I have been using Callcentric for about 9 months on two different OBI110's. It has worked perfect. Recently they have been having issues with denial of service attacks. They also are having DNS issues.
Both my phone lines have been dead for a week. I opened a service request asking if everyone is down and they never respond. It seems like they are no longer supporting customers just billing them.
Are other people having this issue? Here is the error I get on both boxes.
(http://mbu.com/prius/obi3.jpg)
Can someone recommend another provider in the US that I can move my number to?
There are some newish configuration instructions for the OBihai boxes on their customer portal. Just log in there and it's on the front page. You should be able to get things working again. My OBi100 box is quite functional on CC at the moment.
Callcentric's troubles seemed to be confined mostly to their SIP interface. Their back-office stuff is still working, including their DID handling. If you can't get your SIP account with them functioning, you can go into Preferences/DID Forwarding and send the DIDs to any number or URI. Bear in mind you'll have to pay outgoing rates to send it to another non-CC DID, but URIs anywhere are free, as are iNums.
What I did for two of my CC DIDs, when CC was blown out, was set up subaccounts on one voip.ms account and forwarded each DID to a voip.ms subaccount URI. The subaccount feature of voip.ms is one I find quite interesting. I don't know what the limit is, but you can have multiple ones and not only can you register each one on a separate ATA SIP channel, you can assign an internal 3 or 4-digit extension number to each one, and address each one as a separate URI from outside.
The DID Forwarding was working well for me when everyone else was complaining they couldn't even make Call Treatments work.
If you do get your free voip.ms account, be aware that it might not do very much until you deposit $25 into the account. It won't even dial toll-free numbers on their value routing plan, which are free, and I seem to remember they wouldn't even let me dial through SIP Broker at the time.
Voip.ms is quite a different system than Callcentric. I think they each have great features and I'm keeping both of them, which will be especially important if/when Google Voice decides it's not a free service anymore.
For voip.ms, do you need to have a DID to be able to receive call thru SIP URI? If not what does the URI address look like?
I have all the settings exactly like their web site shows.
Service Providers > ITSP Profile > SIP
ProxyServer = callcentric.com
RegistrarServer = callcentric.com
UserAgentDomain = callcentric.com
OutboundProxy = callcentric.com OR srv.callcentric.com (You can use either server, please test and configure this setting accordingly)
X_ProxyServerRedundancy = Checked
Here is how it looks.
(http://mbu.com/prius/obi4.jpg)
and farter down I have the X_ProxyServerRedundancy = Checked
I still get this everytime
(http://mbu.com/prius/obi3.jpg)
This is on both OBI boxes that have worked for a long time.
My 110 was crashing yesterday afternoon also. Try setting
X_ProxyServerRedundancy back to default by checking the "Default" box and
make sure X_DnsSrvAutoPrefix is Checked.
Click "Submit" and reboot. You should be able to leave everything else alone.
What do X_ProxyServerRedundancy and X_DnsSrvAutoPrefix do?
Sorry about the novice question, I want to understand as I have X_ProxyServerRedundancy checked and X_DnsSrvAutoPrefix blank and my obi is working fine.
I got it working. There are having major DNS issues and they want you to force all devices like the Obi box to use their DNS servers and not your ISP.
I don't get it. If they would have mentioned this on their web site I would have fixed the issue and moved on.
Quote from: Judgeless on October 26, 2012, 03:06:47 PM
I got it working. There are having major DNS issues and they want you to force all devices like the Obi box to use their DNS servers and not your ISP.
I don't get it. If they would have mentioned this on their web site I would have fixed the issue and moved on.
No. CallCentric is NOT having major DNS issues. USERS of CallCentric services and some ATA devices are having major DNS issues after reconfiguring to use CallCentric's suggested setup to fend off the massive attack they're under.
In the beginning, like everyone else, CallCentric was using regular "A" records for DNS resolution to their proxy servers for registration. A DNS query by the USER'S device is a UDP packet and expects a UDP response because the overhead is low. The response contains one or two IP addresses of the proxy servers and the registration begins using those. Then came the huge denial of service attack that swamped their proxy servers.
