[Asterisk-Users] ISDN BRI vs. VOIP DID's, is it worth it?

Mon Apr 18 17:49:41 MST 2005

At this point, I am trying Teliax.com.  There service is good, though I
would be happier if they had a NY server, I get 61ms ping times... 

Reliability, I can use an alternate provider, and teliax supports using
an alternate number if my * is unavailable.

I have a BRI in one office, which I am going to direct toll-free numbers
to.  Quality here is an issue.

In my other office, quality is not as much an issue as reliability. I am
more concerned with the provider going belly-up, so I am using toll-free
from a regular company, and directing the calls to a teliax local did.
(I was around when many dsl providers like northpoint went belly-up)

Really the question is, is it worth spending $54.95/month via Verizon
for a bri, or about $44.95 for a teliax plan with an additional did or
two.  I am thinking of network lag here. 

Right now I can get an upto 1 second delay if I call myself, which is a
bit high.

If I get a BRI, and forward a call to another person via voip, have
people found a distinct quality and latency improvement to suffice using
BRI over an ITSP?  

At the moment I am a single-person network consultant, but I plan to
advertise in the yellow pages, which is big $.  I want to be sure that
my incoming calls, which would come into my office and be directed to a
voip sales agent, would be reliable enough so people wouldn't just call
the next number in the book.

Thanks for any advice...

Greg 

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Walt Reed
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 8:24 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] ISDN BRI vs. VOIP DID's, is it worth it?

On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 01:50:56PM -0700, snacktime said:
> On 4/17/05, Gregory Wiktor - ADCom Corp. <gw at adcomcorp.com> wrote:
> > I have been trying a did company for a few days. I find the service 
> > decent, but sound quality only moderate.
> > 
> > Rather than spending 35 or so for monthly with did, I am considering

> > an isdn bri at this location.
> > 
> > How much more stable and reliable is bri or pri versus a voip did 
> > service?  I like the concept of a bri more, but I do not get cid 
> > generation.  Would anyone suggest bri over voip where available?
> > 
> > I must say, I prefer higher voice quality.  If anyone finds bri to 
> > be worth it (at about 54/month plus usage) please let me know what 
> > you think.
> 
> I'm kind of asking the same questions myself right now.  I think it 
> depends a lot on what you are planning on using voip for.  I also 
> think that you are going to see reliability go up and up over the next

> year or two, so you have to take that into account also as you plan
> your infrastructure.   I think new installations should at least be
> voip capable.

No matter what the usage is, BRI / PRI will be more reliable. VoIP to a
generic providor will never be as reliable as a dedicated connection to
your telco carrier of choice. Now whether you can live with the level of
reliability is another story :-)

The big problem with with VoIP is lack of QoS beyond your local network.
Probably the best situation is to get your VoIP from your local ISP
where QoS can be implemented end to end. Other current VoIP issues
include spotty Fax support and flakey SIP / IAX support - these should
be resolved in time, but they are a big problem now (as the volume of
emails on this list related to providor problems shows.) As for QoS
support on ther internet in general, well, I wouldn't hold my breath,
and that is what is really needed to increase reliability / sound
quality.

> Right now I would not rely on voip 100% for something business 
> critical.  Personally I'm looking at using voip but having adequate 
> pstn access as a backup, with the incoming DID numbers being able to
> automatically route to the pstn in case of failure.    I know I can do
> this if my numbers are 800 numbers, but I've still not found a way to 
> do this with local number DID's, although I'm still looking.
> 
> Reliability on incoming lines is a lot more difficult to deal with 
> then outgoing.  As long as you * server has connectivity, you could 
> have 4-5 different providers in your dialplan and have it cascade down
> through them on failure.   Wish it was that easy with DID's.

True, if the providor is totally down you can fail over, but if the
providor is up but not working well, you will have sound quality
problems, dropped calls, etc. and there isn't a good way of handling
this at the moment (could probably handle this via some new * code to
"score" a providor during a call and drop them from the list if there
are too many dropped packets, etc.)

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