VoIP.ms and Google Voice (a combination that works for me)

[soundview]

For reasons too long to go into, I chose to go with the voip.ms pay per minute plan and forward Google Voice because my wife and I like sending and receiving SMS to our GV home number.

Here is my voip.ms per per minute cost breakdown for New Haven, CT (YMMV)
$0.50 one time set up fee
$0.99 per month DID fee
$0.01 per minute (incoming and outgoing calls)
$25 minimum initial deposit / $5 minimum balance
$0.08 per caller ID CNAM lookup (optional)
$1.50 per month e911 (optional)

Here are my requirements
Caller ID contact list override since I receive mobile calls that are mostly generic names
To send/receive an occasional fax on my wife's existing machine
Telemarketing blocking
Reliable service

Vestalink does not support manual faxing and I have some doubts regarding their reliability. Phone Power does not allow CNAM over ride for anyone on their Aquarius network (BYOD Obi plan) and I was not impressed with their lack of set up support which gave me numerous problems.

My Obi202 set up
SP1 Google Voice
SP2 voip.ms
Manual web interface enabled, auto provisioning/obitalk service disabled

For now I receive calls on SP2 and call out on SP1. SP1 will be disabled after 5/14 with all outgoing calls going through voip.ms with my spoofed GV caller ID. Caller ID name override works like a charm. I chose to activate $0.08 cent look up on caller ID name which only applies if the caller is not my phone book. I mostly get calls from people in my phone book anyway. Phone call quality is very good and their chat support was excellent. Have not tried faxing yet but supposedly works well with ulaw codec.

I set up IVR to play back a customized recording for anonymous caller IDs and discovered that Google Voice just rings until the built in GV voicemail system takes over. The reason why is because GV does not work with early media and therefore does not ring the destination phone. However, calls directly to the voip.ms DID are intercepted by the IVR. This is not a big deal for me since telemarketers will be sent to GV voicemail and never bother me. If I port my GV number to voip.ms one day, this problem disappears. I like the fact that I can switch to another plan/provider at any time if things do not work out.

TL;DR: voip.ms has all the features and flexibility I need plus more. Hope this helps someone.

EDIT: CNAM lookup is $0.008 per call. There is an additional $1.50 one time setup fee for e911.

[Taoman]

Phone Power does not allow CNAM over ride for anyone on their Aquarius network (BYOD Obi plan)

Nice post with good info. I've been wanting to try out voip.ms. Glad it's working out for you.

I don't understand why PhonePower will not allow CNAM override. That is definitely a negative for PP.

Hey PhonePower, ARE YOU LISTENING?? You are losing customers because of this.


PS. Did you consider forwarding a free Callcentric DID to your voip.ms account via SIP URI? That way you wouldn't have the monthly DID fee or have to pay for CNAM lookups plus have free incoming minutes. Is it really $0.08 per CNAM lookup? That's pretty expensive for a simple LIDB dip.

Just checked voip.ms wiki and a CNAM lookup is actually $0.008 per dip which is a lot more reasonable.

[soundview]

  Thanks for the correction, I missed a zero on that CNAM charge!

I may go the free Callcentric DID route down the road. Right now I just wanted to see how this setup works for me and did not want another potential point of failure. I actually signed up for a free NY DID but adding CC into the mix right now is not necessary. After a break in period, I'll see how many minutes I'm actually burning and make adjustments if needed.

Regarding Phone Power and lack of CNAM override on Aquarius, don't hold your breath. It was first brought up on dslreports.com in 2010 and here we are 4 years later. When I canceled my account with Phone Power, customer retention mentioned that this would be offered in the future but could not tell me when. More tellingly, their own tech support told me that it would not be possible on the telecom grade switch that Aquarius is on. I told them that this was a deal breaker for me and the tech guy knew there was nothing he could do.

[MurrayB]

Glad to hear that you are having success with Voip.ms. I have been using it with three DID and one SIP on two Obi110 since early December. I am surprised that I do not here more people trying the service.

The Caller ID filtering they offer is fantastic blocks all sorts of evil..

[Taoman]

Regarding Phone Power and lack of CNAM override on Aquarius, don't hold your breath. It was first brought up on dslreports.com in 2010 and here we are 4 years later. When I canceled my account with Phone Power, customer retention mentioned that this would be offered in the future but could not tell me when. More tellingly, their own tech support told me that it would not be possible on the telecom grade switch that Aquarius is on. I told them that this was a deal breaker for me and the tech guy knew there was nothing he could do.

