dslreports logo

Review by MaineMike See Profile

  • Location: Portland, Cumberland, ME, USA
  • Cost: $25 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
Inbound and outbound CNAM.
I think VoIP.ms is the best choice!
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I have an Asterisk 1.6 PBX running at my home. I had been using a Vonage soft-phone account for over three years, but wanted to switch to a provider that supports BYOD on my primary number.

I tried these four providers: AxVoice, CallCentric, Future-Nine, and Voip.ms.

I thought that all four had similar call quality.

The VoIP.ms website is laid out well and it is very easy to use. When ordering a DID number, I was able to see a list of actual numbers to choose from before placing the order. When you log on to the website, the first screen is a list of news items and an issue tracker. I think it would be better if information about my account or recent calls were on the first screen. CallCentric has a fantastic dashboard that provides a lot of useful information.

A phone number in my city was in stock, so it only took a few minutes between when I signed up and when my number was active.

VoIP.ms does support E911 in my area. They also provide an 811 number to test the 911 configuration. They support CNAM inbound and outbound. I can set the outbound CNAM from my Asterisk system. VoIP.ms was the only provider that I tested that provides this feature.

DID numbers are billed in advance on the anniversary of when the number was established, instead of on the first of the month.

At the end of my evaluation, I was deciding between CallCentric and VoIP.ms. CallCentric has a better website and fax support, but requires Asterisk settings that I didn’t like. VoIP.ms supports outbound CNAM. I decided to choose VoIP.ms primarily because I wanted outbound CNAM support.

Update: I ported two numbers from Vonage to VoIP.ms. The website says it should take between 2 and 4 weeks. The first port took 15 days and the second took 22 days. Not bad!

Update: I have been using Voip.ms for over a year and I am very happy with the service. I have contacted tech support a couple of times and gotten reasonable responses. They have also created an OK dashboard.

Update: I have been using Voip.ms for two and a half years now and am still very happy with the service. I am also using Asterisk Version 10.

member for 19.8 years, 40 visits, last login: 3.2 years ago
updated 12.2 years ago


Review by npuser See Profile

  • Location: undisclosed location
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Reliable and good call quality
help document little bit scattered
great and dependable service - recommend this anyone in a heartbeat
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I liked it so much i personally help 4 of my friends to switch from att to voip.ms. Thats should tell you something.

member for 14.1 years, 25 visits, last login: 11.1 years ago
lodged 12.2 years ago







Review by frosty555 See Profile

  • Location: Newmarket, ON, Canada
  • Cost: $5 per month
Very reliable, lots of features, and cheap. Totally self-service, instant satisfaction. Almost no minimum monthly costs.
No automatic payments. Some technical skills required.
A fantastic service for enthusiasts, service providers/resellers and IT administrators
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

Voip.ms is an amazing company. Their service is essentially a very low-cost excellent voip service. You can tell that their admin webpage they give you to administer your account is a wrapper for their Asterisk servers.

The service has almost no minimum monthly cost - it is entirely pay-as-you-go. The per-minute rates are very fair. My house spends ~40 hours on the phone per month and we pay $18. If you don't use the service, you don't pay for it. The only recurring monthly costs are for the DIDs and for e911 - both are only a couple of bucks. The completely pay-as-you-go nature of the service means there's no liability for unexpected enormous international phone bills, you just have a pre-paid balance that you could potentially chew through.

The downside to this is is that there is no "automatic top up" feature. You have to manually add funds yourself on a regular basis. This is not a "set it and forget it" service.

The whole service is entirely self-administered. VoIP.ms gives you all the options that normally a customer service rep would only get access to. There's no marketing B.S., no "extra fees" for certain value added services. You pay pretty much exactly what they pay, plus a small margin so that the company can stay in business. The web panel lets you do everything - account registration, ordering and transferring of DIDs, setting up e911, adding funds, connecting accounts, and setting up all the options for the account. You can have a telephone number and be placing calls in under 5 minutes - without ever having to talk to anybody on the phone.

VoIP.ms makes signing up for voip services as easy and as self-service as signing up with an email provider.

