Hi,

I just wanted to let everyone know about our experiences with a few VOIP providers over the last month.

Our goal was to port 6 numbers from many different suppliers (Packet8, Vonage, eFax, Ureach, AT&T & Aptela) into 1 account and run our own PBX system.

Les.net
We first chose LES.net for our inbound and outbound VOIP services - prices look reasonable and setting up a new account is instant.

Communication - The communication (or lack there of) with LES.net was terrible - it was like pulling teeth to get answers.
I emailed them a question about repeatable bad quality on an outbound call where my credit card company's voice prompts would get scrambled. They didn't answer or acknowledge the email. I emailed them last month to terminate a DID and they still haven't and they've billed me for it.

Inbound Calls - Inbound DID service on a 718 number worked sporadically. Some times calls never made it to us via IAX, some times they did. Sometimes they rang busy when someone called. 2 days after I order I get a notification saying that they are switching their east coast carrier and my new DID will have to be ported (for which we have to pay some of the cost) to a new provider.

outbound service - Outbound service was also bad - calling a certain credit card company I could repeatedly hear the same voice prompts get scrambled every time I called through LES.net. Had large PDD (post dial delays) as well as other randomly not completed calls.

number porting - I tried to port numbers to them & I paid the fee and submitted the faxes to them - never received any confirmation or status updates. Toll free ports are supposed to take 3-5 business days, by the 10th day I called them and they hadn't even initiated the transfer yet. They additionally said that because of this new local numbers couldn't be ported to their system for a few months.

summary - So in short les.net was hell.


At this point I decided not to put all my eggs in one basket and choose a different outbound & inbound provider.


VoipJet
Then we looked at VoipJet for our outbound termination. Setup was instant and they have excellent east coast servers.

communication - Only had to email them once to ask if we could pay by check - never received a response.

Outbound calls - excellent. Good quality, no PDD and almost every call is completed.



Vitelity
For our inbound service we looked at Vitelity.

communication - They respond to their ticket system and phone calls during business hours. Some times their replies are one sentence and unhelpful, but if you can get on a chat or call with them and force them to help you, they will.

Control Panel - They have a very nice control panel that not only shows you call reporting, sets up did routing and other services, but they allow you to submit LPN (number port) requests and view their status. This was VERY helpful when porting half a dozen numbers!

inbound calls - No complaints - virtually every call is sent successfully to us very quickly. Good quality.

Porting - Toll free numbers ported in around a week as expected. Our first local number ported today and it's working as expected.... took about 30 days to complete (ported from Packet8)

All in all, I couldn't be happier with VoipJet & Vitelity.

All right, I can contribute to this thread too.

VoipJet (2.5 years)
Quite reliable, some destinations are problematic at times (a few days every few months). Support replies typically within 12 hours, or they don't reply at all. Never figured out how they choose. Pricing for US termination is good, but not great. Low PPD (1-2 sec) and low latency (~20 ms Internet, ~200 ms end-to-end).

Commpartners (2 years)
Excellent VoIP service, both origination and termination. Highly reliable (no noticed downtime), excellent sound quality. Low PPDF and low latency. Large DID pool, online provisioning (but not real-time). LNP and RespOrg request work well. Support is fast by email or via 24x7 toll free NOC hotline. Billing can be a bit of a mess, but things get worked out eventually (within couple billing cycles). Pricing is good for interstate calls and for DID service; intrastate calls for off-net calls can be expensive. Toll-free service very reliable, but not cheap. Postpaid terms available. Require monthly minimum usage; USAC contribution required. International calls priced OK, quality is excellent to OK, depending on destination. CDR download via FTP. Overall excellent quality, but for a price.

GzLink (9 months)
Good pricing to most NPA-NXX, both inter and intrastate. Quite reliable, but not perfect -- some calls sometimes do not complete. Low PPD, excellent latency. Support is good by email or phone. Call quality itself is excellent. Typically require monthly minimum, pre-payment, faxed copy of signed agreement.

RapidVox (6 months)
Flat rate per-minute pricing. Mostly reliable. Similar to VoipJet, there are periods of call completion trouble to some destinations. Overall service is quite acceptable. No experience with support. Prepaid only. PPD OK, latency higher than the above three.

Hi,
Les.net
We first chose LES.net for our inbound and outbound VOIP services - prices look reasonable and setting up a new account is instant.

Communication - The communication (or lack there of) with LES.net was terrible - it was like pulling teeth to get answers.
I emailed them a question about repeatable bad quality on an outbound call where my credit card company's voice prompts would get scrambled. They didn't answer or acknowledge the email. I emailed them last month to terminate a DID and they still haven't and they've billed me for it.

Inbound Calls - Inbound DID service on a 718 number worked sporadically. Some times calls never made it to us via IAX, some times they did. Sometimes they rang busy when someone called. 2 days after I order I get a notification saying that they are switching their east coast carrier and my new DID will have to be ported (for which we have to pay some of the cost) to a new provider.

outbound service - Outbound service was also bad - calling a certain credit card company I could repeatedly hear the same voice prompts get scrambled every time I called through LES.net. Had large PDD (post dial delays) as well as other randomly not completed calls.

number porting - I tried to port numbers to them & I paid the fee and submitted the faxes to them - never received any confirmation or status updates. Toll free ports are supposed to take 3-5 business days, by the 10th day I called them and they hadn't even initiated the transfer yet. They additionally said that because of this new local numbers couldn't be ported to their system for a few months.

summary - So in short les.net was hell.


