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Review by docbill See Profile

  • Location: Stoney Creek, ON, Canada
  • Cost: $10 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
Inexpensive, reasonable quality with configuration, very configurable
Intended for experts, minor routing problems, billing in USD
For the price, it is still a nice deal, if you can bring your own tech support.
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I decided to try this service for 30 days before migrating my home phone number. During my trial I used my SPA-3102 to route my all outgoing calls to voip.ms while still accepting incoming calls on my PSTN line. I was up in running in this mode in about 15 minutes. I failed to notice Toronto on the list, so I used NY as the termination point for my calls.

During the trial all my calls were crystal clear, and I ran into no issue. So finally I decided to migrate my home phone number. The porting took about 7 days. On the 7th day, received calls early morning normally. About 11:30 AM I received a call from the vet on my cell, and they mentioned my home phone answered with a message about it not being assigned yet. I checked my e-mail and found a message at 11:30 AM saying my DID had been added to my account so I could configure it, but the port was not yet complete. I then spent the next two hours trying to configure my SPA-2100 to accept incoming calls. (I switched to the SPA-2100 because I could have my acanac business line on the same device.) I finally figured out whenever I called from my Acanac number (line 2) to my voip.ms number (line 1) the call was not correctly routed. However, when I called from my cell phone or such the phone rang correctly. I assume the problem must relate to both lines being on the same ATA device and decided to ignore the problem.

After the DID port, both my step-mother and my brother-inlaw reported that calls to my home sounded tinny, and were hard to hear. However, when I configured the DID, I also switched my termination to Toronto. I notice that when I do broadband tests my connections from Hamilton, Ontario to Buffalo, New York are better than my connections to Toronto, Ontario. I also noticed I could not call Union Gas's toll free number. So I switched my termination back to New York. I hoping that has resolved the quality issue. To avoid problems with unreachable toll free numbers I added the following to my dial plan:

1800[2-9]xxxxxxS0|1866[2-9]xxxxxxS0|1877[2-9]xxxxxxS0|1888[2-9]xxxxxxS0

This seems to work with Union Gas and the other toll free numbers I tested.

I estimated my monthly cost based on the DID+E911 plus 500 minutes per month. It is worth noting that if you pay voip.ms with paypal no taxes are added to the order. If you paying with credit card they charge GST. I question the legality of this. If they Voip.ms is a Canadian company, they must always pay GST on sales to Canadian customers. If they are not a Canadian company, they should NEVER charge GST to Canadian customers.

Update 20100127:

Despite the many tweaks I did configuring my voip router, callers have continued to report low quality at their end. It seemed to get much worse during December. Finally in mid-January, my wife demanded I switch us back to a regular land line. I convinced here to allow me one more tweaking attempt. I reconfigured my SPA so I could use it as a router, and the QOS setting would have an effect. This may have helped, none of our relatives have reported problem again. However, they may just be used to the noise at their end and not bother to say anything anymore. I have not had to do so much tweaking with other VOIP services. Originally I was planning on becoming a reseller for VOIP.MS. Now, I am not even sure if we will remain customers.

Update 20101103:

Looks like VOIP.MS has stood the test of time. After many tweaks, I manage to get everything working acceptably, except faxes. Usually I can send a 1 page fax, anything more is likely to error out. But for the price, I can't complain. Since my last update I voip.ms started changing salestax in Canada. However, I found if I use paypal with a shipping address in the US, I get by tax free. My wife had me add a second phone number, so she has a number she can use on the internet that we can cancel without contacting everyone and there brother to tell them we are changing our phone number. My average bill is still around $10 even with the second line.

Update 20110401:

Just had a few hours outage on my VOIP line. Not bad reliability consider how long I've been with them now that is at least 99.9% reliability. The only downside is I still haven't managed to get the fax machine to send more than a 2 page fax before an error. However, I doubt other VOIP services do better. A QOS enabled router really helps improve quality when using the bittorrent at the same time..

Update 20111201:

I've add a North Carolina phone number to my account as well to replace my Acanac account. It makes in very practical for people there to call me. The DID is just 0.99 cents per month. I did not feel like paying for E911 on multiple DID's, so I added a forwarding rule that when I call my home number from my wife's second line from my office phone number it auto forwards to 911. Finally now with 3 lines, I'm now spending about $12 per month.

