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Review by Ole Juul See Profile

  • Location: Coalmont, BC, Canada
  • Cost: $7 per month
Sound and service
nothing yet
I've got first class telephone service
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

While researching about how to get a free phone number and what device and service to buy, this forum kept coming up in my results. I quickly became clear that Callcentric had a good reputation and was generally recommended by people here, who I could tell were mostly very knowledgeable about VoIP. Reading around some more, it also became clear that the PAP2 was an old reliable standby. So, I went to the Callcentric site and signed up for a free number. That cost nothing. Then I went on eBay and ordered a PAP2 for $24 including shipping. I got the genuine device, but see note below. It arrived about three weeks later.

In the meanwhile, I was trying to set up my e911 address on Callcentric. I was so green that I didn't yet realize that I had to purchase an outgoing service before that would be relevant, so it would not work on the web site yet. I opened a trouble ticket to sort it out, and within a short while got a response saying that they had put in the address by hand and all should be good now. I still hadn't paid them a penny! I thought that was pretty good service for free. Anyway, my ATA eventually arrived, and all I had to do was pick the appropriate device on the Callcentric device support page and fill in the corresponding fields on the PAP2. To my utter delight, less that fifteen minutes later I could make a call. I still remember the feeling of excitement when I first herd the dial tone on the phone I had plugged in. My first VoIP dial tone!

The reason I wanted a free number was basically so that I could check out VoIP and see what it could do for me, as well as (hopefully) have a number in my name. I'm currently not the account holder of the landline in this house. After a little while it became clear that the sound and reliability of my Callcentric phone was as good, or better than, my landline. In fact my landline has had several years of background noise and poor sound quality, as well as some weeks out of service here and there. I am extremely pleased that for me VoIP is superior. Before trying it, I had no faith that it would be much good because I am on a rural wireless connection.

Having not yet seen even the slightest glitch, I then purchased a DID (phone number) in the city of my choice. Now I have the "pay per call" plan which charges me just under 2 cents per minute within North America and most of western Europe. A little arithmetic made it clear that no incumbent Telco offers anything near that. With the landline, if you don't make a single call, you still get a big bill - you do the math. Anyway, the DID costs me $5.95 per month, and the mandatory e911 charge is $1.50. Total $7.45 with as yet an unknown amount of minutes. We'll see how it goes. I don't have a reason to use this very much yet (the landline isn't going away) but all out-of-town calls are going to be cheaper so I will be using it more and more. I calculate that if this replaced the landline, it would cost around $15 to $20 per month. Callcentric however, does not provide numbers in my area, and so those poor souls who have to pay extra for calling that mythical "long distance" because they have POTS accounts, would not like it. This is absolutely no problem for my goal of having a second number in my own name. For city folks in North America, Callcentric probably does have a local number for you.

The experience has been very positive. Callcentric service is very good, so I expect that any problem I could possibly have in the future will get sorted out in a timely manner. The sound and reliability has also been flawless - and I'm in Canada and on the opposite coast from them too. Perhaps someone less adventurous than me will not like all the options that Callcentric offers, but I can tell you that the setup is quick and easy. There is no need to do anything after that in order to keep the service going - except of course, pay for it.

In case anybody is interested, here is what I now have set up with them.

1/ One phone number as my regular, personal, number. It rings a phone by my computer for 20 seconds, if I don't get it, it then rings the landline and I can get it on any of the phones in the house.

2/ One free phone number. That rings for 30 seconds, then goes to voice mail. I use that one for official places where I don't really want to talk with them, but want to know if they called. (eg. WHOIS records)

3/ One other free phone number. That goes directly to voice mail, so someone can leave a message night or day, and I will see the light blinking on the phone when I get there.

I would like to point out that there are a lot of free services from CC. Basically, they don't charge for anything other than making calls. They also don't have "bundles" and "plans" and "marketing games" and things to obscure the real value and price. What you see is what you get. I'd also like to point out that this forum is a tremendous resource, and that people here know a lot about CC, and that CC also has a presence here. You can't go wrong.

PS: If someone wants a PAP2, please do a web search to figure out how to get the genuine device. I suspect though, that it is getting a bit old and that there are probably better choices out there for only a few more dollars.

PPS: I am new to VoIP, so I cannot compare related services. That is why I had to vote CC "best" in all categories. I would have uses a lower rating if there had been any problem or fault in any way, but there hasn't been after a month and a half. I can only say that in my case, the sound quality, support, and reliability, is superior to the POTS service offered in my area.

UPDATE:

It's been a year now and I'm still happy with Callcentric. In that time there have been a few minor glitches though. One is that a couple of calls have been a little garbled, though not to the point where they were not comprehensible. I understand that this is likely from cell phone connections which are prone to this, but mention it so as to be truthful and remind readers that it's not a perfect world. Apart from those very few flawed calls, the rest have been high quality. Another problem has been with CNAM. I like to have recipients of my calls see my name on their display. Apparently there can be a problem with protocol compatibility between US and Canadian providers. In any case, Callcentric was able to fix the problem when I pointed it out.

Also, I've since added a second number. Originally I had a free NY number in addition to my paid DID. When I lost it due to my negligence in maintaining it, CC simply gave me the same number back when I requested it. Anyway, I decided that I didn't want that to happen again and was happy that they could convert that number to a Pay Per Minute account which is only $1.95/mo.

One thing I would note at this point, is that the few interactions with them that I've had so far have been very good. I am particularly impressed with their ability to read all of my writing and respond to all of it clearly. To some this may seem obvious, but I've noticed that not all support has this high level of linguistic understanding.

member for 10.9 years, 1429 visits, last login: 2 years ago
updated 9.7 years ago

Iscream
Premium Member
join:2009-02-17
New York, NY

1 edit

Iscream

Premium Member

Please check again CC coverage of Canada soon

Thank you for the exciting and detailed feedback!

Regarding your local [rural] coverage - please check in again within a few days (literally). Callcentric will be greatly expanding its coverage of Canadian rural and northern territories. I have good basis to believe that your local village will be covered too.

Speaking of PAP2 - it's sure a good device, but unfortunately, Cisco has dropped its support of PAP2 many years ago. The firmware lacks many important features compared to newer devices (T.38 fax support is one of them, but there are many more related to registration and stability).

On another hand - even a genuine, OEM hardware gets older even when not in use, totally new, while waiting on shelves to be sold.

Electronic equipment may go out of order without regard of being used or not (on occasions - especially, when was not used at all) - because printed boards may have hidden tensions which may break tiny soldered connections, electrolytic capacitors get dry thus lose their characteristics, etc. As of today - PAP2 is 10 years old device. It used to be a great device, but today it often causes "unexpected" jokes to its owners. It may lose registration by itself. It may drop a call in the middle. It may induce static to conversations. A power cycling may help, but not for long.

I'm aware of 100s cases when [aging] PAP2 was a cause of major frustrations for its owners (including myself). It may even be a cause of changing service provider with negative feelings toward former one. My recommendation - when/if time and budget permit, please get something newer.

B/w - the same disclaimer goes toward another great legacy device - Grandstream's HTx86/HTx87. Just beware.

Thank you!