CallCentric added memory and resources to their proxy servers, but it wasn't enough to fend off the attack. So, they started adding proxy servers. I think they're up to 20 or more by now. The also set up new DNS SRV type records to return a randomized list of the entire pool of servers. That will balance the load over the entire set of servers and they can continue to add servers as necessary to thwart the attack. They asked their users to reconfigure their SIP and ATA devices to request the new SRV type DNS records. (They continue to support the "A" record DNS queries, but those servers have little defense against the attack and are prone to overloading.)
Whereas the old "A" record DNS query responses were quite small, the new SRV responses are much larger because of the number of servers CallCentric has configured into the server pool. The new SRV response is too large to fit in a UDP packet. By protocol standards, when that happens, the DNS is supposed to mark the UDP response
truncated. It isn't defined whether a partial list of servers (whatever will fit) is to be returned in the UDP response or not. Some DNS servers include the partial response and some don't. The popular Google and OpenDNS servers do not. Most ISP provider DNS servers appear the include them.
What should happen is the device (i.e. OBI) sees the truncated flag and re-queries the DNS using TCP, which allows for a larger, multi-packet response. Unfortunately, most devices seem not have implemented this part of the DNS protocol. So, they are relying on the partial list of servers supplied in the truncated UDP response sent by
some DNS servers. CallCentric even provided the addresses of a couple of DNS servers they knew to "work" by supplying the truncated list.
Using the truncated partial list of proxy servers is much better than using the "A" record servers from a stability point of view, but not without problems. SIP devices re-register periodically. If the new partial list of randomly ordered servers doesn't include the currently registered server, the device will drop the registration and register on one of the new IP addresses. That leaves a small window with the device unregistered and no calls. I've heard that some devices are dumb enough to actually drop a call in progress when this happens, but I haven't seen it to know for sure.
So, the bottom line is CallCentric is adding servers in parallel with each other to fend off an attack. They have asked their users to use SRV type DNS requests to automatically load balance across the new set of servers. Different DNS servers behave differently when sending truncated UDP responses and many (most?) SIP and ATA devices don't properly implement TCP DNS queries in response to receiving a truncated UDP response.
user834,
Thanks for the explanation. Can you give some advice on which direction obihai should be taking in order to improve their devices in order to implement what seems to be a reasonable response to a DDOS attack. We may see other voip services implementing the CC strategy.
Thanks for the explanation. I wish Callcentric would have been more pro active in informing their customers on what was going on and how to fix it in a simple paragraph. Instead I wasted a lot of time trying to fix something that worked fine for 9 months.
Quote from: VOIPisGreat on October 25, 2012, 12:37:29 PM
For voip.ms, do you need to have a DID to be able to receive call thru SIP URI? If not what does the URI address look like?
VOIPisGreat,
You can call your voip.ms sub-account phone with the following sip uri format.
nnnnnnx@servername.voip.ms
where nnnnnn is your voip master account number, x is your voip.ms sub-account number and servername is the voip.ms server where you have your adapter registered. Actually your proper sip uri is shown on the "Manage Sub Accounts" web page when you move your cursor over circle i next to your sub account extension number.
When I try a test call using this sip uri it works when used as a forwarding number at IPKall. You cannot "manage" this incoming sip uri as you would a regular voip.ms DID where you forward it at the voip.ms account level, route to ring group, etc.
If you wish to setup a regular incoming DID as a sip uri, voip.ms has an option for that also. They call it a Virtual DID. The advantage here is that you can manage the sip uri like a regular DID. Voip.ms has a fee for this option, currently 25 cents per month with a per minute incoming call charge of one tenth of a cent per minute.
User834 great explanation. Unfortunately I bet the Obihais aren't the only one with this problem. I wonder if a DNS proxy between the two would remedy the situation?
While I'm sure user834's response was a great response, could someone translate that response into plain language for us technically challenged types?
I have an OBI 110 and I had CC set up on SP2 until the rebooting problems started and then I deleted it and the rebooting stopped.
Other than porting my number out of CC, is there a way to get CC working with the OBI 110 without all the rebooting issues? Something simple hopefully.
Can a number from CC be ported to Google Voice?