When I went to visit my mother for US Thanksgiving I was able to route all three phone lines to my mother's from the web interface. When you forward calls to a non-VOIP.MS line, you pay a charge for both incoming and outgoing, but the per minute rate is so low, who cares. I to bring my SPA with me on road trips, now I just setup call id filtering rules so I can call anywhere from the hotel with a local call. Registering a DID in city I'm visiting for a week is much cheaper than a calling card, and more practical than any other method I've used in the past. I also have filters set-up for my cell phone, so do not need to pay my carrier's long distance charges.

Update 2012-02-07:

I've bumped up the ease of installation. There are wiki instructions for most popular hardware. Recently I switch to an Obi110 for one of my phone lines, and I was impressed to find that the online wizard for this device directly supports this voip.ms. So configuring the Obi110 was almost completely painless. I did recently experience a strange problem where I could not dial out to 1-905-636-xxxx numbers. Whenever I tried I received a message I needed to dial a 1, even though I was dialing a 1. However, VOIP.MS technical support resolved this call routing problem for me.

Update 2012-02-28

I'm so close to cancelling my account. I've had failure after failure this month. Tonight, even there website is failing with an error they cannot connect to their newyork SQL server. I really like VOIP.MS, but with all these problems I can't justify this much longer. Recent problems include regular registration failures, incoming calls where the caller cannot hear me, and routing problems in dialing some numbers. Man this is going downhill really fast.

Update 2012-03-27

Normally when I used hotspots, I connect to a VPN service ibVPN. I was at a hotspot recently and tried to login to change my call forwarding for my home phone to my cell phone. I got a connection denied error from here website, with a message to submit a ticket. Of course I could not submit a ticket without disconnecting from VPN, so I did so. They responded back asking what IP address I was connecting from so they can unblock it. I provided the list, and they said they will only unblock one at a time. This is just plain crazy? What site blocks there website from there customers!!! I'm not quite ready to give-up on voip.ms, but this definitely lowers my rating for them.

Update: 2013-01-08

I really bad because voip.ms has been providing me reliable service for years now. However, for the last month my phone quality has been extremely bad. Outcoming audio is sometimes not completing. When it does complete there are huge drops, or sometimes it loops back in earlier segments of my audio making it sound like I'm stuttering. I've patiently waited for them to restore the toronto servers in hopes that would fix the problem, and even tried resolving with a tech support ticket. However, unlike in the past, tech support seems useless. Today I finally sip forwarded my calls to call centric. That seems to work without any of the quality problems. I cancelled one DID, I have one which I will transfer to call centric, the third I'll probably just leave on sip forwarding until I have problems with that.

Update: 2013-01-20

I then ported my main phone number to call centric. It still has the call quality issues, so I'm ready concede this is not a service provider issue. Although, I'm really at a lost as to what it could be. I have two different ISP's, two different routers, two different VOIP gateways, and two different sets of phones, and now two different VOIP providers. The problem seems to occur regardless of which set of hardware, and which IP I use. My best guess now is I'm dealing with two separate problems, both which caused the same type of quality problem. Which of course makes the whole thing difficult to diagnose...

I've restored my review ratings to the previous values, as I think diagnosing this is beyond what I can expect any VOIP provider to do.

member for 17.4 years, 214 visits, last login: 3.4 years ago
updated 11.1 years ago


N9MD
Too busy to chat
Premium Member
join:2005-10-08
Boca Raton, FL

N9MD

Premium Member

DON'T BLAME Voip.ms

Review by docbill
Update 20110401:

• Just had a few hours outage on my VOIP line. Not bad reliability consider how long I've been with them now that is at least 99.9% reliability.
• The only downside is I still haven't managed to get the fax machine to send more than a 2 page fax before an error.
• I doubt other VOIP services do better.


• May I point out that the 4/1/11 "incoming only" outage was totally due to a nationwide failure of XO, one of the major CLECs that supplies phone numbers to many of the major VoIP providers in the US. So anyone with a DID from any provider that is served by XO was affected ... for several hours.

