Reliable VOIP

[kevnich2]

I am looking for a VOIP provider that has the most uptime as possible. I have tried a company called vonics digital, but they seemed to go down for about an hour every 4 or 5 days. For home use, this isn't really that big of a deal but we also have a home based business where phone uptime and reliability is key. I'm not looking for the cheapest plan around, I'm opening to anything from $30/month - $70/month. There are a max of 2 people on the phone at any given time. Our ISP connection is extremely reliable and we haven't had any problems with speed (business class cable, 7mb down and 1mb up). I don't feel like "trying" out various VOIP providers until I find a reliable one so I'm looking for any feedback anyone can provide. Reliability and uptime is the most critical, it absolutely has to be atleast 99% uptime. At minimum I need 1 voice line and 1 fax line. Thanks in advance

 

[RadiclDreamer]

citynet.net

 

[RebateMonger]

Not very creative....but I and several acquaintances have been using Vonage for business for several years with no complaints.

 

[kevnich2]

I've considered Vonage, but the looming possibility of bankruptcy due to their lawsuits hasn't given me a lot of confidence with them. I'm not saying vonage is in the wrong, but still. I don't want to go with a company that might be bankrupt by 2009.

 

[RebateMonger]

It's certainly a valid concern. HOPEFULLY, the courts wouldn't do something that would damage a large number of customers. Hopefully.....

On the other hand, Vonage HAS been around a lot longer than just about everybody else. Others could go bankrupt, too. I haven't followed Vonage's woes lately, but those technology lawsuits likely apply to other (smaller) VOIP companies, too.

 

[narzy]

I've been toying around with Skype lately (yeah I know I'm behind the curve on that one, sue me) I've been very impressed and with the ability to jack in a small device and take over the phone wiring in my house / office in one fell swoop and turn the house in to one giant skype PoP I'm very tempted indeed.

that being said, I'd go with vonage, they have the telco's scared sh!tless, and if they do go under there are 150 other companies to take their place, I doubt Vonage would leave their customers high and dry...

 

[kevnich2]

I don't think Vonage has the telco's scared. Verizon is trying to sue them into bankruptcy simply because they don't want them competing against them. I'll be honest, once I went to VOIP, I didn't want to look back. The voice quality compared to my old landline is simply awesome and the price is more than 1/2 of what I was paying. For a business though, I need a VOIP provider that absolutely will not have downtime during business hours. I thought if my broadband connection was up 24/7, it shouldn't go down. But the company we were with seemed to have phone switch problems right in the middle of the day and people that would call in would receive a message "The number you have dialed has been disconnected". 30 minutes later, things would be back up, but it was unacceptable for me in a business. I am considering vonage in addition to one other. After 1 or 2 more years, we're considering going with a hosted PBX but I don't see the need at this point.

 

[narzy]

Don't go to a hosted PBX system, save yourself some green in the long run and deploy a trixbox appliance http://www.trixbox.com/products/appliance I've set one up once and it was rather enjoyable, you are also not tied to one VoIP provider so if one goes under you can move to another. We bought a bank of 10 numbers from the local telco and set them up on the Trixbox and it has worked flawlessly for about 8 months, has never gone down or even sent me an error message via e-mail...fabulous piece of technology.

 

[eflat]

Vonage, after some initial setup problems, has worked great. Never any down time but occasionally calls will not go through. If you try again it usually goes through.

Fax line works great too.

I never call people from home on my cell anymore because Vonage sounds so much better.

 

[kevnich2]

I actually just signed up with vonage, so we'll see how everything goes. Signup was a breeze, couldn't have been easier.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: kevnich2
I actually just signed up with vonage, so we'll see how everything goes. Signup was a breeze, couldn't have been easier.

Yeah. When I set up a SECOND line, there was no setup charge or anything. Just logged onto their web site, clicked a bit, and the second Vonage line came right up.

 

[Stattlich]

Been thinking about this too- just got married and my wife and I are iPhone-only. Parents complain that when they call, they only have our cells and not a home phone. Plus, my wife is a doctor and occassionally an important call will come in that she will not hear on her iPhone ringtone downstairs- that's a problem worth justifying alone.

Our place is wired for POTS, but I'm interested in turning it into a 'Skype POD' that someone just mentioned above... though if there's anything I can do to fight back against Verizon, the company I hate the most in my professional field, I will gladly go for Vonage.

FWIW, I manage close to thirty 3com NBX V3000 VoIP systems of various configurations across a WAN at work with around 500 users- awesome setup.

 

[kevnich2]

If you get vonage or any other VOIP service, just plug the phone port of the phone adapter into a telephone wall outlet and voila, whole house is now on that system.

 

[narzy]

what Kevnich2 said,

for Skype check out the first product on this page http://accessories.skype.com/D..._US&categoryID=4142200 it may or may not fit your needs.

 

[stuman74]

I've had Vonage for a few years now. Overall happy with them. I don't like how with fees I am now up to about $33/mo ($25 plan). I just ordered this ooma device from Amazon and hopefully will get it within a week to see how it compares and worth switching to.

