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

Thu Mar 9 20:44:01 MST 2006

Couldn't agree with you more.
I just want to add one thing, I do have a colocated server that has a
PRI in it, that I use for customers to call out using VoIP from them
to my colocated server. It seem to be much better than before I had
the PRI (I used VoIP LD before that), based on customer feed back.
Even over the Internet (DSL/Cable doesn't matter), from office to
office within a company things work very well and customers don't
complain (even when they are using a PRI and/or POTS on the other side
of Asterisk), could be it's because of the fact that they know it's a
VoIP connection, but because I never hear that "it sounds like a VoIP
connection" which I used to hear when using VoIP LD I doubt that it
sounds like one (minus the occasional hickups, which I think would
have been accepted on VoIP LD as well).

On 3/9/06, Voip Xpress <voipxpress at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Since the original posting a few days ago, I have had a huge response from
> the mailing list.  (Is VoIP  a case of "the emperors new clothes".)
> Interestingly, the majoriity of respondents chose to reply directly to me
> without posting to the rest of the mailing list, so I will summarise the
> responses:
>
> - With the exception of a few (extremely smart, lucky or delusional Asterisk
> users), the response has been that outside the enterprise (or at least
> anywhere neat the public internet), Asterisk is at best cellphone quality.
>
> - The quality of DSL/cable access is an easy place to start pointing the
> blame.  It is definitely a factor, but not the only one.  Most users
> experienced success with point to point, presumably including DSL/cable so
> it can't be all bad.  Our experience would tend to agree with this.
>
> - Within the enterprise, there seem to be few VoIP problems.
>
> - The jury seems to be out on whether putting  an Asterisk server in the
> path does any harm.  When there is no transcoding, the concensus is it does
> not do any harm.
>
> - I did not receive one response saying that there is VoIP LD termination
> out there that is any better than the rest.  Our experience seems to be
> typical.
>
> - Received quite a few responses from providers and users of TDM
> termination.  Although more expensive than VoIP termination, this would seem
> to remove some of the internet variables.  I would be interested to hear
> what others' experience has been like with this type of service.
>
> Is cellphone quality really good enough?  Firstly, most people would be
> happy if they could reach cell quality over VoIP.  On cellphone,  people pay
> a premium for convenience and in many cases, the service deterioraition is
> predictable:  we know which areas have dodgy coverage and live with it.
> VoIp can be dodgy anytime any place.
>
> Conclusion...unless anyone can talk me out of it:
>
> VoIP LD calls can be cheap, but rarely worth it for business.   For
> N.America and western Europe, business customers may be able to save a few
> c/min, but most will not accept the  quality trade off. Calliing a customer
> back 3 times to complete a 10 minute transaction doesn't fly.  They will
> walk.  Calls to more exotic locations where customers can save 50c/min may
> still be worth the trade off, but those customers arent that easy to find.
> As TDM prices continue to fall, and in N.America tend to zero, I don't see
> this improving any time soon.
>
>
> If you are starting a business predicated on VoIP reducing business
> customers LD bills, think again.
>
> VX
>
>
>
> >From: "Voip Xpress" <voipxpress at hotmail.com>
> >Reply-To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk
> >Discussion<asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com>
> >To: asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com
> >Subject: [asterisk-biz] Does VoIP Really Work for Serious Business?
> >Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 10:43:05 -0800
> >
> >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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