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Review by global_dev See Profile

  • Location: Woodbridge, Prince William, VA, USA
  • Cost: $10 per month
great service, easy to use, responsive support, competitive prices
some of the grey routes CWU uses weren't so hot, but a quick message and its resolved.
great service
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Been using CWU with DID since 7/2007. reliable, consistent, and responsive service.
Its really low maintenance and no games, contracts, payment issues.
This is a top notch provider.


member for 18.5 years, 1065 visits, last login: 11.6 years ago
lodged 14.9 years ago







Review by smoked_2na See Profile

  • Location: Hudson, Middlesex, MA, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
If you use A2BILLING there is nothing new here as an end user.
A simple CSV rate sheet instead of a simulator would be welcome.
I am very pleased with the voice quality and response to problems.
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Only a few items would make ( CallWithUs ) perfect.

a. Buff up the home page when you navigate away from A2BILLING. The home page is a little difficult to navigate and keeps you looping back to your starting point.

b. If their rates were downloadable as a CSV file, it would make looking up rates and reselling easier. The rate simulator is nice for a few numbers but wholesale use is impossible.

Overall I am very pleased with this service. I would and have recommended it to others.


member for 14.9 years, 1 visits, last login: 14.9 years ago
lodged 14.9 years ago

sokhapkin
Premium Member
join:2003-05-08
North Fort Myers, FL

sokhapkin

Premium Member

Rates

The link to downloadable rates in csv format is at the bottom of "A-Z rates" page. It always was there

Review by dahan See Profile

  • Location: Leander, Williamson, TX, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
No maintenance fees, great rates to Thailand
None that I've seen
Excellent service!
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I often call friends and family in Thailand, and had been using prepaid calling cards, but the ones with good per-minute rates had fairly steep weekly maintenance fees, and the ones with low maintenance fees were relatively expensive per-minute. Looking for alternatives, I found CallWithUs, and their combination of no maintenance fees plus low rates to Thailand (currently about 1.5¢/min) sounded perfect for me.

I was pretty much a newbie to VoIP (and basically still am), so I started out using their service as a calling card—using my POTS line to call their access number, then entering a PIN, etc. Later, I decided to try a softphone (X-Lite), followed their configuration instructions, and got it up and working without a hitch. I've since gotten an ATA, and am using that for all calls.

I never used their DIDs (which they no longer offer, in any case), so I can't comment on that. I have, however, used their callback service, which was great when my mother went on vacation in Thailand. She could call the US without having to pay anything over there; the only charges were for CallWithUs, at around 2.5¢/min.

While testing out the callback service, I did run into a problem. I emailed support and got a reply (from the owner, I think) in about 15 minutes. After another exchange or two, we got it working. Total time: an hour. I haven't needed any support since then, but from what I've seen, support is quick and knowledgeable.

So all in all, I think they're great and don't have any complaints

member for 23.4 years, 2289 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 15 years ago


Review by priller See Profile

  • Location: Gainesville, Prince William, VA, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
  • Install: about 1 days
Inexpensive quality calling; Small company relationship
What happens if Sergey gets sick?
Worth a try ... won't cost you anything
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CallWithUs promotes itself as a family-owned and operated service. If you contact support, you get a reply from the owner/operator himself. CallWithUs is strictly a BYOA and PAYG provider. Why would you want a provider with some monthly plan, where you're paying for minutes you don't use?!

When you create an account, CWU will give you some free minutes to test the service before you pay anything. If you don't like it, nothing lost!

I originally intended CWU to be a backup provider. I got it working and pretty much left it sit for a couple of months. During some initial testing, I experienced post-dial-delay with a few calls and slight audio breakup once or twice. I was browsing around the CWU FAQ's and noticed the reference to SIP REINVITEs delivering the best quality calls. I enabled this on the website; my firewall is SIP friendly and has no issues. I really feel there is an improved audio quality and I have not experienced post-dial-delay. Watching this on a sniffer, you see that your RTP voice stream goes directly to CWU' wholesale providers, instead of being proxied via CWU in Lansing, MI or their west coast server. The providers I saw my calls going to include XO in Mass., Broadvox in TX, and Eurorings somewhere in Europe. I am now sending CallWithUs the majority of my calls.