Again, thank you user834 for that lengthy explanation, I just wish I understood it.
Thanks
Quote from: Johnny on October 28, 2012, 06:54:36 AM
While I'm sure user834's response was a great response, could someone translate that response into plain language for us technically challenged types?
I have an OBI 110 and I had CC set up on SP2 until the rebooting problems started and then I deleted it and the rebooting stopped.
Other than porting my number out of CC, is there a way to get CC working with the OBI 110 without all the rebooting issues? Something simple hopefully.
Can a number from CC be ported to Google Voice?
Again, thank you user834 for that lengthy explanation, I just wish I understood it.
Thanks
In a nutshell Obi needs to fix the bug they have which causes the box to reboot every time they get a truncated dns response or in processing SRV records, whatever it is.
Tom
Quote from: tome on October 28, 2012, 08:55:53 AM
Quote from: Johnny on October 28, 2012, 06:54:36 AM
While I'm sure user834's response was a great response, could someone translate that response into plain language for us technically challenged types?
I have an OBI 110 and I had CC set up on SP2 until the rebooting problems started and then I deleted it and the rebooting stopped.
Other than porting my number out of CC, is there a way to get CC working with the OBI 110 without all the rebooting issues? Something simple hopefully.
Can a number from CC be ported to Google Voice?
Again, thank you user834 for that lengthy explanation, I just wish I understood it.
Thanks
In a nutshell Obi needs to fix the bug they have which causes the box to reboot every time they get a truncated dns response or in processing SRV records, whatever it is.
Tom
Thanks Tom.
Any idea if the OBI team is working on this fix? Maybe a new firmware upgrade soon?
I really liked CC, but it just doesn't work anymore with my OBI and I'm not buying another ata.
So, if OBI doesn't come up with a fix for this bug I will probably port my CC number to Voip.ms.
Do you know if CC is working with OBI to come up with this fix? Hopefully they are.
Thanks again..
Quote from: Johnny on October 28, 2012, 09:23:35 AM
Thanks Tom.
Any idea if the OBI team is working on this fix? Maybe a new firmware upgrade soon?
I really liked CC, but it just doesn't work anymore with my OBI and I'm not buying another ata.
So, if OBI doesn't come up with a fix for this bug I will probably port my CC number to Voip.ms.
Do you know if CC is working with OBI to come up with this fix? Hopefully they are.
Thanks again..
Obihai has a history of not saying anything about bugs, what is being fixed, when/if new firmware is coming, or what new features they might implement. Heck, even after new firmware is released they often don't give the whole (or any!) indication of what was fixed. When it works, it works, when it doesn't, who knows. You pay your money, you take your chances.
Had I known exactly how uncommunicative they are I wouldn't have bought the box in the first place and I definitely don't recommend it to anyone these days. When I first bought it there was a forum member (RonR) who singlehandedly made up for Obi's poor customer service. When RonR left (kicked out?) so went any hope at all for a good long term user experience.
Tom
ps: Ohihai doesn't need to work WITH CC. They need to fix their implementation of standard protocols.
Tom,
Thanks for all the helpful info.
At this point I'm strictly using the OBI 110 with one of my Google Voice accounts and nothing else.
I'd like to have another VOIP account to be able to utilize 911 services.
So, I guess I will wait a short time and if no resolution of the rebooting problems, I will probably port out of CC and hope the next VOIP provider doesn't have these same issues with the OBI 110.
Thanks again for your help. Appreciate it.
P.S. I remember RonR quite well. He actually helped me out on these forums too.
Amazingly, I have no ,problems with 202 reboots or anything else and Callcentric works again as it is supposed to.
The only thing I had to do was to change the digitmap because the pro configured one from Obi was not good but that had nothing to do with current CC problems.
Yeah, many of us miss RonR.
i deleted CC from my SPx on my obi100 and world is back to normal again... i dont think obi is going to 'fix' anything as nothing 'broke' from their standpoint, i guess..
i will wait for couple of days and just take my number from CC to elsewhere, if things are still awful. (frequent reboot thing just annoys me)..
right now am without e911 support as i am fwd'ing all my calls from CC to my obi via SIP URI forwarding..