 

[cmetz]

kevnich2, I've been happy with Teliax (www.teliax.com). I use their BYOD plan, which is $4.99 per DID and $0.02/min. They also have traditional "plans" like the other carriers. It's not well documented, but if you set up a second DID, you can ask their support people to set it up as a FAX number and incoming FAXes will be emailed to you. (remember, FAX modems don't work reliably over VoIP, so you can't just hook up a FAX machine to an ATA and expect it to work well)

Teliax has a few things going for them, in my opinion:
1. Good reliability. NOT five-nines. But better than most other retail VoIP providers I've tried.
2. You can call their 800 support number and get a knowledgeable human on the phone who can actually fix problems. Their support isn't perfect, but it isn't a call center in India, it's a guy who can go log into their VoIP gateway and billing system and figure out what's going on.
3. Excellent communication. When they have a significant outage or other problem, they actually email all their customers with a notification. Unlike nearly every other VoIP provider - most of them aggressively deny that problems exist.
4. Open customer forums. No burying their issues, they can stand public scrutiny.
5. They listen to customers. It takes some time, but they have implemented things that many customers have requested.
6. They support IAX as well as SIP.

Everyone I've pointed at Teliax has given me favorable feedback about it.

Vonage... they're a huge, consumer-oriented service, and their founder was barred from being an officer of a public company by the SEC. They certainly would not be my choice.

 

[kevnich2]

Out of all the VOIP providers I've tried, faxing has never been an issue yet. The best provider I've seen so far (I haven't received my vonage adapter yet so I can't compare them yet) has been vonics. Their biggest problem was that sporadically every few days, the ATA would lose connectivity with the vonics voice switch and no calls could be made or received. I tested the ATA, it was working fine but the vonics SIP address couldn't be found. I would try calling them and it would give the number is disconnected recording. I'd wait about 5 minutes, and everything would be working ok, their number worked again and so did mine. But in a business environment, this isn't acceptable to me.

 

[kevnich2]

I found this old thread and thought I'd update it. For my personal use, I'm still with vonage and have zero complaints. It works every time I need it. For the small business, we started with vonage and then switched to a company called packet8. We didn't have any problems with vonage but wanted more of a hosted PBX solution. After three months, service has been great, not a single hiccup. I have had to call the customer service line for other questions and even during peak hours, max hold time has been under 10 minutes and I always speak with someone that speaks english. I'm thinking of trying out vocalocity for another company I've been doing some work for but haven't decided yet. I like what I see with them because they use standard SIP phones compared to packet8 which uses regular ATA's with analog style business phones for the virtual office. But for the office their in, it works just fine.

 

[drebo]

For business-class VoIP trunking, I use Commpartners. Specifically, I use Intuitive Voice as the reseller. Aside from a botched number port which resulted in a frantic two-hour drive to a customer location, the service has been rock solid.

 

[kevnich2]

I don't really have a need for trunking, it's a very small business (3 employees) The hosted PBX their on is fine for what they need. I just wish they could use standard SIP phones though.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

I use vonage on my Business class cable and it is as reliable as the internet is(which never goes down). I have 2 phones, the vonage and a SIP based IP phone from work. I also run my own PBX server with a number from work for playing with and testing things. The ip phone just registers to 2 sip accounts, my work like, and my line i have setup here. The only difference i can tell between the vonage and the carrier based voip is dial time. With the vonage you pick up the phone and dial a number, 6-8 seconds later it starts ringing. With the other 2 lines its instant. As for voice quality its about the same. Only time i noticed a big difference was when i had a customers Polycom IP 650 here. which does there "HD Voice" and sounds ridiculously clear.

 

[kevnich2]

Yeah, I heard about the IP650 and didn't know if the differences between that and the regular polycom was very significant or not. I heard polycom's phones have awesome sound and noice cancelling capabilities for removing background noise compared to other VOIP phones.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

well, I was talking to my friend, who was on a cell phone, Phone was talking in the normal U-Law format and the difference was incredible. The phone i have from work right now is a IP430 and its pretty good, but that 650 was insane. Even listening to my friend who was on a cellphone. The speaker phone is really good too.
If you want to use SIP phones i would suggest you get a asterisk box and get some cheap termination from Teliax or something like that. I know Teliax has a pay by the minute plan that is cheap, and comes with unlimited Channels, so you can talk on as many outgoing lines at the same time as you want. There are other good IAX and SIP providers like that. And if you have a PBX you can handle all kinds of stuff like menu prompts, Multiple DID's, Roll overs. ect.
Thats the way i would handle it, 3 People or not.

 

[Pulsar]

If you are paying for vonage, you are likely overpaying.

There are many reputable companies that have excellent service and have been around for a while that charge 1/2 or 1/4 what vonage does.

Viatalk is around $200 for 2 years if you sign up during a "get a free year" promotion. Nuvio which I use has incredible customer service and I paid 200 for one year.

I strongly suggest investigating other voip companies before ponying up the money for vonage.

 

[kevnich2]

The problem that I have with ultra cheap phone service is the fact that it's that cheap. Cheap doesn't equal good. Companies have to make a profit to stay in business. If they're offering that cheap of phone service, I have a hard time believing that they'll be around long term. I'm perfectly satisfied with how much I pay for my vonage and as long as they stay in business, I have no problems with them.