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Best Partner to Use with Obi...

Started by richheimlich, October 23, 2014, 12:09:56 AM

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richheimlich

I've been with ViaTalk for over a decade now (one of the few). My main reasons for staying:

1. Fantastic features. They have so many that I use often that I rarely see others touch -- like distinctive ring, simul-ring, COMPLEX white and blacklists, complex routing and callerID options.

2. Great US-based support. I almost always get extremely helpful support people out of Albany, New York who seem genuinely concerned about my issues.

The one thing of late is that I've had a couple problems for some time that never got resolved and we're now pretty sure they were linked to my Linksys PAP2T adapter (well, all of them, not just mine).

So now I have an Obi. That got me to thinking, when my service is up next year (10/2015) I'd like to be fully loaded with info on whether I should stick with them (basically they charge $150 a year but you can always get $150 for two years by just timing your renewal carefully. So, $75 a year. Not bad for this service.

However, saving is never a bad thing. As long as voice quality is solid, I find I don't need as many features these days, though I do use my home phone for a bit of business and need it to be solid for inbound calls and reliable conversations.

What other services should I be seriously considering over ViaTalk now that I've put a toe in the water outside their domain?

BTW, great story about one of their features and why it was so valuable:

I broke my leg a number of years ago and, as often is the case, health insurance DID cover it all but they took their time doing it. Of course, I started getting annoying collection calls almost immediately. Well, using their filter-based advanced call routing, with the first annoying rep I told him we'd never speak again. He thought I was joking and said so. I then set up a rule so that ANY calls from his entire company would be forwarded to a great number that just plays a recording of an old AT&T recording that says, "The call you have made requires a deposit of 25 cents. Please deposit 25 cents to complete this call." Ah, vindication.

The MOST annoying guy got very personal with me. Threateningly so. I told him this call would be the last time we'd ever talk. Like the first guy, this one also laughed and got very animated about how he'd destroy me. So I found out his boss' direct extension and forward all his inbound calls directly to his boss' direct line. Now that's a feature that makes you feel in total control.

Shale

I use Anveo and Google Voice. Both are very cost effective (residential $2.80 for 911 plus unlimited incoming calls and outbound 1 cent to US and 1/2 cent to Canada per minute). Google Voice is free. Both have good call quality. There are also a package deals via OBi with some suppliers including Anveo that include a bucket of outbound call minutes. I have been happy with the pay per call for outbound.

Neither may be a good fit for you if "support" is a major feature for you. Anveo will charge after the first few support calls, tho I think they wave that if it turns out to be some flaw. It works for me because I do my own configurations etc. I don't know that GV offers phone-in support. I have not needed support except for getting set up with a different plan than I had initially chosen.

I really like the power of the Anveo call flow-- a graphical method that allows blacklisting and whitelisting of numbers or even blocks of numbers that start with the same digits... It will look intimidating at first (and its use is optional), but it is nice. There is a limit as to how many elements you can use in a call flow in the cheapest plans without paying extra, but there are ways of extending. For example,  I set up a call flow extension (not a phone extension) to which I forward calls that I don't expect to answer, but might route to a voicemail.

If an unrecognized call, such as a robocall, comes in, it requires a touchtone response before even before even ringing my phone.

There are several suppliers that you should consider, and there are many that really like them. http://blog.obihai.com/ has a list. Callcentric, Voip.ms and Anveo seem to be most popular in addition to GV. Circlenet has very good rates to most places for outbound calls. I have a friend who used them a lot, but a few numbers they called gave frequent audio problem.

richheimlich

My ViaTalk service is unlimited for talking. I feel most comfortable with that though I suspect I'd save if I went the other way.

The black and whitelisting you mention sounds equal to what I have now.

The main reason I asked the question is that I get the feeling people are doing a bit more with their Obi's than most people do with their VoIP setups.

Shale

Quote from: richheimlich on October 23, 2014, 12:36:56 PM

The main reason I asked the question is that I get the feeling people are doing a bit more with their Obi's than most people do with their VoIP setups.

It sounded like you were asking about who was a good VoIP provider to use with an OBi.

Not everybody does more than let the OBi just duplicate the function of a POTS line. The defaults pretty much do that. Some are more adventuresome, and some are motivated by specific problems, such as my defense against robocalls. Most users never post into the forum. Of those that do, it seems like half are asking how to make GV ring for more than 25 seconds before the voicemail takes over (just kidding).

OBi gives some good powers to those who have special wants and needs combined with ability. Other features come from the providers.

Rick

#4
I would agree with Shale that probably 80 - 90%, or more, of OBi purchasers set them up for two reasons:

1) Calling another country for free (OBi to OBi).

2) Removing their POTS line charge and adding in a simple VoIP service, most of them starting with free GV.

I got tired of the charges for my POTS line, and once I moved my alarm system off it I saw $$$ in getting rid of a nearly $500 per year charge.  I do NOTHING with my OBi except make VoIP work.  I have no out of country calls to make, I make most of my outbound calls while at my desk and use GV to ring my phone and make a free call.  The only function of the OBi is to have my house phone connected to VoIP / GV.  

I've found that over the past nearly three years, while I've saved around $1,500, the lack of reliable service (i.e. phone rings when a call is received) has been frustrating.  Much due to GV, some to the OBi simply needing a reboot.  Not enough to find another solution, but frustrating at times.

richheimlich

It's not the 80-90% I'm interested in. <grin> It's always the few at the extremes that I'm curious about. 90% of ViaTalk customers never touch any of their features beyond voicemail, but several do quite a bit more with it.

Thanks for all the insight. I just wanted to be sure I'm getting the most out of the device. So far, in very limited testing, it seems to be an improvement over the PAP2T and that was the main goal. Here's hoping it stays that way.