On the other hand this makes the service not so great for end consumers who don't understand VoIP and expect everything to just "work" like a Bell phone line. VoIP is NOT equivalent to POTS, and your average joe doesn't necessarily understand that. VoIP.ms demands a certain level of administrative work and technical. My customers would get confused if they had to set it up themselves.

This service is perfect for enthusiasts and techy geeks like myself who want to get their feet wet and experience and play with all of the features that VoIP has to offer. It's also good for IT administrators who want to offer a "managed" VoIP service to their customers and want direct, instantaneous control over the service.

member for 13.5 years, 43 visits, last login: 7.6 years ago
updated 12.2 years ago

NefCanuck
join:2007-06-26
Mississauga, ON

NefCanuck

Member

Regarding your review and the comment about no automatic top

While your point is valid voip.ms does in fact offer email notifications regarding funds balance that you can set at whatever level you like and an email is generated to you when you cross that threshold.

I've been using the service myself for about a month and have had more issues with the softphone I'm using on my iPhone than with the voip.ms service (aside from needing the way to have a voicemail greeting on my line explained to me, by a very patient tech )

NefCanuck

Review by appy0 See Profile

  • Location: San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
cheaper than AT&T, PBX-like functions, always works when needed
price for porting, no SMS
wish I had done this sooner
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

It's been over a year since I made the switch to voip.ms. I figured it's time to clean up my review.

-Ported numbers from AT&T, it took 18 days (including weekends)
-Very easy to do, just sign a copy of the bill and pay $25 (wish it were lower, but spread out over my lifetime at voip.ms, it's not that bad)
-AT&T didn't fight, they silently and happily gave up the number and mailed me a check for a handful of pennies.
-AT&T measured rate was very expensive (~$20/mo after taxes) and doesn't include callerid, long distance, etc
-$20 goes a long way at voip.ms
-It's surreal seeing a 20yr+ old number have so much power

-Callerid and callerid filtering is VERY useful
-I typically forward known TELEMARKETER callers to the busy tone, I don't get many UNKNOWN callerids calling me
-Having multiple channels is GREAT (many incoming calls, callers NEVER get busy tone... this is the part that's most surreal..unheard of on residential lines)

-PBX-like functions are very useful
-I had previously had Asterisk going to act as a calling card

-Competitive prices and reliable service allow me to make voip.ms my one-stop choice for most voip
-I hope they keep this up!

member for 13.5 years, 924 visits, last login: 11 years ago
updated 12.3 years ago


Review by brian_hammer See Profile

  • Location: Provo, Utah, UT, USA
  • Cost: $20 per month (month by month)
  • Install: about 90 days
Feature Rich (Call Transfer, great CNAM, etc.)
No T.32 fax support, more difficult to configure.
Read this comparison of Voip.ms and Call Centric
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

This is a summary of my experience comparing voip.ms with Call Centric gathered over the past 3 months. I wish that I had this information before I started and I am sure that others will appreciate it.

My setup
=======
I have two home telephone lines. I use voice on both lines and a fax on one of them. I tested both SIP providers using a Cisco SPA2102 Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA). I also tested a Grandstream HT502 for a while, but found that ATA quite lacking in comparison, so I stuck with the SPA2102. My ATA is located behind my Linksys WRT54GS router. I didn't want to put the SPA2102 in front of my router because I didn't want the bottleneck of SPA2102 for all internet traffic. I have a 10 MB/s link to the internet over fiber, so bandwidth isn't an issue.

Here are the significant features that differentiate the two:
=============================================
CNAM/LIDB lookup
-----------------------
Voip.ms provided much more accurate inbound Caller ID information. Call Centric provided the worst information of any SIP provider that I have had experience with (except those that provide none of course).

Call Centric returns the Caller ID number in 11 digit format instead of the 10 digit that I have seen with other SIP providers. I verified this by watching the SIP packets via Wireshark to ensure that they were sent with the 11 digit format. Call Centric verified that they send 11 digits and there is no way to change this. 11 digits on the Caller ID phone number caused display problems for my phone handsets.

I asked both Call Centric and voip.ms to tell me who they use for CNAM lookup (freecnam.org, asteriskcnam.com, Accudata, other), and both companies declined to tell me. Call Centric states " We cannot provide you the name of our CNAM provider due to contractual reasons and company policy." Voip.ms replied with a vague "We use different carriers and the way our CNAM is sent is up the current carrier that the call is been sent."

