asterisk users - Feb 2004 - Are IAX2 providers ready for prime time?

Hi All...

I have been putting together a call center and I was hoping to use a VoIP 
provider who can terminate IAX2.  A participant here has been kind enough 
to help me off list, for which I am grateful.  I have called two VoIP 
providers, Coloco and NuFone.  Coloco has yet to return my calls and 
although I spoke with someone at NuFone yesterday, today when I tried to 
call to get service I got several "all circuits are busy" messages. 
Calling on the non-toll free number I left voice mail, but got no call 
back, or response to my email.

I looked at Voice Pulse, but have read here that there are issues with 
reliability.  They also seem set up for end user consumers, as do a few 
others.

So I am starting to get a bad feeling about VoIP providers.  They seem like 
really, really small outfits.  Realistically, is the service provided by 
VoIP providers reliable and stable?  Can you bet your business on it?  How 
often does it go down?

I would appreciate any feedback.  Thanks!

Jim Archer wrote:
> Hi All...
>
> I have been putting together a call center and I was hoping to use a 
> VoIP provider who can terminate IAX2.  A participant here has been 
> kind enough to help me off list, for which I am grateful.  I have 
> called two VoIP providers, Coloco and NuFone.  Coloco has yet to 
> return my calls and although I spoke with someone at NuFone yesterday, 
> today when I tried to call to get service I got several "all circuits 
> are busy" messages. Calling on the non-toll free number I left voice 
> mail, but got no call back, or response to my email.
>
> I looked at Voice Pulse, but have read here that there are issues with 
> reliability.  They also seem set up for end user consumers, as do a 
> few others.
>
> So I am starting to get a bad feeling about VoIP providers.  They seem 
> like really, really small outfits.  Realistically, is the service 
> provided by VoIP providers reliable and stable?  Can you bet your 
> business on it?  How often does it go down?
>
> I would appreciate any feedback.  Thanks!
>  
>
I can't really comment about the size or reliability of the providers 
but I wanted to comment of you question "Can you bet you business on
it?"..

The way I see it VoIP services across the internet  (in the short term 
anyway) will never be as reliable as the standard telco provided PSTN 
lines.. The main reason being the nature of the Internet..

So I think the question "Can you bet you business on it?" actually
needs
to be asked in a differnt way, " Can your business afford to be out of 
communication for the an unknown period of time for the sake of possibly 
cheaper phone calls?".. You are really the only one who can answer that...

Later..

--On Friday, February 20, 2004 8:55 AM +0000 WipeOut 
<wipe_out@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> The way I see it VoIP services across the internet  (in the short term
> anyway) will never be as reliable as the standard telco provided PSTN
> lines.. The main reason being the nature of the Internet..
>
> So I think the question "Can you bet you business on it?"
actually needs
> to be asked in a differnt way, " Can your business afford to be out of
> communication for the an unknown period of time for the sake of possibly
> cheaper phone calls?".. You are really the only one who can answer
that...
Well, even the most established telcos can go down once in a great while. 
Heck, a backhoe can dig up the wires.  These things happen.  What I am 
asking is is VoIP service reasonably reliable?  Does it go down for 
extended periods daily? Weekly?  Does it sort of stop working for a few 
minutes here and there during the day?  Does the sound quality remain 
reasonable consistent?  Has it progressed from the experimental stage, or 
is it still to be considered a toy?  And, do VoIP providers support their 
customers?

Jim Archer wrote:
> --On Friday, February 20, 2004 8:55 AM +0000 WipeOut 
> <wipe_out@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
>> The way I see it VoIP services across the internet  (in the short term
>> anyway) will never be as reliable as the standard telco provided PSTN
>> lines.. The main reason being the nature of the Internet..
>>
>> So I think the question "Can you bet you business on it?"
actually needs
>> to be asked in a differnt way, " Can your business afford to be
out of
>> communication for the an unknown period of time for the sake of
possibly
>> cheaper phone calls?".. You are really the only one who can answer
>> that...
>
>
> Well, even the most established telcos can go down once in a great 
> while. Heck, a backhoe can dig up the wires.  These things happen.  
> What I am asking is is VoIP service reasonably reliable?  Does it go 
> down for extended periods daily? Weekly?  Does it sort of stop working 
> for a few minutes here and there during the day?  Does the sound 
> quality remain reasonable consistent?  Has it progressed from the 
> experimental stage, or is it still to be considered a toy?  And, do 
> VoIP providers support their customers?
>
>
>
I agree that a Telco can go down, what I was trying to say what that 
there are more factors that would affect internet communications 
reliability than a standard Telco.. Also a Telco will usually have 
control over the end to end communications path where the internet will 
not provide that control to the VoIP provider..

