[Asterisk-Users] DID VoIP trunk provider for metro Chicago, LA and/or Orlando.

[Chris A. Icide]

On 01:58 PM 7/20/2004, Carmi Weinzweig wrote:
 >Chris -
 >	In the real telephony world, one can buy a DID trunk without buying a
 >PRI. If one wants more than about 10 trunks (depending on provider), it
 >may be cheaper to buy a PRI instead of individual trunks.
 >
 >Having said that, most of these VoIP providers have their pricing model
 >exactly backwards (they seem to only want to compete with Centrex, not
 >with regular PBX services), in that they charge a lot for resources
 >that are freely available and cost them little (phone numbers), but
 >very little for scarce resources (call terminations) that cost them
 >much more.
 >
 >As an example, they purchase a PRI from either an ILEC or a CLEC for
 >between $100 and $1000 (depending on distance and market) giving them
 >23 voice channels and as many numbers as they want (again, numbers cost
 >them at most between $0.01 and $0.10).
 >
 >They assign me a phone number (a value of $0.01 and $0.10) and let me
 >receive as many simultaneous calls as my bandwidth allows (using these
 >numbers every call absorbs a channel that costs between $4.35 and
 >$43.48).
 >
 >What I would like is to be limited as to how much of a scarce resource
 >(channels) I can use, but not be limited as to how much of a plentiful
 >resource (numbers) I can use.
 >

I understand the telephony side of the business, what I was pointing out is 
that the VoIP folks are using a different business model, with a focus 
towards low volume users.  In that case selling them a 'number or two' for 
a few bucks a month is probably more financially rewarding, at least as it 
applies to the main set of customers they have.

The market is very immature.  Seems most of these companies get their 
revenue from people putting an Analog to Sip adapter on the end of their 
analog home phone and buying a single user account.  One would have to 
think that there should be an aggressive salesperson out there looking for 
a more efficient customer, you just need to find that salesperson.  Nufone 
has michigan and illinois numbers if I remember right, might want to check 
with Jeremy on trunks for that area.

-Chris