I'd have to agree. I've been noticing a lot of quality issues with both origination and termination with les.net. Most of the time my local number doesn't connect, and I can tell it's not on my end as the call doesn't even make it to les.net's call log.

These providers listed above will help in porting to another system, with *hopefully* better quality.

I have had very good luck with Vitelity.
They auto bill our CC when the balance falls below $10.00.
Routing changes appear to be instant and most of all

Calls go through!!!



Jim Nelson
Sierra Internet Services

MaB, how did you use Vitelity for inbound service only? I'm not able to forward to another SIP provider - and Vitelity has confirmed this - unless I dedicate an ATA line just for forwarding, setting it up to forward all calls. Vitelity doesn't provide a way to forward a DID directly to the SIP address of another company. Is this something that isn't an issue with IAX?

MaB, how did you use Vitelity for inbound service only? I'm not able to forward to another SIP provider - and Vitelity has confirmed this - unless I dedicate an ATA line just for forwarding, setting it up to forward all calls. Vitelity doesn't provide a way to forward a DID directly to the SIP address of another company. Is this something that isn't an issue with IAX?

Hi,

I'm not quite sure what you're asking exactly - we have our PBX system connected with Vitelity through IAX

So far to date myself:

Les.net - dropped the ball once they stopped replying to ticket support and phone calls. While things with them worked initially all went well until both our DIDs ceased working (we had a UK and USA number through them).

Callwithus - currently being used for inbound calls and works quite nicely. Since east coast numbers have been sporatic lately (alot of providers seem to be dropping like flies lately) it's been a chore to keep a number properly working, however CWU has taken the time to work through it so I commend them on that fact. At the same time again things haven't been the most stable inbound call wise.

Voipcheap (betamax) - used as outbound works fine and calls go through pretty much all the time. Can't say much for support as to date haven't needed it.

Voipcheap (betamax) - used as outbound works fine and calls go through pretty much all the time.
Interesting. Too bad their latency is pretty bad (at least for me). Their servers are in NL with 180+ ms RTT from the west coast. It's not worth saving the fraction of a cent per minute in this case. My customers would probably kill me, but perhaps business users are more demanding.

I use LES.net and they actually emailed me saying they have bad service and they apologize.

I use LES.net and they actually emailed me saying they have bad service and they apologize.
But are they doing anything to FIX it? It does me no good having a provider acknowledge poor service if they have no intentions to fix it. The last thing I need is unreliable service, especially when you can get quite reliable service for a pretty decent price. That is not to say that LES.net is bad -- I have absolutely no experience with them. This statement is about VoIP providers in general. Unfortunately there are too many "experts" that really have no clue what they are doing.

VOIPJet: We used VOIPJet from Australia at one point although we don't use them now as we have our own Australia wide network, we did find them to be very reliable and good quality.

Support with VOIPJet: Again sending emails gave sporadic responses however we did have them call Australia on several occassions to check connections with us and talk to our techs.

All in all I would definately recommend VOIPJet.

MaB, what PBX system are you guys using right now?

We use Asterisk and love it! It's an interesting learning curve at first but after 24/48 hours you start to realize all of the really interesting things you can do and how incredibly flexible and reliable it is.

As an update with our VOIP providers, Vitelity is still living up to our excellent experience for incoming DIDs (toll free, local numbers purchased through them and local numbers ported to them) - we have had absolutely no problems with incoming calls. A++ to vitelity!

Hi,

are you guys using Asterisk with FreePBX or just straight with TrixBox?

Hi,

We're using pure asterisk - compiled from source and configured from the config files.

Just reading through this and noticing the bad comments about LES.net

I would have to agree. I attempted outbound calling through them and tested them for a month or so. Twice, I was connected to another phone call already in progress (ie, other people talking, I could hear them talking, but they couldn't hear me, creepy eh?). How does that happen? I have absolutely no idea...

I've noticed that Les has been attempting to work on their quality of service lately.

I have seen an improvement in voice quality and the # of mis-connects when calling inbound on a DID.

They've also been attempting to resolve their support issues, and are using a support desk now. I don't request support much but I'd imagine with a ticket system, they'll be able to manage support issues a lot easier.

anyone tried voicetrading? any experience with them?

Using callwithus and voipcheap here. Both have worked great for us thus far. We used LES in the past too however their service definitely went on a downslide after awhile.

I can't even get to first base with Vitelity. There support is incredibly bad which means they are maxed out on support or they simply don't care. Whatever the reason, I have had nothing but bad experience with Vitelity's support.

well if you looking for cheap service you may find some place as cheap as .5 cent per min. But if you want true telco quality you have to use TDM connection. Try these group a try we use them for years np over here. They use nothing but cisco to connect your call. They call them self IDV.net