Voip.ms currently charges you $0.008 per inbound call for CNAM lookup. Call Centric does not charge extra.

Here are some examples. Note that I have changed the names and numbers for privacy reasons, but the data examples are real.

** voip.ms returns:

ELIZABETH BENTLY
801-602- xxxx

BENTLY FAMILY
801-229- xxxx

BENTCO
801-623- xxxx

BRAD BENTLY
801-822- xxxx

** Call Centric returns:

UT Wireless Cal
1801602xxxx

Bently Brad
1801339xxxx

Bently Brad
180162xxxx

UT Wireless Cal
180182xxxx

Accurate CNAM is critical for our family. It is my wife's most requested feature. If CNAM functionality is not important to you, then I recommend using Google Voice with an OBI110. Configure one channel to use a 911 provider and the other to use Google Voice. Port your number through a cellular SIM card. You will save a lot of money since Google Voice is (currently) free.

Call Transfer
---------------
Call Transfer lets a customer use their touchtone phone to send a call to any other phone, inside or outside their business, including a wireless phones. Once the call is sent, the customer can hang up the call and the other two parties remain connected. Attendant Call Transfer lets the customer announce the call before hanging up. Blind Call Transfer allows the customer to send the call to another phone number and hang up immediately.

Here is the scenario. A call comes into my home. My wife answers the phone and finds out that it is for me. (Attendant Call Transfer) she can put the call on hold, call my cell phone, and when I answer she tells me who is calling. She can then conference us all three together and announce me to the caller. She can then hang up and I am talking with the caller.

Voip.ms supports both attendant call transfer and blind call transfer using an ATA that supports this feature (I used the SPA2102 and SPA2002). Call Centric does not support this feature. When asked, Call Centric stated "We do not have any plans to offer blind and attended transfers as we do not provide hosted PBX solutions, we only provide VoIP service. If you would like to utilize these features you would want to use a PBX with our services."

Ease of use out of the box
--------------------------------
With both providers, I set up my ATA following their online configuration guides. Call Centric worked right away and was simple to set up. Voip.ms was more of a challenge. My ATA is located behind my router firewall and I experienced one way audio problems with voip.ms. While I still haven't completely resolved this issue, I currently believe that the problem is with my router - not with voip.ms. With that said, the Call Centric offering worked just fine with no one way audio problems. Call Centric appears to be a more robust and forgiving solution.

Support
----------
My overall impression is that both voip.ms and Call Centric have roughly equivalent support. Both were responsive and polite. Both answered support questions at night and on the weekends.

I didn't have significant problems with Call Centric, so I don't know how they would react to debugging technical issues. When I contacted Call Centric about support of features, the common theme was that we offer what we offer. Take it or leave it. Call Centric only offers email support - not chat or call in support. However, their email support replied back usually in less than 30 minutes and many times even faster.

I spent a lot of time with Voip.ms trying to debug my one way audio issue. Their support techs seemed to understand setting up an ATA and their back end systems, but when I started talking about SIP handshaking and providing Wireshark traces of the problem, they didn't seem to understand the information. They kept falling back to "send me a screen shot of your ATA settings page". Also, many different techs responded to a single ticket thread, often asking for information that was provided earlier. I asked if I could just work with one tech that understood my ATA, but that request was ignored by a different tech asking once again to "send some screen shots from the Line configuration for review". Voip.ms offers email, chat, and phone support. I used all three. When I called the phone support, the Tech spoke with an accent that was hard for me to understand (I live in the USA). The chat support was pretty good, but most of the time I didn't have the time to dedicate to a chat conversation. Email support (through their ticket system) was the best for me.

Fax
---
I spent about 6 hours testing the fax capabilities of both SIP providers. I used a 15 page fax on normal quality with my analog fax machine (Brother MFC 9600) set as low as 9600 baud. My ATA supports T.38 fax.

Stated support for fax differs for the two companies.

Call Centric states that they support fax with the proviso "Technically we support fax using either the T.38 protocol or transparently with G.711. However, both largely depend on the reliability/stability of your internet connection."

voip.ms states that they do not support fax. With that said, their support tech helpfully suggested "It may work for you if you try it with G.711u codec on the customer portal and on the device used along with Premium US48/Canada routing. However, we do not assure that it will work for you as desired."

