Need VOIP Service??
Jeff205:
Quote from: MichiganTelephone on March 11, 2011, 08:47:18 am
The OP might want to check them out.
Sorry, what's OP?
RonR:
OP = Original Poster
4myphones:
if you are looking for Voip service these are some good basic questions i saw
do you allow SIP only (pay as you go) accounts to use the IPKALL DID service
do you support the SIP Broker PSTN Gateway
do you support eNum, iNum and SIP to SIP
how do you bill in Minutes or in Seconds intervals
are USA toll free #'s free of any charge or fee
do you notify users of rate changes
is there a incoming minutes limit
if a call goes unanswered or is busy is there any charge or fee
thank you
SteveInWA:
Pardon me for butting in, but:
A whole thread could be devoted to selecting a VoIP service provider, independent of whether you want to use it with your OBi or not.
The questions to ask, posted previously, might make sense for a technically-inclined enthusiast, but the poster was asking about use for an alarm system and for faxes. I cringe when I see people discussing this without considering the risks.
For your alarm system, do you really want to bet your safety on the cheapest provider you can find? If you need maximum reliability, I'd argue that you should keep a traditional POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) local telco voice line, or, change to a monitored system that uses a cellular connection. If you are willing to sacrifice some reliability for cost, then sure, use a VoIP provider, or switch to NextAlarm (which uses your broadband internet connection), but keep in mind that it won't work if your power is out or cut, or your ISP goes down. This is the main reason I have kept a "legacy POTS" line.
That said, I have used a lot of different VoIP services over the years, and I am currently using Callcentric's pay-per-minute offering for voice calling and faxing. It would be the next best choice for an alarm monitoring service connection, given the disclaimers above, and you could provision an OBi 110's phone line (FXO) port to use Callcentric (along with, or instead of, Google Voice), or buy a different Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) to use just for that purpose.
For extra safety: if you choose this option, at least hook up all your gear (ISP modem, router, Obi) to a good UPS.
You may know this, but monitored alarm systems (should) use a specially-wired RJ-31X exclusion phone jack, such that the (telco or VoIP) phone line is connected to THIS jack first, then the alarm panel's telco line plugs into the RJ-31X, and any other phones on the premises are wired downstream from this jack. This allows the alarm panel to "seize" the line when it needs to call the monitoring center, disconnecting any other phones that might be off-hook, when it's using the line.
MichiganTelephone:
SteveInWA, please keep in mind that anyone in this forum has made a choice to use VoIP, so lectures about the supposed safety of POTS lines are probably not going to be well received, and in some areas that's a myth anyway. Particularly in certain former GTE/Verizon areas, the traditional phone service is LESS reliable than the broadband service.
Remember that if some drunk driver takes out a utility pole, or a careless backhoe operator snags an underground phone cable, your landline phone service can be interrupted. Also, intruders have been known to cut phone lines before entering a home. Therefore, if one really needs an alarm system and for whatever reason doesn't trust their broadband service, probably the best option would be one that uses cellular service to communicate and is connected to a good battery backup power supply. And even that isn't 100% guaranteed, as cell sites require power to operate, and they are vulnerable to tornadoes and even possible hit by aircraft.
In short, you can't have absolutely safety, and for many folks their broadband service may be no less reliable than the (in some areas aging and poorly-maintained) landline infrastructure.
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