[asterisk-biz] Setting up a VOIP Provider

[John Scully]

Hello Lane.

The posters who suggested beginning as a reseller of someone else's service are right on the money.  To set up everything you need to offer residential VoIP, with on-line signup, selection of numbers in real time, E911 provisioning from the members portal, billing, provisioning and shipping of end user equipment, international coverage...takes a lot of time and resources.  After you have invested that time and money is not the time to find out if you actually have a market for it.

Start with someone (like us, or several others on this list who offer reseller and private label solutions), even if it means you only have 25% margins at first.  After you have moved a few dozen accounts take a look at bringing more of it in-house.  This lets you begin selling within days and focus on building the market.

What you mentioned about having ordered some toll free numbers and not having them after months is a good example of how to pick a provider...there are a few os us here who have inventory all over the country, where you or your customers can select a number in real time, complete signup and the number is provisioned and working instantly.

Having said all that, I should say that we are not getting great results in the residential market.  The real action is in multiple dwelling units (apartment complexes, gated communities, condos etc), and high feature business systems.  We have morphed into an advanced voice application/value added reseller of IP PBXs in addition to all the basic services we still offer.  Things like appointment reminder systems (you mentioned dealerships - they use them too!  For oil change reminders, "your part is in" etc), bulk calling systems, high end IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems with tight integration to customer data systems...

Here is the bottom line:  Sell "unlimited residential for $24.95" or "I can get you cheap long distance for your business" and you are selling a commodity moving towards zero price, and competing against every fool selling service below cost or spending $500 in advertising to get one resi subscriber (like Vonage).
Sell high feature systems PLUS the low cost usage PLUS custom applications and you are in a win-win.  

We offer many of these applications as both fully hosted services and tied into customer's PBXs.  We also offer them to other dealers/resellers.  Almost all our sales are through other companies.

Contact me off-line if you want more detailed information on agent and private label services.  You can see an example private label site at www.vortalk.com And a custom site offering bulk calling for some very specific verticals at www.terbocalls.com 

John Scully
iSupportISP
Private Label VoiP Services
IP PBX hosted and on-Premise
Advanced Voice Applications
1-614-372-6511
jscully at isipi.com
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Lane Sullivan 
  To: 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion' 
  Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 11:53 AM
  Subject: [asterisk-biz] Setting up a VOIP Provider


  Hello everyone,

   

  I love reading all the posts here and have learned tons in the last few months. I have successfully setup 2 dealerships with Asterisks and am on my 3rd. I wanted to ask this question for information purposes so I can see everyone's view on the subject.

   

  I have a buddy with an ISP that provides me with SIP service through his upstream provider. Problem is he is slow (VERY SLOW) and so far the support sucks. I ordered a few 800 numbers months ago and still don't have them, my caller id still does not work since he setup the account.

   

  My question is this: How hard is it to setup a VOIP provider to the people here in my area since the competition sucks?!?!? 

   

  The obvious next question is costs involved. I understand setting up a system like Vonage etc. is HIGH dollar but what about a smaller setup?

   

  Thanks in advance and I look forward to the reading material,

   

  Lane 

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