Call Centric wins this one hands down. They offer T.38 fax support which is much better, but not perfect. I was able to consistently send about 10 pages of a 15 page fax before being disconnected. They also offer the ability to receive faxes to their system and either forward them to you via email or download them from their web portal.

Voip.ms does not have T.38 fax support. They suggest using high quality codecs (G711u) and some specific settings when using fax. I couldn't get more than about 4 pages to fax without being disconnected. I changed just about every setting imaginable in the SPA2102 ATA (and there are many) to improve performance, but never got better than about 4 pages. The default settings disconnect after about 2 pages.

Voicemail
------------
Both SIP providers offer free voicemail. Both let you forward your messages to email.

Call Centric uses a proprietary voicemail system that seemed to work pretty well, but recorded messages were often a bit quiet. They have an excellent on-line view of voicemail that lets you listen to messages and even download them from the web.

Voip.ms uses comedian mail for their voicemail system. It worked fine, but there was no way to listen to messages on the web.

Multiple phone lines on one account
---------------------------------------------
Both providers allow for multiple DID lines, but only voip.ms allows more than one device (ATA, softphone, etc.) to register to your account.

Call Centric requires you to set up a separate Call Centric account for each device. I actually prefer Call Centric's separate accounts because it keeps everything clean; however, the big drawback is that you have to maintain separate financial balances in each account. This means you also have separate billing statement for each phone number.

Voip.ms allows virtually unlimited sub-accounts that each allow a unique device. You have one financial balance to pay for them with a consolidated statement which is very nice. The drawback is that the way you configure your devices for the main account and for sub accounts is very different. This was very confusing to me. Settings, such as DID, voicemail, and passwords are in completely different places for the main account and sub accounts.

Choose your DID
--------------------
When you sign up for an inbound phone number (DID), do you get to choose the number? Voip.ms gives you a long list of numbers from which to choose. Call Centric just assigns you one with no choice.

Outbound Caller ID
-----------------------
Both companies allow you to set the phone number that is sent when you call others. Voip.ms allows you to set it yourself online which is very quick and easy. Call Centric requires you to call a phone number and then log a trouble ticket and they set it up for you. Call Centric is worried about people spoofing others phone numbers. For example, with voip.ms I guess I could set my caller id to match that of a local radio station and then call people to tell them they won a brand new car and come and pick it up. Call Centric wants to have some human verification first. I prefer the freedom with voip.ms, but I understand why Call Centric verifies the number. It took Call Centric about 2 hours to set up my outbound caller ID.


Hold Music
--------------
Voip.ms allows you to play music when you put a caller on hold (flash). They have only one channel - smooth jazz, but it is nice and I implemented it. Call Centric does not offer music on hold.

Dashboard
-------------
Both SIP providers offer a nice, comprehensive, web based dashboard where you can configure your account, monitor performance, log tickets, and review your bills. My personal preference is that Call Centric's dashboard is a bit more user friendly, but both are very adequate.

Other Comments
---------------------
Both SIP providers offer 911 service. Both have high DSL customer ratings. Both have good voice quality. When I ran a cost analysis for the amount of calls that our family makes, I found voip.ms slightly cheaper than Call Centric. Both can port your existing number to their service for around $25. I was able to configure both SIP providers to support 7-digit (e.g. 555-1212), 10-digit (801-555-1212), and 11-digit dialing (1-801-555-1212) using the dial plan feature in the SPA2102.



member for 12.3 years, 14 visits, last login: 9.5 years ago
updated 12.3 years ago

Mango
Use DMZ and you get a kick in the dick.
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
www.toao.net

Mango

Premium Member

Thanks!

Thank you so much for taking the time to write and post this comprehensive review.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

4 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

Re: Thanks!

 
Yes, thanks for doing that !

You have chosen to craftily post the identical text content in two reviews, one in the DSLR site section dedicated to each of these two popular providers.

If you make any updates or followups, hopefully you and the DSLR site will/can also make/allow the same ones to both sections.