Quote from: rsriram22 on October 28, 2012, 06:44:52 PM
i am fwd'ing all my calls from CC to my obi via SIP URI forwarding..
rsriram22,
Can you show us some examples oy your sip uri forwarding.
Quote from: Johnny on October 28, 2012, 09:23:35 AM
So, if OBI doesn't come up with a fix for this bug I will probably port my CC number to Voip.ms.
There's no need to port out, or at least yet. So far, DID Forwarding from CC has been working pretty well. (Preferences/DID Forwarding, that is. Use that over Call Treatments, which has been a little flaky, on and off.) I use and like voip.ms, so I'm not going to say anything against it, but for a temporary solution, you might also want to check out CallWithUs (others recommended it, I haven't used them), which has a much lower initial prefunding level. For a more permanent residential solution, at least voip.ms can sell you e911 service, whereas CallWithUs doesn't even offer it.
You could forward your Callcentric DID right now to your GoogleVoice account, but you'll have to pay for every incoming minute as an outgoing call by Callcentric. If you use a voip.ms or CallWithUs (or many other) SIP URI as a forwarding address, it's free (on both ends) and you don't need a DID from them. CallWithUs is more straightforward to set up, if I read their FAQ right. With voip.ms, if you want a free URI to forward to, you have to configure a subaccount, choose an internal extension number, use the credentials for that on your OBi110, and use your main account number plus the user-added part of the extension as part of your URI. So, it's a little more complicated and potentially confusing. Read up on subaccounts on their site for more info.
I'm currently paying voip.ms for a "virtual DID" to use with a Ring Group because they don't treat the subaccount-URI as a DID for that purpose and I don't trust Callcentric's Call Treatments right now, but as long as you don't need simultaneous ring or other special handling, a simple SIP URI forward is free (although with voip.ms you might have to pony up the $25 initial deposit to make things work).
I'm of the opinion that OBihai will eventually patch up the firmware to stop the rebooting problem, and also that Callcentric will stabilize their SIP SBCs and stop the attacks from working. Actually porting your number out will take a few weeks, anyway, so if you can find a passable workaround in the meantime, you might want to save the cost of porting out and just leave the DID with Callcentric until things either get fixed or get officially certified as hopeless.
Quote from: A_Friend on October 28, 2012, 10:28:39 PM
Quote from: Johnny on October 28, 2012, 09:23:35 AM
So, if OBI doesn't come up with a fix for this bug I will probably port my CC number to Voip.ms.
There's no need to port out, or at least yet. So far, DID Forwarding from CC has been working pretty well. (Preferences/DID Forwarding, that is. Use that over Call Treatments, which has been a little flaky, on and off.) I use and like voip.ms, so I'm not going to say anything against it, but for a temporary solution, you might also want to check out CallWithUs (others recommended it, I haven't used them), which has a much lower initial prefunding level. For a more permanent residential solution, at least voip.ms can sell you e911 service, whereas CallWithUs doesn't even offer it.
You could forward your Callcentric DID right now to your GoogleVoice account, but you'll have to pay for every incoming minute as an outgoing call by Callcentric. If you use a voip.ms or CallWithUs (or many other) SIP URI as a forwarding address, it's free (on both ends) and you don't need a DID from them. CallWithUs is more straightforward to set up, if I read their FAQ right. With voip.ms, if you want a free URI to forward to, you have to configure a subaccount, choose an internal extension number, use the credentials for that on your OBi110, and use your main account number plus the user-added part of the extension as part of your URI. So, it's a little more complicated and potentially confusing. Read up on subaccounts on their site for more info.
I'm currently paying voip.ms for a "virtual DID" to use with a Ring Group because they don't treat the subaccount-URI as a DID for that purpose and I don't trust Callcentric's Call Treatments right now, but as long as you don't need simultaneous ring or other special handling, a simple SIP URI forward is free (although with voip.ms you might have to pony up the $25 initial deposit to make things work).
I'm of the opinion that OBihai will eventually patch up the firmware to stop the rebooting problem, and also that Callcentric will stabilize their SIP SBCs and stop the attacks from working. Actually porting your number out will take a few weeks, anyway, so if you can find a passable workaround in the meantime, you might want to save the cost of porting out and just leave the DID with Callcentric until things either get fixed or get officially certified as hopeless.