Thanks for the info regarding PP and CNAM override on Aquarius. I didn't know any of this!

[soundview]

@MurrayB
+1! Caller ID filtering through voip.ms is one of the more sophisticated and flexible ways to handle both telemarketers AND friends who block their IDs. You won't get this ability with other "value" plans.

@Taoman
I highly recommend you give them a try. It is better suited for folks who like to tinker and there are plenty of tools in the shed to play with. It only took me an afternoon to figure out how to activate and use all the features in their suite. I am puzzled why there isn't more mention of voip.ms on the forum. I don't have any affiliation with them and they don't offer a referral bonus (I wish they did!).

UPDATE:

• Outgoing fax worked fine on the 10 year old Brother FAX-775 (ITU-T Group 3). Have not verified incoming fax but I am certain it works as well. Since fax is slowly becoming extinct, I'm glad I don't have to remember and spend a lot of time setting up fax every few months after it is long forgotten how it was done last time. More importantly, my wife can fax on her own as before.
  
• Have not received a single telemarketing call to date. Used to get about 1 per day.
• Keeping Google Voice has many advantages.. A global spam filtering option which helps cut down on telemarketing calls. A safe place to park your invaluable phone number and flexibility to forward to different voip services simply by changing a setting on the web. Lastly, the Google Voice app which I believe superior to other apps offered by voip providers. It notifies me when I get texts or voicemail, free SMS and history. Plus voice to text transcription, email notifications...for free. I think there should be more discussion of apps here. Other voip providers require that you log into a web portal for those features (like I'm going to do that). With the GV app, my iPad beeps and displays a message when I get a text or voicemail in realtime.  I can respond without getting up from the couch. Of course GV might go to crap when it is merged with Hangouts but that's a discussion for another day.
• Obi device setup is handled directly through the local web interface (called Web Server-Based or Web Management Access). Be prepared to get your hands a little dirty to set up and manage your Obi. This may not be suited to anyone looking for ease of set-up (ala ObiTalk) but it wasn't difficult (with an added complication since I wanted to keep GV for outgoing until 5/15).

[yorktown]

An important factor for any VOIP system you sign up with: 

---- How many servers do they have and where are they?

They can be cheap as can be, but if they are using a handful of servers at a single location you are wasting your time and money.  No one will hear you on the line.

I learned this about 7 years ago when I switched from Vonage to Broadvoice.  They had a much more attractive monthly plan, and I consume phone minutes.  The problem was, the IP data would have to go to the NYC servers, then route over VOIP.   I was in Europe.  It was like talking to someone on Mars.  Talk....WAIT....Response.....Talk...WAIT...


Google, Vonage, or any service seriously committed to multiple VOIP servers at multiple locations will work.  Anything else is a waste.

[colleenz]

Glad to hear that you are having success with Voip.ms. I have been using it with three DID and one SIP on two Obi110 since early December. I am surprised that I do not here more people trying the service.

The Caller ID filtering they offer is fantastic blocks all sorts of evil..

Can you make inbound & outbound calls?

[MurrayB]

Yes, with VOIP.ms you can make both inbound and outbound calls with loads of features. Check their website. They have twenty seven (27) servers. Nineteen (19) in the US, six (6) in Canada, and one (1) in Europe.

[TonyTib]

Two questions:
1) Do you have to pay for E911?  (My impressions is that E911 is a requirement unless you claim, truthfully or not, that you don't live in the US)
2) Can you easily port in a number?

I have a CA DID that's currently on Anveo, and I'm thinking of porting it to a different provider.  It's not used a lot, so per minute chargers are OK.  However, Anveo's deal is pretty good; $2.00 for personal unlimited DID + $0.80 for E911.  But if I could get CNAM with similar pricing, I'd probably change.

Another possibility is to port it to Ring.to, but I need to play a bit more with Ring.to before I go that route (I have a Ring.to number from GrooveIP, and so far my experience has been mixed).  (I don't want to go through GV porting hassles, since the number is a land-line number).

Thanks

[MurrayB]

Unlike Anveo -  E911 is totally optional on VOIP.ms.

I ported three numbers from Verizon. The VOIP.ms port department is terrific and communicative.

I have been using VOIP.ms for a year very happily.

Good Luck!

[TonyTib]

Thanks, I'll look into it in a month or so when my Anveo account gets pretty low.

[colleenz]

Thank you so much for the detailed post. I was waffling between GV & voip.ms  Now, I'm pretty sure that
I will go with voip.ms

[MurrayB]

I should have been more clear. When I said early December I should have said early December 2013.