I only use CWU for outgoing calls. You can set your outgoing CID number directly in the user portal. The minutes you buy do not expire.

Overall, I really like the simple and complete design of the website and user portal.

Be sure to read the Fine Print at the bottom of the web pages!

-------

Update 9/29/2008: I have stopped using CWU due to misrouted calls. The number I dialed and the number that showed in the CDR was right, but that's not who I got. This only happened 2 or 3 times and I did not report the problem, but my expectation is no misrouted calls.

While very very rare, they did experience an extended outage ....
»CallWithUs: Is CallWithUs.com Down?

member for 23.4 years, 3879 visits, last login: 14.1 years ago
updated 15.5 years ago


Larry P
@optonline.net

Larry P

Anon

CallWithUs

I am using them currently both at home and at my office. Service is generally quite good. Once in a while, some calls won't go through, or once in a great while there will not be dial tone. But that is NOT common. And, heck, that happens with my Verizon landline too!

CWU very good overall.

Review by hwittenb See Profile

  • Location: Moraga, Contra Costa, CA, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
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Callwithus has a nice feature where you can specify different routes for an outgoing call. I find this is very useful for international calls to certain countries where the call quality can suffer at certain busy times during the day. Generally, though, callwithus call quality is excellent.

member for 20.2 years, 5748 visits, last login: 1.9 years ago
lodged 15.5 years ago







Review by flroots See Profile

  • Location: Madison, Lake, SD, USA
  • Cost: $4 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
Great rates and superb support
None
Best I've experienced
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I've tried a half dozen or more VoIP and was always looking for something better until a friend recommended callwithus. It's everything I was looking for with great rates and support. I recommend them to all my friends.

Update 9/23/08: I continue to have good success. I pay 1.25 cents/min for outgoing calls to toll numbers. I think it's 0.3 cents/min to toll free numbers. I pay $2.10/mo for my DID with $1/mo extra for voicemail. DID cost varies considerably depending on which area code is selected. I chose the cheapest one I could find since area code was unimportant to me. I configured my Granstream HT-502 to work with the service. I did recently reconfigure my ATA with G729 CODEC as first priority. The default is G711 which requires more bandwidth; which I don't have. I can pick up my voicemail through the phone or via email attachment. All in all, a very reliable service.

member for 17.1 years, 181 visits, last login: 8.2 years ago
updated 15.5 years ago


Review by LP Eliezer See Profile

  • Location: Morganville, Monmouth, NJ, USA
  • Cost: $7 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
Very reliable, trouble-free, great pricing, very responsive.
Website is not fancy, BUT it is very functional.
It just works! For those who appreciate great service at great rates.
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CallWithUs is a smaller provider but offers great VoIP services at excellent prices. For outgoing service, there is not even a monthly fee, and per minute charges are excellent.

I have had the service for a few weeks, and have never had a problem. Call quality has been quite good on almost all calls. Only a couple of dropped calls.

They are very responsive to questions, and respond quickly by e-mail.

The website does not look fancy, but that's not the point. It just works! This provider emphasizes function over flash.

Payment is by Paypal or GoogleCheckout, so there is no worry about your credit card.

Signing up does require that you have some knowledge of VoIP, but presumably if you are reading this website, you DO have some knowledge. This is a provider where you bring your own device (BYOD). It's actually quite liberating to know that you own your device and have successfully programmed it! But you do need to be able to follow configuration instructions and tweak around a bit. It's worth it.

Think of the old show Gilligan's Island. Ginger was flashy, but for a dependable reliable partner you'd want to go with Mary Ann. That's what CallWithUs is.

UPDATE: 06/17/2008: Service continues to be excellent! Just a couple of additional points: If you need incoming service, CallWithUs does offer DID numbers at good rates. They are also very flexible, because if you wanted, you could get a DID from another provider and direct the calls to your CallWithUs account using the SIP address. CallWithUs does not charge for that. I have received incoming SIP calls from an outside service and it has worked fine.