A_Friend,
Thanks so much for taking the time to post that helpful information.
I really like the OBI 110 and want to stick with it, so I may do as you advised and wait a little longer before porting out.
I just wish someone from OBIhai would let us know what's going on.
Thanks
I am having more issues with Callcentric. I had everything working for 2 days and now it is broke again. I went to their website. http://www.callcentric.com/ and the domain no longer works.
Did they go out of business? If not how can they stay around without redundancy and power backup?
Quote from: Judgeless on October 30, 2012, 06:43:30 AM
I am having more issues with Callcentric. I had everything working for 2 days and now it is broke again. I went to their website. http://www.callcentric.com/ and the domain no longer works.
Did they go out of business? If not how can they stay around without redundancy and power backup?
I'm in the web hosting business for 12 years now. I'm the owner and have about 50 servers that I own and have a backup plan. I'm in Florida and have planned for these instances. I even use multiple data centers for redundant core services in a fail-over situation. Not only do the data centers I use have redundant power grids, they have redundant generators with 14 days of fuel. and the APC system is rated to carry the entire Data center for 24 at full load.
I used callcentric as a primary provider and VOIP.MS as a fail over, but that does not even work now because callcentric could net even keep up the core services that other providers in the same area seem to have done.
I do think that if Callcentric manages to get back on line and maybe still have a customer base to explain why they had no backup plan for a extended power outage. its inexcusable that they said they only had 1 hour of APC backup.
I for one think some heads may need to roll if they plan on staying in business to show customers and any possible future customers that they are serious about being a VOIP provider and will not allow this to happen again, because the head engineer they have now failed to plan for the biggest threat to a data center or VOIP provider. A POWER OUTTAGE.
They also failed to notify the customers of this planned shutdown. and I do not accept the tweet as notice or post on dslreports. They knew the storm was coming for days and failed across the board other than shut it all down and go home. This screw the customer attitude will most likely put them down for the long term. We have been hearing excuse after excuse on why its taken so long to mitigate the DDoS attack that been an issue for 26 days now. there mitigation steps have rendered most ISP's dns servers useless and required countless hours and days constantly changing there recommended setups
The billing system has been working well for them though. I got billed for full months of service and no credits as they stated over a week ago that they would be doing.
There customers are not happy on the twitter feed.
http://twitter.com/Callcentric/status/263106841368752128
I am done with is company. What is the best company to port my number to? Cheap and relaible.
This is a longer list: https://twitter.com/search?q=CallCentric&src=typd
Quote from: Judgeless on October 30, 2012, 09:41:05 AM
There customers are not happy on the twitter feed.
http://twitter.com/Callcentric/status/263106841368752128
I am done with is company. What is the best company to port my number to? Cheap and relaible.
It sure does look like they are running Callcentric from just some office space in NY and not a properly equipped data center. Did they think the power would or could never go out? First the slow mitigation of the DDoS and now its revealed they have no backup plan other than to power down and go home.
I just do not see how the could ever be considered a reliable provider again even if they manage to stay in business after this. They could not even inform their customers that they were shutting the hole system down and going home. I sure would have liked to know that in advance.
I know when I was looking to start a web hosting business over 12 years ago. that was the first thing I was concerned about. otherwise I would have just thrown a bunch of servers in the back room an pocked the $$ I could have saved by doing so.
My business lines are down for now. no way to even forward them or port them out. I was using VOIP.MS as a backup, but with callcentric turning the hole system off that killed my inbound calls. So I had to contact all of my current customers to provide my backup contact numbers. That does not help with the expensive advertising I have running with number that just ring busy due to callcentric shutting down all servers. If they had informed their customers I could have at least tried to get some of it updated in advance.
I could maybe cut them a break if the total shut down was unexpected. but they made the decision to shut it down in advance of the storm knowing they had no backup plans in place for an outage lasting for more than 1 hour. They could have at least informed their customers of their plans to shut the hole system down and also informing them the forwarding would also be down.
