[asterisk-users] Sip Providers

[Jeff Davis]

Eric "ManxPower" Wieling wrote:
> Jeff Davis wrote:
>> I'd have to agree that Teliax has been the best for me as well. I've
>> used them for over a year now with only a couple of minor administrative
>> problems.
> 
> All ITSPs suck! (tm)(c) 2007 ManxPower
> 
> Teliax seems to suck less than most.

They should take your second statement as high praise, given your first.

Part of the problem is a low barrier to entry in the market. Anyone with 
a web site, a co-located switch, and about 10K for the first month's 
billing can be an ITSP. But that just gets you wholesale purchasing as a 
reseller. Few companies will do this successfully.

The CLECs and ILECs will always have a cost advantage since they control 
the PSTN switches, and they never seem to compete on price.

It seems to me that for an ITSP to survive, they have to add value and 
save their customers money. That's a lot more difficult than it sounds.

> 
>> In addition they maintain a very large stock of DIDs for something like
>> 47 states. This includes the small town in Indiana where I grew up. I
>> was rather surprised.
> 
> I believe Teliax, like many ITSPs get their DIDs from national carriers 
> and CLECs like Level3.

Yes, but in my experience some have a better relationship with their 
upstream provider than others. i.e. Teliax with Level3. Also, some make 
no effort to have an inventory of their own.

LiveVoIP, for example, billed me for a DID that I had ordered, but never 
delivered it. They claimed that Level3 wouldn't provide them new DIDs in 
a timely manner. Having my own relationship with Level3, I've found them 
pretty easy to deal with, and was also able to determine (rather than 
guess) that LiveVoIP was lying. Unfortunately, the bastards went out of 
business before I could get a refund.

--
Jeff Davis
Netsource Consulting
Richmond, VA