My personal experience with VoIP in our business is that it has been 
great, we did not use a VoIP provider and we have a small operation, I 
setup an Asterisk Server with a BRI ISDN line and we all work from home 
using broadband internet connections to connect to the server.. The loss 
of connectivity between the home users and the PBX was certainly more 
frequent than the donwtime of the ISDN line, usually due to the internet 
connection falling over on the broadband lines..

Why not give it a trial run and go from there? It will not cost you 
anything to setup a test system on an old desktop and test it for your 
application.. then you will have first hand knowledge of the reliability 
and quaility to expect..

I realise that you are not finding the answers you are looking for but 
its like the people who come onto the list and ask things like " How 
many users will my XYZ system handle?".. The answer is not one that can 
be given becasue there are too many factors.. A test environment is the 
only way to get the answers you are after.. I have been involved in VoIP 
for nearly 2 years now and Iam still finding things that influence the 
performance and quality of VoIP implimentations..

If you want to know more about my setup feel free to contact me off list 
and I can explain more..

Later..

Jim Archer wrote:
> Hi All...
>
> I have been putting together a call center and I was hoping to use a 
> VoIP provider who can terminate IAX2.  A participant here has been 
> kind enough to help me off list, for which I am grateful.  I have 
> called two VoIP providers, Coloco and NuFone.  Coloco has yet to 
> return my calls and although I spoke with someone at NuFone yesterday, 
> today when I tried to call to get service I got several "all circuits 
> are busy" messages. Calling on the non-toll free number I left voice 
> mail, but got no call back, or response to my email.
>
> I looked at Voice Pulse, but have read here that there are issues with 
> reliability.  They also seem set up for end user consumers, as do a 
> few others.
>
> So I am starting to get a bad feeling about VoIP providers.  They seem 
> like really, really small outfits.  Realistically, is the service 
> provided by VoIP providers reliable and stable?  Can you bet your 
> business on it?  How often does it go down?
>
Jim, we're in the process of building a business application, and are 
reviewing providers as well.  While we haven't selected one, or found 
one we're really happy with, our approach is going to be to set up 
fail-over capabilities where a pots line can be seized if the iax 
provider is unavailable....  I would think this will greatly improve 
"system" reliability, but not the reliability of the provider....

My solution for this is I am going to provision DIDs from more than one
company so that if I have trouble with one group of lines I can use the
others.  This solution will work for me but maybe not for others.  I would
love to hear from some of these companies that they are going to provide
redundant service in case of local network outages, etc.
> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:48:22 -0500
> From: "Warren H. Prince" <wprince@unconundrum.com>
> To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Are IAX2 providers ready for prime time?
> Reply-To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
>
> Jim Archer wrote:
>
> > Hi All...
> >
> > I have been putting together a call center and I was hoping to use a
> > VoIP provider who can terminate IAX2.  A participant here has been
> > kind enough to help me off list, for which I am grateful.  I have
> > called two VoIP providers, Coloco and NuFone.  Coloco has yet to
> > return my calls and although I spoke with someone at NuFone yesterday,
> > today when I tried to call to get service I got several "all
circuits
> > are busy" messages. Calling on the non-toll free number I left
voice
> > mail, but got no call back, or response to my email.
> >
> > I looked at Voice Pulse, but have read here that there are issues with
> > reliability.  They also seem set up for end user consumers, as do a
> > few others.
> >
> > So I am starting to get a bad feeling about VoIP providers.  They seem
> > like really, really small outfits.  Realistically, is the service
> > provided by VoIP providers reliable and stable?  Can you bet your
> > business on it?  How often does it go down?
> >
> Jim, we're in the process of building a business application, and are
> reviewing providers as well.  While we haven't selected one, or found
> one we're really happy with, our approach is going to be to set up
> fail-over capabilities where a pots line can be seized if the iax
> provider is unavailable....  I would think this will greatly improve
> "system" reliability, but not the reliability of the provider....