I do belive with those actions they just put the whole box of nails into their coffin
I've changed my 911 to directly dial my emergency dispatch center, and will be cancelling Callcentric the minute they are up again.
Callcentric is completely down so I have to look for alternative.
I just signed up Anveo, but the dashboard is confusing. What can I do with the free account? Can I receive SIP URI?
Well we can thank Callcentric for one thing. They helped find a bug. ;)
just got an email from voip.ms saying they dropped the port fee from $25 to $10 until the 6th. I guess they are using CC's trouble as a marketing tool.
Quote from: jimates on October 30, 2012, 03:13:32 PM
just got an email from voip.ms saying they dropped the port fee from $25 to $10 until the 6th. I guess they are using CC's trouble as a marketing tool.
Any info on their reliability and disaster recovery?
Have used about 2 years for/with 800 # inbound and use as failover on outbound (CID spoofing allowed). No issues, good customer support. Disaster recovery, no experience.
Redundant servers list: Note that it is not perfect. Once in a while I see that there are issues with registering to a particular server.
VoIP Server Locations
Houston, TX
Dallas, TX
Los Angeles, CA
New York, NY
Atlanta, GA
Chicago, IL
Seattle, WA
Tampa, FL
London, UK
Montreal, QC
Toronto, ON
It is amazing that they keep on billing for essentially a nonexistent service. It's time to start looking for alternatives. One thing I do not like on Anveo in spite of all recommendations is the chaotic set up of their web page, reported difficulties in setting up the service and somehow the feeling I have that it is also a garage style operation.
I have to give a closer look to voip.ms.
BTW I never had any problems with reliability of Localphone, although their DID's are a bit basic and I need sometimes a more comprehensive phone service and 911.
Telna, which sometimes use for international calls from my cellphones and which I used a lot years ago for fax because of their 1 second billing, is currently down as well because of the storm. They do not think of back uo either, apparently. ::)
Quote from: QBZappy on October 30, 2012, 04:31:32 PM
Redundant servers list: Note that it is not perfect. Once in a while I see that there are issues with registering to a particular server.
VoIP Server Locations
Houston, TX
Dallas, TX
Los Angeles, CA
New York, NY
Atlanta, GA
Chicago, IL
Seattle, WA
Tampa, FL
London, UK
Montreal, QC
Toronto, ON
So do you register with a particular server? And if it goes down you haven nothing, and have to change it? I want to "Set and Forget".
This is from voip.ms feed:
October 29, 2012, 9:04 pm
Report from NYC: Commercial utility power is no longer available. Site has successfully transferred to generators. No impact to customers.
We're up and operational. Our data center currently has fuel for 65 hours. We're preparing mirror images of VoIP.ms website (currently hosted in NYC) and our New York POP in case power goes down. At the time of writing this, no services/customers are affected by the storm.
We'll provide updates as they come by.
I'm thinking Amazon's AWC would be useful for VoIP providers.
Quote from: Billt928 on October 30, 2012, 10:29:42 AM
Quote from: Judgeless on October 30, 2012, 09:41:05 AM
There customers are not happy on the twitter feed.
http://twitter.com/Callcentric/status/263106841368752128
I am done with is company. What is the best company to port my number to? Cheap and relaible.
It sure does look like they are running Callcentric from just some office space in NY and not a properly equipped data center.
To put things into perspective:
---
From Reuters:
Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit eastern United States, flooded servers of Datagram Inc in New York City, bringing down several media websites it hosts, including Huffington Post and Gawker.
"We are continuing to battle flooding and fiber outages in downtown New York and Connecticut," a notice posted on Datagram's website said. http://r.reuters.com/wat63t
"Verizon and other carriers in the area are down as well. Generators are unable to pump fuel due to the flooding in the basements," Datagram said.
New York-based Datagram offers server-hosting services, network and Web application support, and database administration.
---
MarketWatch website, owned by News Corp, was also down and cited "technical difficulties."
---
All Gawker Media websites, including Gizmodo and Lifehacker, were down.
---
So it appears that even major sites that should have backup sites, don't.
Agreed that Callcentric should have a backup datasite, but many don't
I'm not looking to make 911 calls via Huffington Post...