• As many of us have stated over the years, it's Voice over IP (VoIP) not Fax over IP (FoIP). There are numerous threads in the BBR Forums that report and review Fax providers.

• On this we agree!
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

docbill

Member

Re: DON'T BLAME Voip.ms

I don't know what XO is... If a service is down and it is not my internet connection, or local hardware, then of course I blame the provider. They are the ones who decide what service levels they subscribe to, what backups are in place, etc. But has I said, that is still better than a 99.9% up time. I only had one other actual outage during the time period with them, and that was my fault, in that I ignored the e-mail they sent telling me I needed to update my configuration for their new SIP host names. I think I had more outages when I was with Bell Canada on a land line than with Voip.ms, so that is extremely reliable service.

As for fax, it is a disappointment, but not an unexpected one. If I really need to use a fax, I usually end-up using an e-mail to FAX service. One page faxes usually work, so long as the other end is not also using VOIP.

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

Re: DON'T BLAME Voip.ms

said by docbill:

It is worth noting that if you pay voip.ms with paypal no taxes are added to the order. If you paying with credit card they charge GST. I question the legality of this. If they Voip.ms is a Canadian company, they must always pay GST on sales to Canadian customers.

Please do not question the legality of this, many Canadian customers will be very unhappy if you are the cause for a change.

European Union law require North American merchants to charge European VAT (sales tax) for sales to customers in the European Union. But it is very common they "forget" to charge VAT when PayPal is used for payment. This is one reason why PayPal is so loved by customers in the European Union when they purchase something at North Americans merchants.
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

docbill

Member

Re: DON'T BLAME Voip.ms

said by Arne Bolen:

Please do not question the legality of this, many Canadian customers will be very unhappy if you are the cause for a change.

Actually voip.ms closed this loophole a long time ago. (Even before the HST in Ontario.) I doubt it had anything to do with my review.

suppafly
Premium Member
join:2009-11-27
97000

suppafly

Premium Member

Regarding latest update

Regarding your update "Update 2012-03-27

Normally when I used hotspots, I connect to a VPN service ibVPN. I was at a hotspot recently and tried to login to change my call forwarding for my home phone to my cell phone. I got a connection denied error from here website, with a message to submit a ticket. Of course I could not submit a ticket without disconnecting from VPN, so I did so. They responded back asking what IP address I was connecting from so they can unblock it. I provided the list, and they said they will only unblock one at a time. This is just plain crazy? What site blocks there website from there customers!!! I'm not quite ready to give-up on voip.ms, but this definitely lowers my rating for them. "
----------------------------------------
Hello Docbill,

We would like to clear up that due to the security risks inherent in the internet, our system detects accounts that are using a VPN, however this doesnt mean all VPNS are blocked. If the score returned by the system is above a margin, then the CUSTOMER PORTAL access is denied from that IP. That does not mean the VoIP calls or your account is blocked, it is only the access to the customer portal from that IP.

At the same time we believe that the process of requesting to unblock the IP is very straightforward. You can send us a ticket for us to unblock the IP or enter live chat and get this done within 5 minutes. We apologize for the inconveniences caused by this, however we definitely enforce the security of our system,in order to limit our losses and keep providing the same low prices to our customers.

Thank you, have a good day.
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

docbill

Member

Re: Regarding latest update

I would content it is lower security not higher security to have the blocks in place. If I need to drop my VPN at hotspots, it makes it one step easier for hackers to steal my personal information and use it to connect to your site.

I can however, see good reasons block new customer sign-ups over VPN, as you want not minimize your risks of having hackers using stolden credit cards over anonymous connections signing up for your service. I would think there are however more effective means to validate customers than blacklisting IP addresses. But to me it is just an issue of not being able to sign-in to my account without lower the overall security of my connection.

To be honest I never even thought of using live chat. I don't really see though how that would work. If you can't trust me to login with my password, and possibly adding a second level security question or a capcha, what could I say in an anonymous chat connection that would cause security conscious company to unblock the IP address? It is not like I would just start disclosing personal information in a chat window...

But in the end, it is not my job to tell you how to run your security. This is just a place for me to tell others how it impacts me as a customer.

Bill

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

Re: Regarding latest update

 
A long time ago I also was denied access to the website when using VPN. I disconnected and opened a ticket asking Voip.ms to add my static VPN IP address to their system.

