[kwlug-disc] cloud pbx (voip.ms) conversations ...[Was: Re: Asterisk: SIP vs IAX]

[unsolicited]

Paul - why would voip.ms be blacklisted at the office? Or any such 
telephony, for that matter. (What are the concerns?)

Based on messages in the list, mostly Raul's, I've done rather more 
poking at voip.ms. Not using it yet, but seriously thinking about it.

Including sending support questions - and getting pretty quick 
responses. I'm rather impressed.

One thing I found out is that one can register, for free, and poke 
about. Until you register, you can't see any of the rich functionality 
  that Raul mentioned. And since SIP to SIP calls should be free, 
voip.ms can be used without charge, if I understand correctly. So you 
can check things out without laying out cash.

Having now seen the functionality available - it's pretty impressive. 
As Raul says, so far, anything I've thought of I might want to do, I 
can do there and not have to have a box here - one less thing to maintain.

Have I been behind a dark cloud - it seems to me such on-line PBX 
services are relatively recent, at least for reasonable costs. 
Googling around, it seems that more are coming - is the industry still 
in a considerable state of 'flux'?

Like Raul noted, I see voip.ms and callcentric quite a bit. The 
biggest difference seems to be a paradigm change - agents for 
callcentric vs. sub-accounts for voip.ms. Since callcentric is out of 
the U.S., and voip.ms out of Montreal, I'll ignore callcentric.


I have a solid impression that I need to layout a call flow / dialplan 
for myself before proceeding further. One of the startling things I 
encountered (via support) was that calling out and calling in are now 
two different things. I guess I'm still traversing the VoIP learning 
curve. So, I could get a DID in Victoria for my Uncle to call me 
without charge, but any call I make to him will always be charged at 
the same rate. Thus, a DID in Victoria doesn't let me make local calls 
to Victoria at the same local rates as I might experience here. 
HOWEVER - it's the same rate, 24x7, anywhere in Canada, local or 
otherwise. So there's a bit of a mindset adjustment.

At some point I'll fire up my SPA3102 again, but a couple of questions 
occur to me.


With the SPA I'll be able to connect to, but not register, with other 
VoIP services, such as Ekiga. But do I really have any reason to? 
[Until I encounter someone who is only on such a network, and I want 
to talk to them. Which would be strange, given the number of other 
mechanisms for communication - be it instant messaging, skype, or 
e-mail?] Especially when such things as SipBroker are out there, and 
the SPA will be able to receive sip calls directly 
(//sip:mysip at mydomain.org). For that matter, SipBroker makes me think 
even a DID might not be necessary, for personal use at any rate.


It seems to me that the difference between my own box and a virtual 
box is control of the routing ('dialplan'?) out? Incoming, whether the 
box is 'out there' or 'in here' the rules you set up are the rules you 
set up. But going out - given the 'limited' functionality of the ATA, 
the difference seems to be loss of local / direct control. Am I 
comprehending this correctly? Is it even a concern? [If one is not 
calling a DID, no richness of connectivity has been lost. If one is 
... well you have to get over to the POTS side somehow.]

Since calls between voip.ms sub-accounts are free, aside from the 
outgoing / incoming traffic, even the advantage of internal asterisk 
intercom calls staying local seems diminished. Which is to say, Raul 
might still not have needed his own asterisk box for his Android PDA's 
to be able to call home without charge. [But I get his whole, let's 
check this out, point of his effort.]


Thoughts, suggestions, clarity?


Raul Suarez wrote, On 02/21/2011 7:57 PM:
> I've already expressed how happy I am with Voip.ms functionality.
> 
> Reporting back on quality: Neither I, or the people on the other side of the 
> phone, have noticed any difference compared to my other phone lines.
> 
> No echo, No noticeable delay, No sound artifacts.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca>
> To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>
> Sent: Fri, February 4, 2011 11:45:50 AM
> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Asterisk: SIP vs IAX
> 
> 
>> I'll check voip.ms when I get home. It is blacklisted at the office
>> "voip telephony". I guess they should have a different domain for
>> their web site than their SIP URL :)
> 
> It sounds as if voip.ms might be a good solution for you, but I have
> heard from some good secondhand sources (who are on the list but
> rarely post) that voice quality can be an issue. 
> 
> Unlimitel is much more expensive (although still cheap as compared to
> POTS) and our experiences with voice quality have been good. 
> 
> Other people may have different opinions.