On Thursday 21 September 2006 23:41, Sick Twist wrote:
> I am shopping for a new VoIP service provider but I am a little new at VoIP
> stuff so I would appreciate some guidance.
>
> If I buy a VoIP router so that I can use a regular telephone, I don't want
> to buy hardware that is tied to a specific provider. Is SIP v2 the standard
> that a router needs to support to allow it to be vendor neutral? If not,
> what standard or specification should the router meet? Can anyone recommend
> a 4-port VOIP router (and perhaps a place to buy it) that meets this
> requirement?
>
> I want go with a service provider that will work with any standard VoIP
> hardware (see question above) _and_ that will work with Linux softphones
> like Ekiga. Does anyone have good or bad experience with BroadVoice? Are
> there other providers that I should consider?
>
> Thanks for your input!
> Jonathon
SIP is the biggest VoIP standard. Not usually the best but the most used. This
means more devices will support SIP than any other.
I built a phone company using Asterisk, which is an advanced OpenSource
software based phone system. It has a protocol that does not suffer from the
problems SIP does, it is however not at all as common as SIP.
I suggest you check out the Asterisk community to discover a number of
providers who's offerings match your needs. (See
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk)
Some things to look for are obvious, others not:
Rates per minute? Use your phone bill to see where you calls go. (Local,
within state, long distance, overseas etc.)
Do they bill by the second, 6 sec increments, 60 second?
Fixed monthly fees?
Do you need to prepay?
Do they offer local numbers? 800 #'s?
How long have they been in business? A LOT of providers go out of business or
suddenly change their rates. Many crackpots are ripping off clients, and vice
versa. So the industry is quite volatile.
Find out what others have good experience with. (VoIP forums are good.)
The lowest rates available for providers are usually about .7 cents. The
closer their rates are to what they charge, the easier it is for them to
loose money. Two cents is a common rate, but you can also find 1.5c. Question
is how good are they on runing their business.
At a couple of cents I don't care so much for cutting the rates as much as I
want them to be there reliably for me.
What sort of technical internal support team do they have to cope with
problems? What protocols do they support? Is their customer support friendly,
willing and competent?
I never use SIP externally as it's not secure, IAX2 (from Asterisk) however,
is. You can get free IAX2 compatible soft phones for both windows and Linux.
Hardware phones are available from about $80 from Grandstream. Polycom in my
eyes is probably the best price performance phone starting around $150.
I use an older computer with Asterisk's phone system and a combination of
soft/hard phones at home. So I have internal extensions, can take several
calls for my family. All at the same time at minimum cost.
If you want to connect to a normal phone company you will need to have a card
to connect your phone line to. I've found that many cheap modems are
supported ($5-20), leaving your expense to mostly a cheap computer. This is
handy when you want to make 911 calls and not give up your old phone number.
Using the Asterisk community can give you invaluable information about using
VoIP. Their forums talk about who currently is a good provider and tons of
tips to avoid pitfalls and taking advantage of VoIP.
Now, phone systems are not at all similar to computers as far as what you need
to know to design and build them. It takes a bit of hard work to get on top
of, but I can tell you it really pays off.
My limitations as to what I can do is really only limited to my imagination.
One thing to check out is trixbox.org. They have a easy to install and
configure distro. Right now I'm preparing to come out with my own.
--Steve Szmidt
"To enjoy the right of political self-government, men must be capable of personal self-government - the virtue of self-control. A people without decency cannot be secure in its liberty. From the Declaration Principles ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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