I have since never had any problems accessing the website when using VPN. With my VPN provider I have my own static public IP address, so that makes it a lot easier. No need to tell Voip.ms a new public IP address.

I suggest you get your own static public IP address with your VPN provider. It makes it a lot easier for you, not only with Voip.ms but also with many other sites.
 
nitzan
Premium Member
join:2008-02-27

nitzan

Premium Member

Re: Regarding latest update

said by Arne Bolen:

I suggest you get your own static public IP address with your VPN provider. It makes it a lot easier for you, not only with Voip.ms but also with many other sites.
 

Or, he could just switch his service to a provider that doesn't prevent their EXISTING customers from logging in via VPN...

Don't get me wrong- I think they should most definitely investigate/ban VPN usage for NEW users - but preventing your EXISTING trusted customers from using your web portal via VPN is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This doesn't add security - it's just an inconvenience.

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

Re: Regarding latest update

said by nitzan:

This doesn't add security

 
Voip.ms believes it will add security. The same also applies to Flowroute. But it seems most other providers have a different opinion.
said by nitzan:

- it's just an inconvenience.

I agree.
 
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

docbill to Arne Bolen

Member

to Arne Bolen
A static IP address with VPN really defeats one of the reasons for using VPN, which is to establish a semilevel of anonymity. With C12,, C30, and C52 really likely to pass in Canada, the government will have unprecedented access to data. As soon as you connect to a service where you authenticate like voip.ms there is a site they can access to determine who is using that IP address. If you are the ONLY person using that IP address, bam, they now can access all the traffic coming into and out of the VPN connection and know it is you. Since many VPN services assign you the same IP address you connect to the can also trace what IP address you are using via your ISP. However, if many people are using the same VPN IP address, and you regularly change which IP address you use, it is much harder for them to definitively track traffic back to you.

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

Re: Regarding latest update

said by docbill:

A static IP address with VPN really defeats one of the reasons for using VPN, which is to establish a semilevel of anonymity.

 
The primary reason for using VPN is security, not anonymity. I often use other networks, both wired and wireless, and VPN protects me from eavesdroppers.

Yes, I know some people use VPN for anonymity. Often they are sharing music and film, and they believe VPN can protect them from being caught.

My VPN provider is my ISP. I always use my VPN provider, even at home. That way all my internet traffic have the same IP address.

My static IP address, I have had it for many years now, makes sure it's easy for sites to know that it's me connecting. I see no reason at all to hide for voip providers and other sites that it's me. My IP address is my net identity, and that is what I want.
 
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

docbill

Member

Re: Regarding latest update

I agree if you don't want anonymity then static vpn is probably better. I tend to use my vpn for many reasons, none of which are illegal. I believe some level of anonymity is needed to protect democracy. The government should not be able to tap my phone line, e-mail, or web browsing without a warrant. Otherwise, it will be almost impossible to ever successfully stage a protest against bad laws, organize strikes, etc. Even if I'm doing none of those things, by preserving my anonymity I make it harder for the government to track down those who are engaging in activities that help protect democracy.

I also use VPN for increased security in some cases, like when I'm at hot-spots. I don't want people listening in just because they are at the same hotspot running wireshark.

Sometimes I use VPN for location shifting. For example, I decided while I was in the US for Easter, I wanted to pickup a pool at Walmart as they don't sell the same model in Canada. When I tried to pre-order for pickup, I kept getting redirected to the Canadian site. So I connected to a US VPN and made my order with a US credit card. I can now pick-up my order this weekend.

Recently I've also been using VPN to avoid Bell traffic shaping. For example recently I was having problems with regular long audio drops to my work's openUC server. After investigating, I found the openUC server was up, and pings route to them successfully. My finally decided it was likely Bell Canada was deliberately lowering the quality of the UDP traffic to the server, probably because they misidentified it as some other type of traffic they consider low priority. So I routed the traffic through VPN for the rest of the day and had no more audio drop-outs.

Some of these usages are appropriate when connection to the voip.ms webserver, some are not. But the point is, if I am an authenticated user it shouldn't matter.