It should be noted that readers of your review(s) be advised to also check the Comments to your reviews in BOTH providers' sections, in case some of US forget to comment in both provider' sections in the same spirit with which you wrote your original review(s).

I too am still learning about these two well-respected service providers of VoIP, and will have a few more specific responses to what you posted, but I will try to post them as a direct reply to your review (rather than in this sub-thread as a reply to user Mango's comments).

EDIT : I have not used this part of the DSLR site very much (so this alone is a learning experience for me ), but I see so far that we can edit our comments just as we can in their discussion forums. - For how long ? - We'll see. - Their regular forums auto-freeze new posts after about 5 days, and auto-freeze dormant threads after a period of some months.
Davesnothere

2 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

Good Idea, these 'Twin Reviews'

 
As I was saying in my above reply to Mango, your detailed 'Twin Reviews' are appreciated and will help some of us learn more about these 2 VoIPPs and how they might each suit our needs.

I have some remarks to make/add, and I will be amending this post for anywhere from the next few minutes until when this post becomes frozen against doing so (possibly a 5-day period, if like in the regular forums of DSLR). - (Or I'll post further replies if/when doing so makes sense.)
Davesnothere

4 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

My Priorities, Part 1

 
Likely no two people share the exact same priorities in everything (or anything ?), and just as you mentioned that your wife cares very much about CID/CNAM (which is fairly high on MY Top 10 list too), some folks may have other concerns in additional and/or alternate areas.

For example, FAXing, and Call Transfer :
One is unimportant to me, and I have not thought much (so far) about using the other (though that may change).

While you posted much about what sets these 2 providers apart from each other, it might also be useful to state more about what makes them similar, in features/functionality, and in politics.

Prob'ly #1 on MY list of 'Gotta Haves' is versatile flexible user-programmable automatic Incoming Call Handling, based upon the Caller ID info.

CallCentric christened theirs as 'Call Treatments', while VOIP.MS refers to this as 'CID Filtering', IIRC.

In my experience, it is worthwhile to have well developed functionality in this area, and BOTH providers get good marks from me in regard to being able to selectively reject/eject telemarketers and similar slime.

Why mention it ?

Because many OTHER VoIPPs (and most incumbent landline and cell providers) have Poor to NO capabilities in that area of features, while these 2 companies each seem to do quite well.

And folks who believe that they have no choice but to tolerate unwanted calls need to be educated that they DO have such a choice !

In fact, if you are willing to setup a web portal login for each of these two phone providers, you can play with this and other features, and learn how to configure Incoming Call Handling rules BEFORE ever paying them a single red cent !

This functionality was my 2nd most important reason (after cost savings) for getting rid of my land lines in favour of VoIP service.

Next, Porting-IN of numbers from other phone providers is crucial to me, as I do not want to lose my existing numbers.

Fortunately, both of these VoIPPs have a good track record in achieving that, while many others either do poorly, do not Port-IN at all, or only offer that service in a few rate centres or municipalities.
riparian
join:2011-06-15
Los Angeles, CA

1 edit

riparian

Member

Re: Priorities, Part 1

Prob'ly #1 on MY list of 'Gotta Haves' is versatile flexible user-programmable automatic Incoming Call Handling, based upon the Caller ID info.
...BOTH providers get good marks from me in regard to being able to selectively reject/eject telemarketers and similar slime.

..many OTHER VoIPPs (and most incumbent landline and cell providers) have Poor to NO capabilities in that area of features, while these 2 companies each seem to do quite well.

I am surprised you speak of the call filtering of Voip.Ms and Callcentric as being equal in quality: for me, Callcentric's call filtering is primitive compared to that of Voip.Ms.

For example, if you want to allow a number to ring through from 8am to 5pm, and to go to voicemail at other times, you need to set up 2 'call treatments' in Callcentric just for that number

If you have a dozen or more numbers that you want to filter that way, you have to set up 2 call treatments for each of them: 24 or more repetitive call treatments just for that function.

With Voip.Ms, you set up one 'Time Condition', and point each number to it.

Somebody mentioned that Callcentric has some sort of group assignment for call treatments, but I don't see it; and if it exists, it is very unlikely to provide anything near to Voip.Ms's flexibility.

