800 termination, they claim, and pay-you
        origination in rural latas if that's your style.  (Great if
        you expect most calls to come from cell phones or other people
        with bundled long distance blended rates.)

    unlimitel -- for canada

    netiqsys.net -- no origination but good prices


Any views on these or other providers?