Having one hour of backup power and co-location plans for a VoIP provider is absurd. I can't imagine that Callcentric will survive after weeks of denial of service attacks followed by this.
I don't know anything about VoIP.ms, but they were proactively in messaging users AND they have a plan to move things while their 3 days of power lasts.
Callcentric has been very poor in their communication over the past few weeks, and this is just the capper on a bad experience.
I also had the experience with Callcentric months ago where their E911 database (held with a third party) was providing inaccurate information. They remedied it when I brought it to their attention, and once they are up and running I will reference the work ticket and post that information for others (Callcentric's responses to work tickets are not sent in emails, only viewable on their site which is down).
callcentric site is back online, I am able to register to it from my obi, but the phone would not ring when I called my DID.
I contacted VoIP.ms and verified that I can get E911 for the same as Callcentric, BUT I have to obtain a phone number for $.99 a month and a $.50 setup charge, so that makes it $30 a year instead of $18.
While E911 is valuable, the two of us are able to communicate where we live to the 911 operator. I will continue to research E911 options, I want to pick the most reliable, not the least expensive or least reliable.
With Callcentric's site up I logged in and cancelled my account and requested a refund.
I also had hoped to post the particulars about how Callcentric's E911 database (managed by a third party) had had some issues a while back, but when I logged on I discovered that their Trouble Ticket system deletes old closed tickets at a certain point (and all emails to you regarding the trouble ticket provide no info except a link to the ticket, so I can't go back into my emails and provide further info). Suffice it to say that earlier in the year (end of March?) I was testing the 911 number after I had a problem with the OBi, and discovered that the E911 database was not providing the correct info. Callcentric looked into it and discovered that their third party provider had an issue, which they fixed. However, it made me concerned regarding the reliability of this service I was paying for. Now, with the denial of service attacks and the power outage, I've decided to not use them any longer.
Quote from: Rick on November 01, 2012, 05:30:40 AM
With Callcentric's site up I logged in and cancelled my account and requested a refund.
Just asking, did you first port out your number in case you wanted to keep it?
Quote from: QBZappy on November 01, 2012, 06:00:48 AM
Just asking, did you first port out your number in case you wanted to keep it?
I did not. It was a Callcentric 777 number, which I never used. I only signed up with them for E911, using GV for my main service. So I don't need the number for anything.
Quote from: Rick on November 01, 2012, 05:30:40 AM
I contacted VoIP.ms and verified that I can get E911 for the same as Callcentric, BUT I have to obtain a phone number for $.99 a month and a $.50 setup charge, so that makes it $30 a year instead of $18.
. . .
Are you saying that for $18 per year you expect a five nines SLA?
They are back up. My service is not working. I am gettting this error.
Register Failed: No Response From Server (server=204.11.192.164:5060; retrying)
It worked before the outage using the new DNS setting. Any advice?
My 110 locked up completely this morning. Powering down modem, router, and 110 then bringing modem, router, and 110 back up [in that order] got it going again. Callcentric seems to be having trouble getting the re-registration timers synced up since they restarted every thing last night. Setting RegistrationPeriod to 100 in the Obi SIP section may help also.
I have been playing around after many reboots both my lines are working. After one reboot the OBI110 never rebooted. I had to go in the basement and remove power to get it working.
Quote from: hardly on November 01, 2012, 11:36:16 AM
Quote from: Rick on November 01, 2012, 05:30:40 AM
I contacted VoIP.ms and verified that I can get E911 for the same as Callcentric, BUT I have to obtain a phone number for $.99 a month and a $.50 setup charge, so that makes it $30 a year instead of $18.
. . .
Are you saying that for $18 per year you expect a five nines SLA?
Apparently what the OP rightfully expects is a reliable 911 service, not that cheap for $ 18./year. If not reliable= worth nothing.
Quote from: carl on November 01, 2012, 07:54:59 PM
Apparently what the OP rightfully expects is a reliable 911 service, not that cheap for $ 18./year. If not reliable= worth nothing.
Then it would seem that his choices are either a five nines SLA, a backup plan with an additional provider(s), or a POTS line.