And Callcentric does not even have an IVR (a voice menu) to let you direct incoming calls where you want them. To me, it is invaluable to be guided by a voice prompt to get the extension numbers of relatives who have Voip.Ms sub-accounts, or who have sip addresses that I can then call for free.

It is useful for any caller to be told he can replay a message by pressing '8', or to go to voicemail by pressing '7', etc.

From what I can gather from older discussions, Callcentric have no plans to improve their call treatments, or to add an IVR.

If you don't need flexible call filtering and don't need an IVR, Callcentric might be what you want; but if you can make use of those things, try Voip.Ms; from what I read here and see on their websites, Anveo and Voipo also seem to have that level of sophistication.

Even if you do not need them now, you may 'grow' into needing them later. If you do, Voip.Ms has them.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

2 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

GROUPs in CC

 
I am relatively new to both providers' portals, so I could learn some stuff from yourself and some of the others here.

Chances are that I have missed (or not yet found a need for) some of the things which you have mentioned.

One, however, which I can clear up for you is the Group thing at Callcentric.

Another user turned me onto it, as apparently CC only supports 30 or so individual 'Treatments', and creating Groups is a major workaround if you expect to exceed that, as I'll explain next :

What you do is set up the Phone Book if not already done.

Inside of there, create a group called Telemarketers, Slime, or whatever.

Then create a record for each of them by viewing your incoming call log, asking to add each undesired record to your phone book, and then on-the-fly assign it to the group which you just created.

Then create just one Call Treatment, and apply it to that Whole Group, rather than individually to each number in the group, unless you wish to have multiple fates for some of them, in which case create 2 or 3 groups, assign numbers accordingly, and create a treatment for each group.

Cheers !
MartinM
VoIP.ms
Premium Member
join:2008-07-21

MartinM

Premium Member

Some notes

Thanks for the review. I would like to point out that fax is not officially supported. We will however have web fax in the feature. Just wanted to point that out in case this unsupported feature influenced the reliability rating.

Also, we're working on web interface for voicemail, however it's not true that you can't access your voicemail via the web, you can receive voicemail recordings via email. That mean you can listen to any voicemail you receive if you have internet access. However, convenience of an interface will be added later.

Regarding CNAM, if we receive a CallerID name from the Carrier, that's what we will pass, and that has many advantages for Canadian customers. We will also not charge those queries. We charge for CNAM but the cost is really minimal and that let us offer cheaper DID's for those who do not require the CNAM Query. If you receive 20 calls per week, that would amount for a total of about 72 cents per month. Something included doesn't mean that it's free.

Hope that helps and thanks again for the review.
MartinM

1 edit

MartinM

Premium Member

Re: Some notes

Also, I do not want to sound on the defensive side of the fence however 'More difficult to configure' is highly suggestive. After all, both providers consist of pasting a username, password and a POP to the adapter or PBX. PBX configuration is arguably easier with VoIPms as no complicated dial plan is required to handle incoming calls of different DID numbers because we Pass the DID as the extension when you select PBX mode in our interface. Our interface might be a little more intimidating to the non initiated due to our higher degree of flexibility leaving a greater margin for error.

I'm glad you had better results with our CNAM service. our provider is [removed to prevent end users contacting our provider for support], they have presence on this forum and their service rocks.

Also, each of our tech is equipped with tracing tools, perhaps they wanted screenshots first to make sure you had proper configuration. We have many technicians on the floor and because the company is bigger you have more chances of getting your ticket answersed by different techs however we take this very seriously and I will make sure you were attended properly. I hope the accent didn't bother you we have many people of different ethnic background to attend our worldwide clientele in
As many languages as possible.

please feel free to let us know what we could do in order to improve reliability.
brian_hammer
join:2011-11-12
Provo, UT

brian_hammer to MartinM

Member

to MartinM

Updated review: Fax

I have updated the review to include more information about fax support (updated identically on both reviews).
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

CNAM

11 digits on the Caller ID phone number caused display problems for my phone handsets.

I am curious what type of phone handsets these are, for example, do they happen to be older models?

I've used phones from Uniden, VTech, and Panasonic, and have not run into a problem.

Many of these handsets have settings designed just for this.

