You're doing the same thing I was about 3 weeks ago (switching from OOMA to another provider)
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My first question is regarding outbound caller ID with Name. I saw some mentions that the Obitalk Anveo plans don't include outbound CNAM. Is this still the case? Is there any option to purchase and add-on outbound CNAM? If not, what is displayed in the name field when you call out with Obitalk/Anveo? (I've got elderly parents that might get confused if something weird shows up in the name field.
Outbound call will show callerID, but not caller name. If Caller Name is important to you, you can register your phone number with
http://www.listyourself.net. After registering my GoogleVoice Number with them, within a week the caller name went from "Unknown" to my actual name everywhere I checked (my office, my wife office and my parents house)
IF you use
http://www.listyourself.net make sure to register with the National No Call list -
https://www.donotcall.gov. I didn't do this and was getting about a dozen telemarketer calls per day. I registered and within a week they stopped.
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Second, I see some reports on here that customer service from Anveo might be lacking... although many of these requests are from earlier, when they got a fairly large amount of business during the time there was a potential of Google Voice going away. I'm not all that concerned, as long as the service "just works," since I've rarely had to contact my phone provider for service, but it is still a bit of a concern.
I haven't had to use their support yet, but my understanding is that their support is actually quite good though expensive (they charge for it)
QuoteThird, can I setup service with them, try them out for a while, *then* port in my current number without too much issue?
Absolutely! You should definitely do this. Establish an account with them, drop in $20, configure your OBI to use their service and test them out for outgoing calls. If you want a phone number from them (a DID) that is only 50 cents per month (or, $2.00 with unlimited incoming calls)
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Lastly, any final thoughts about Anveo's Obitalk plans that would sway me one way or another? Right now, they're really the only one I'm seriously considering.
The beauty of the OBI is that you can use any combination of services. Here's what I'm doing
SP1 = Google Voice. Its free and generally reliable, however its not as good as the providers below. On some of my calls I suffer about 10% packet loss which isn't a huge deal for personal calls but is problematic and sounds unprofessional for business calls (I work from home) so I avoid google voice when calling co-workers. It also doesn't let you spoof callerID (your first point above)
SP2 = Circlenet - I love these guys. Their rates are real cheap (many of the numbers I call at $0.003 per minute) and their support is top notch. They are small (I think its just 1-2 people) but really seem to want to make it work. I've used them for dozens of calls and never had a problem. I'd encourage you to check them out.
SP3 =
VOIP.MS - The first time I tried using this service I was on a conference call and I kept cutting out, people couldn't reliably hear me so I ended up calling back in with my cell phone. Pretty big strike for
VOIP.MS. They are popular around here though that I'm going to keep them on my device and give them one more shot.
SP4 = Anveo - Reliable and feature packed. I put $20 in my account to fund e911 (80 cents per month) and have also done a few test calls for giggles. Latency and call quality are great, plus it makes it really easy to "spoof" callerID. I set it up so anytime I call my parents it shows my cell phone callerID but when I call anyone else it shows my google voice callerID. The possibilities are endless.
Good luck!