Bill

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

Re: Regarding latest update

said by docbill:

Some of these usages are appropriate when connection to the voip.ms webserver, some are not. But the point is, if I am an authenticated user it shouldn't matter.

 
It's up to each provider what security police they want to implement. Voip.ms is not alone with such strict policy.

However, I'm not surprised why they have this strict policy. Connecting from a VPN with dynamic IP addresses should trigger an alarm many times. Such VPN services often attract a certain type of users, a type of users most voip providers prefer not to have as customers.
 
Arne Bolen

Arne Bolen to docbill

Premium Member

to docbill
said by docbill:

I tend to use my vpn for many reasons, none of which are illegal. I believe some level of anonymity is needed to protect democracy. The government should not be able to tap my phone line, e-mail, or web browsing without a warrant. Otherwise, it will be almost impossible to ever successfully stage a protest against bad laws, organize strikes, etc. Even if I'm doing none of those things, by preserving my anonymity I make it harder for the government to track down those who are engaging in activities that help protect democracy.

 
Using a VPN provider, with or without a dynamic IP address, will not give you anymore anonymity than your home ISP.

A VPN provider is equal to an Internet Service Provider. The only difference is that with a VPN provider you are not bound by the distance to the provider's equipment.

If the government want to tap your phone line, e-mail, or web browsing without a warrant they can do that easily with your VPN provider. In that regard there are no practical differences compared to your ordinary ISP.

The only anonymity you may preserve with using a VPN provider is towards some websites collecting commercial stats. But as such tracking mostly use cookies instead of IP addresses you are not better off using a VPN provider. You can just disable cookies instead.
 
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

3 edits

docbill

Member

Re: Regarding latest update

please delete this post
docbill

docbill

Member

Re: Regarding latest update

please delete this post
docbill

docbill to Arne Bolen

Member

to Arne Bolen
Your mistake of course is in assuming my VPN provider is the same legal jurisdiction as my ISP. The Canadian laws that will requiring logging e-mail, online chat, etc will only apply to the Canadian ISP's. My contract with my VPN provider stipulates they WILL NOT even log the dynamic IP address mapping, let alone details about the connections. So the Canadian government will not have legal authority to demand details about my connections without a warrant in my VPN providers jurisdiction. Even then, there will be no details to turn over. The best they could do is get a warrant to force future monitoring of my traffic. So I probably would not be safe performing criminal activity, but I should be fairly safe from fishing expeditions through my life.

You are right of course cookies are a huge security problem. Even bigger than actual authenticated logins. There are steps which one can take to limit this effect, but in truth no matter what steps you take http traffic is never secure, and https traffic is only somewhat secure. The main thing I want to avoid is if for example I connect to a Canadian website to do a tax return, is that does not leak enough information to trace my connections to other courtries. I have not found a fool proof way to do that yet, only ways to make it more difficult.
MartinM
VoIP.ms
Premium Member
join:2008-07-21

MartinM

Premium Member

SIP Forwarding is fine?

If SIP Forwarding is fine, this would lead me to believe that the problem is not actually with the server. Just a thought. Let me know if I can help.
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

docbill

Member

Re: SIP Forwarding is fine?

I think I've reached the end of what I can think of testing. It seems a reliable phone line is impossible today. Even when I had a regular land line brought in last year by Bell, it had more quality problems than our cell phones, and by no means are our cell phones reliable. The only phone that works reliably in my house in my Polycom phone for work. The Polycom uses openUC, which could be the reason for the enhanced reliability.
ArizonaSteve
join:2004-01-31
Apache Junction, AZ

ArizonaSteve

Member

VPN?

What does a VPN have to do with phone calls?
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

docbill

Member

Re: VPN?

Nothing. That was an issue a year or two ago I had logging into voip.ms while staying at a hotel. Pretty essential if you want to route your phone calls to follow you.

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

Billing in USD

Under Negatives you have "billing in USD". Shouldn't you move that to Positives? For more than 4 years you have saved money due to the US dollar falling in value against the Canadian dollar.
docbill
join:2006-10-24
Stoney Creek, ON

docbill

Member

Re: Billing in USD

Naw, because effectively USD billing become a 2-4% fee. Credit cards typically charge a fee to convert, and use a rate that is less that is in their favor.