News:

On Tuesday September 6th the forum will be down for maintenance from 9:30 PM to 11:59 PM PDT

Main Menu

My summary of options with a request for advice

Started by sir_rob, May 01, 2014, 04:34:48 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

sir_rob

Here is what I have gathered while preparing to source a provider with enough minutes that I do not have to worry about going over (approximately 2,000 or more), e911, and spoofing.  Any other features such as 3 way or faxing are simply nice extras that would cause me to select otherwise equal competitors.

Phone Power:  $59.99/year, potentially poor customer service, registration might disappear from Obi, and there may be an issue with delayed outbound ringing that may be fixable.  Potential billing issues when contract expires.  The quality seems good.

Vestalink: $59.99/year, potentially poor inbound quality and delayed inbound rings when forwarded from GV.  By using a CallCentric free NY number, you can mitigate the inbound problems as long as GV forwards to the CC number properly.  May have to select the best codec for optimal quality.

Future9: $77/year, may be slightly trickier to set up, but the quality seems good.

Anveo: $84/year, possibly some setup problems, but quality seems good.

I am leaning toward Phone Power at the moment, but Future9 and Anveo are also real possibilities.  I am willing to pay the extra $17 to $24 per year to have GV forwarding and all calls to conference services work.  Vestalink concerns me a little with the complaints that I have seen.

All of the other options that I can find are more expensive or do not offer e911 (and are not cheap enough to offset the additional cost of an external e911 service).  I would prefer an annual prepay plan, but I may be willing to do a pay as you go plan if it would be significantly cheaper and reliable.  I am sure that I have missed some that are in the same price range and are reliable, but I could not find them.  Any recommendations or endorsements from the list or outside of the list would be greatly appreciated.

Simply telling me that it does not matter will not help.  I prefer to do my homework up front and not have problems down the road, but I am a cheapskate (I think that goes without saying on this board).  I thank you in advance for your help!

sir_rob

Also, I am interested in using 2 or 3 lines.  So if there are plans with discounts for multiple lines, that would be important to know.  2 of them need to ring on separate phones (3 is acceptable too), but all three of them need to have different outbound numbers.

vtsnaab

I am surprised that Nitzan (as the boss of F9...) did not point out FutureFive with his service, which is quite a generous offer and costs less than their FutureNine offering.

My own POV does not include any need for 911 and of the 4 options mentioned in the OP - for my own usage I've eliminated all of those EXCEPT for F9 - either due to excessive prices or too many visibly reported problems.

I went through the entire list of providers here and found others besides - and took notes and visited each provider's site - and even called those with contact numbers.

After all that I am most likely to separate my GV usage from the Obi altogether rather than forwarding anymore or porting.

My 'main' incoming number can just be changed to a new one.
My secondary number is VM only so it can just stay with GV as long as that remains an option.

Then, after 'the change', anyone still calling me on my 'main' number can just leave a VM and get a call back during which they'll get the new number from me directly.

I see as most important during this time of changes to spend as little as reasonably possible for a reliable service - and as with all things internet-based...to have a 2nd or backup option near to hand as there are ALWAYS outages and changes over time.

Referring specifically again to F9 (and though I am not actively using it yet), I am impressed by their longevity and their obvious willingness to support users.

At the opposite end of the scale I see some services that clearly have dark clouds over them, with numerous mentions here and elsewhere of problems and poor support - while many of those are also either very recent arrivals or mysterious companies; with many that completely lack in physical contact info on their sites.

That always draws my attention - if any company 'hides behind' a website and has email-only contact with no physical address specified - I am reluctant to pay them for anything, ever.

But all this is just my 2 cent - shared in hopes that it may be helpful at pointing out something which may have needed to be looked deeper into.

Best Wishes.

AlanB

Quote from: sir_rob on May 01, 2014, 04:41:38 PM
Also, I am interested in using 2 or 3 lines.  So if there are plans with discounts for multiple lines, that would be important to know.  2 of them need to ring on separate phones (3 is acceptable too), but all three of them need to have different outbound numbers.
If you look at Anveo more, I would not use the ObiTalk plan for multiple lines.  No discount there.  You would need the regular plans.

TonyTib

See if you can try before you buy....for example, so far my GV-->Vestalink forwarding has been very quick, and I like VL's choice of codecs (G.729 works better for me; some providers don't give that choice).

On PhonePower, note that it's supposedly a pain to change spoofing once it's set up.

I prefer having multiple providers for redundancy and different features instead of multiple lines from one provider.

Good luck!

joe1

#5
QuoteWould I only need to check the rate for conference calls, or is it likely that I would run into other numbers that may incur a fee?  Once I check a number, is it likely that the rate would ever change?  Frankly this step seems quite bothersome unless it is only for rare occurrences.  I would simply prefer to block all calls that would incur an additional fee.  Can that be done?
QuoteThis only applies to very rural areas - assuming most of your calls are to urban or somewhat urban locations you'll never have to worry about this. It's not possible to just block these at this point - I'll look into that.

I live in a rural area and it looks like calls to local numbers are .02. Would I be charged for every call or would some amount of usage be covered by the 2000 minutes?

Sam_from_CircleNet

Joe,
I have a suggestion that might be helpful. I'm from CircleNet and I think we have some very good pricing to rural areas but we are only outbound. You could use setup an account with us and F9 then use F9  as SP1 for your inbound calls and most outbound numbers and only use the CircleNet SP2  when you had a high rate number.

If you can give me the codes I can give you price estimates, or if you'd like signup for a free account and price them all.

Thanks,
Sam

joe1

I'd rather deal with one company and have one account. Probably cheaper to pay per minute than have a monthly fee. Thanks for the responses though.

dudly

I switched over to CallCentric for outbound and inbound calls when it became evident that Google Voice was going away from the OBI.  I have since setup CircleNet as my outbound provider.  I have to say the prices are the best and when I had one problem, they went over and beyond to fix it and get my outbound calls working again in a very fast fashion, which happened to be a weekend.