Don't be Afraid of Change

[Kman609]

Wow, what a trip it's been--and it's only been a little over a week!

I went from landline/telemarketer Hell to master of my communications universe.

I started with an OBi202, GV and Callcentric.  It all went together so seamlessly--with the help of people here.  I love to stick it to telescammers, so I have a mature white list of people and businesses who are allowed to ring through to the house.  The rest get the "Lenny" bot that wastes their time.  I love the elegance of Callcentric's Call Treatments.  They've got some great programmers working there.

What Callcentric couldn't help me with was the physical distance between Los Angeles (me) and NYC (them) and the latency and packet loss that were occurring from here to there.  If you want to measure your potential quality of service, run some of these tests to a city where your server resides.  http://myvoipspeed.visualware.com/  Very informative. Even though I have reliable 50/50 FIOS internet, I had pretty bad latency and packet loss resulting in a low MOS score.  We were talking over each other.  No bueno.

So I went shopping for a service with a server in LA, and found Voip.ms.  I had a latency of only 7ms and zero packet loss to one of their LA servers, so I signed up.  The connection to the OBi was a snap.   No more talking over each other.  The programming was tedious--you had to make a rule for each of the 70 members of your white list, and you have to record your own "press 1 if you're a human" message (it can be sooooo much more than that) but it was doable, and now I have loud, clear and lag-free conversations.  Shoot, my daughter is in town interviewing for tech jobs in San Fran, and it was easy to program a rule that forwarded all house calls from the 415 area code directly to her cell phone.

I miss CC's elegant Call Treatments, but have managed to do everything I did over there here.  If I could play mix-and-match, I would have CC's programmers with Voip.ms's rate structure and ubiquitous servers.

So I guess my message to the other newbies out there is don't be afraid of change and if something isn't working, move on.  Oh, and if you can't figure something out--ask!  There are wonderfully helpful people here.

Thanks for all your help guys.  

[Taoman]

Interesting post. Just because I'm curious, could you tell me what your return times are when you ping "ping.callcentric.com?"

The reason I ask is that I live in the greater Seattle area and I have no problem with Callcentric and I don't have near the bandwidth you have. And that's after being forwarded from Google Voice. I have high ping times but it doesn't seem to affect my conversations.

Good luck with Voip.ms.

PS. I find a more comprehensive VoIP test to be http://voipqualitytest.com/

[Kman609]

Interesting post. Just because I'm curious, could you tell me what your return times are when you ping "ping.callcentric.com?"

82ms, but with dreadfully bad packet loss--5-15%.  MOS was bouncing between 3.5 and 4.0.  The way the CC tech explained the bandwidth thing is "it doesn't matter how wide and fast your freeway is, if it's full of potholes, you're screwed. It only takes like 80K to have a conversation, but it must be lossless."

Side note:  As a test, I downloaded ~20 gigs today at 62.5mbs (my regular max speed) while intentionally talking on the phone...and there were no issues.  All while the OBi was plugged into a non-priority port on the switch.  According to my router, there was hardly any packet loss.  Maybe my Verizon just hates NYC?

PS. I find a more comprehensive VoIP test to be http://voipqualitytest.com/

Thanks, Ill give it a try. Edit: The tests look the same to me, except I don't see where you can choose your server location.  According to the tech, server location is everything.  You must run the test on a server that is near your provider's.  The test he provided me (and I posted) allows choosing a server in Staten Island. The proof is in the pudding though, as my fast-talking youngest daughter in Oregon and I are no no longer talking over each other.  We were ALMOST getting used to it, pausing at the end of speaking.  It's not unlike the simplex communications of being on a radio--something I'm used to.

Now I don't know whether our talking over each other  was because of latency or packet loss or both.  The tech told me our latency was "higher than expected", but that our packet loss was nasty, and would probably lead to low-quality sound.  I could not get the packet loss to repeat at random places throughout the country.

Man am I gonna miss CC's Call Treatments.  Those programmers really did a good job of anticipating our needs.  You can get there (and more) with Voip.ms, it's just not as clean.  After a couple hours' programming, I have my whitelist, and I can either confront the stragglers (read: scammers) with either a challenge to dial a number to prove they're human or send them to "Lenny" according to my whim.  According to my CC call logs, I've already trapped a half-dozen scammers in Lenny hell, as they showed calls in excess of 3 minutes .

I'm still in a little in awe over all this (getting past Verizon's bringing optical to our house, but leaving us with the feature set of twisted pair).  It would be a piece of cake to make a recording/rule that went something like this: "Hi, you've reached the Kman residence, for the youngest, press 1 (forwards to her cell) for the oldest, press 2 (forwards to..."  And do this for 1/4th the cost of a Verizon landline.

[SteveInWA]

I also live in the Seattle area, also have FiOS internet service, and I have never had a noticeable issue with CC's call quality.  Some people are going to be more sensitive to latency than others.  A 80ms ping time, by itself, is within the capability of the buffers in the ATA to handle.  The buffering is also adjustable.  But, bottom line, "whatever floats your boat".  Voip.ms has proven to be a very reliable and cost-effective ITSP.

[Kman609]

I just can't seem to catch a break with a connection from LA to NYC.  I show a low of 58% consistency of service and packet loss (UDP VOIP packets are lost forever, unlike TCP). The same errors occur when the tests are run from my neighbor's FIOS machine, so it's not my hardware.  We aren't actually in LA. More like 20 miles away, and in the hills.

Anyways, I'm happy with where we're at.  I'm especially happy with voip.ms's rates and 6-second billing cycle as 95% of our incoming calls are from scammers that get dumped in the first few seconds--except for the ones I send to "Lenny" or feel like messing with myself.  It'll take forever to eat up the $25 (the minimum) that I put in the account.

I'll give this a week or two before I begin the port process.

Oh the pitfalls of messing with everyone not on your white list:  My daughter is back in America and looking for a tech job (she's an MIT engineer).  She got a cell phone, and transitioned everyone she's contacted to it from our house phone.  She then gave me the go-ahead to start screwing with scammers again.  Well, one CEO did not get the memo, and he called a few days ago to offer her a job, but he got ported to Lenny! So picture a company CEO having a "conversation" with an old, forgetful, hard-of-hearing bot.  All is cleared up, and she is considering several offers, all in San Fran .