asterisk users - Dec 2006 - Phone routing - curious what others are doing?

I just went through an exercise of writing a Perl script called from my
Asterisk dialplan to look at a list of area codes and exchanges to
determine which ones are local (no or little cost) under my current
Verizon plan. I route calls outside of my local limits to Gizmo. It works
fine but when I called Verizon to change (lower) my service it was a
bewildering spider web of rates structures just in the Philadelphia
metropolitan area. It made me wonder why I send any of my calls to
Verizon! I was able to cut my Verizon cost down by about half.

I wonder if any others are splitting calls like this or just biting the
bullet and going 100% voip???

With Asterisk/Gizmo I have a local DID for $30/year plus I put $10 credit
on callout last June and I still have $3 left. I prefer pay as you go
rather than flat rate which at $20 or more a month would (for me) be a
$150/year waste! When you have a Gizmo DID the callout CID is
automatically the DID number. You can request a different number though as
long as you have control of it.

Doug

Doug Crompton wrote:
<snip>
>  when I called Verizon to change (lower) my service it was a
> bewildering spider web of rates structures just in the Philadelphia
metropolitan area.
>   
And absolutely NO guarantee that the information was correct.
Perhaps if you called 5 times and averaged the answers . .
.
> It made me wonder why I send any of my calls to
> Verizon!
Same here. We are in an area where pretty much every call is either 
local toll or toll, no detail billing and 5 bands of local toll.
We use the 500 minute Vonage plan, for better or worse. Quality and 
reliability is as good as VeriZon, and also Stanaphone and Gizmo.
I find Gizmo a little on the strange side. They send ringback during 
their rather lengthy call set up time, sometimes up to 3 rings, then far 
end ring or busy. Other than that it is also good.
>  I was able to cut my Verizon cost down by about half.
>
>   
We now have Verizon down to $14 bucks per month including taxes and
fees.
> I wonder if any others are splitting calls like this or just biting the
bullet and going 100% voip???
>   
No. I prefer to keep one ILEC line, as it is still more reliable. Even 
though our HSIA is 99%, it still is not 99.99%
all it takes is some geek 80 miles away to screw with the DNS, and 
everything is out for 10-20 minutes.
The modern computer industry still isn't up to the reliability standards 
of the telcos.


John Novack