UPDATE: 07/02/2008: Continues to work great. This is a service for those who want a phone to be a phone, not a toaster. "All is well, clear as a bell".


member for 15.8 years, 13 visits, last login: 15.7 years ago
updated 15.7 years ago


Review by erikthebean See Profile

  • Location: Manchester, Hillsborough, NH, USA
  • Cost: $15 per month
Extremely Cheap Service with AWSOME customer support
Their DID provider isnt all that great, but its not Callwithus fault
You wont find better customer service with one of the big voip.
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According to their website to them this seems like a hobby which i admire. They dont seem like their in it for the money, but the advancement of the VoIP technology. I notice that other people arent really hooked onto the site, but I like it because it is straight and to the point. If you are a base voip user having no knowldge of how to configure a ATA without getting one from vonage or att, you probaly shouldnt get this service. But even at that their configuration guides are more than enough to figure out on your own. Now only if their did provider DIDx had better did's to provide, but if you really want another did you can always go to another site like callcentric and point your sip uri to callwithus since callwithus doesnt block sip uri, but encourages it. All and all i give these guys a 5 out of 5, and this is coming from someone whos been in the telecom industry for a while.

member for 16.7 years, 1174 visits, last login: 4.9 years ago
updated 16.1 years ago


Review by veldy See Profile

  • Location: Minneapolis, Anoka, MN, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
BYOD. Pay as you go. Options!
Website stinks (but they know that :). Fax is not reliable.
They have enough options to appeal to a wide variety of customers.
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They are easy to configure, voice quality is good (even and especially using G.729a) they have lots of options. I have been considering them for a low cost FAX line, but I was unable to consistantly send a FAX through them, either over G.711 or using T.38 (on my SPA-2102) ... similar to Callcentric in that respect. I do know that many people do have success with this however.

They seem to lack quality (they rate these themselves which is pretty cool) DIDs in the Twin Cities area and only seem to have numbers in one of the four Twin City area codes ... so they lack available numbers in some areas.

Options are pretty cool. I like how you can setup your CallerID number. Right now, until I get the FAX working, I use it as a backup (or second line if my primary is in use) phone line should my first line go down and I have the CallerID set to my home number so people still know who is calling [even though I do not have an assigned number from them yet].

If I can't get FAX working with them (I have only had success with Viatalk, Vonage and Voicepulse), I will use tech support and see if they can help. I will update the tech support rating at that time.

Bottom line, well worth your consideration and not much to risk by trying them out.


member for 24.6 years, 308 visits, last login: 5.9 years ago
lodged 16.1 years ago


Review by jackg48104 See Profile

  • Location: Clarendon Hills, Du Page, IL, USA
  • Cost: $7 per month
Supports IAX and SIP. Pay-as-you go. No contracts. No monthly fee except for DID (optional).
Some technical knowledge assumed.
If you're able to configure your own BYOD device, cost and quality are both good.
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I've been a customer of Vonage, ViaTalk, and some others. I set up an account with Callwithus just over a week ago. I was surprised with their (low) cost and their call quality. They do not have a long term contract, so you pay only for what you need, as you go. I decided I to try a $20 bet and see how they did.

They had me set up and running within 30 minutes. I added a DID inbound for less than $7 and less than $7 a month, including 2000 inbound minutes. Outbound calls (US) are just over 1 cent a minute.

Their call quality so far has been really, really good. People I've called are surprised it's not a landline. I'm now wondering why the other VoIP service I'm using sounds so bad by comparison. I'm using IAX2 for this line, which was a requirement I had. They also support SIP.

Their website is, as others have mentioned, simple. But it isn't too bad- it gets the job done. I have not signed up for their voicemail, so I can't give you any review of that. Likewise, I haven't had to deal with their live tech support, just the web site. I'll give the review above a "3" because the website has done what I need but I haven't had to deal with a live person.

Speaking of their website... it is pretty basic. But it does what I need, and I was able to use it to set up the account, an inward DID number, and research the configuration for using their network. No problems.

If you're willing to get your hands just a little bit dirty, you should check these guys out. Given that it's a BYOD service, some level of technical competence is assumed. But for the cost, and the call quality, these guys have really surprised me.

Update 1/16/2008: Just touching this review since it's been a few months. Still a good service, I'm using it as a backup for my ViaTalk connection. Price has been good, a couple of recent emails from the admin indicate they are working on some service updates to add functionality. DID is working flawlessly, and I've been able to use their site to mark outbound calls with the caller ID of my primary (POTS) line. I've moved payments for them to Google Checkout, which doesn't have a penalty fee like PayPal does.

member for 22.3 years, 722 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
updated 16.2 years ago