For example, VTech says:

On many of our telephone products, you can adjust the phone number displayed in the Caller ID log by pressing #. As you continue to press #, the phone number will rotate from 7 digits (just the phone number; no area code), to 8 digits ('1' + phone number), to 10 digits (area code + phone number), to 11 digits (1+ area code + phone number).

Regarding Panasonic, AFAIK most of their phones easily handle either the 10-digit or 11-digit format.

Regarding Uniden, I believe that their phones easily handle either format, or have settings that can achieve this.

--------------------------------------

7-digit, 10-digit, 11-digit.

Each has their supporters.

Nobody seems happy all the time.

There is even a fellow who demands 12 digits (that is, a "+" sign followed by 11-digits).

So, respectfully, I really don't see an issue with Caller ID. Again, this is not only a provider question, but also one that relates to your own phone device.
PX Eliezer704

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Privacy violations

Note that I have changed the names and numbers for privacy reasons, but the data examples are real.

At least two of the phone numbers that you posted are real Utah phone numbers associated with real people.

You should have used some X's instead of just changing digits.

Because you have not logged back in for 2 days, I have alerted site management of this problem....
nitzan
Premium Member
join:2008-02-27

nitzan

Premium Member

Impressive.

Excellent review. You obviously took the time to test both providers thoroughly. I actually got a few ideas/pointers to implement/improve over here from this!

Review by zorxd See Profile

  • Location: Quebec, QC, Canada
  • Cost: $3 per month
More features than you could ever dream of, very cheap, reliable, good quality
I had a few bugs but they were usually fixed quickly
very impressive VoIP provider
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I use it as my main phone.

member for 14.1 years, 1818 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
updated 12.3 years ago







Review by kbyork See Profile

  • Location: Oneida, Madison, NY, USA
  • Cost: $2 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
good price. good features.
no fax. no 7-digit dialing.
Good provider for techy types. A novice would be overwelmed.
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I barely use my phone at all, so my review of their normal phone service would be of little use.

I would like to talk about their features; as of the reviews posted here that I have read, very little was said.

When I was researching voip companies, I noticed that VOIP.MS already had, or was currently working on the features that I was looking for.

And they were releasing about one feature per month.

They have: DIDs, virtual-DIDs, Ring Groups, SIP URIs (incoming and out-going), multiple devices and DIDs per account, Call Forwarding, CallBacks, DISA access, CallerID filtering, auto-attendant menus, VoiceMail, etc....

But there are still other things that they are missing. I switched to VOIP.MS a year and a half ago.
Unfortunately for me, most of those upcoming features that I was looking for, are still in development.
And nothing new has been released since June!

When I asked about adding 7-digit dialing, their response was "...7-digit dialing is dying out. All the companies are beginning to switch to 10-digit dialing." and on my second request "...you should just modify your ATA dialing plan to create your own 7-digit dialing; as it is very difficult for us to do in server coding."

{I use a softphone, a cell phone app., and a very old ATA. The first two certainly do not support dialing plans, and the ATA is so old that I would doubt that it does either.}

The lack of 7-digit dialing seems like that would be a notable negative to the average customer.

The lack of FAXing support is also a little bit annoying.

Another small annoyance is no "SMS notification of voice mail".
When a voice mail arrives, you can have VOIP.MS send you an email to notify you (optionally with the voice mail as an attachment).
But no option for sending a Text-Message (aka. SMS).
{For me, this is a problem. As the SIP application in my Nokia N900 cellphone does not support the MWI (message waiting indicator).
T-Mobile has a SMS-to-email gateway for their cell phone customers. But it doesn't like the notification email that comes from VOIP.MS server.
So, I have no indication of any voice mails from my cell}

VOIP.MS has "internal extension numbers" for multiple telephones with in your account.
A very cool idea! Needed for businesses and useful for families (like when your kids go to college).

But it is currently poorly supported. {Problem: CallerID displays as the SIP-URI. And no Caller-Name.}
They have a future feature called "Modify CallerID to internal extension when calling another extension" that would fix this. {I believe it has been in "development" stage more than 18 months}

They have another feature in-development, titled "Call Ring Group".
I would assume that this means calling a Ring Group as an extension number (because, you can already call it via a DID line [after paying for an extra DID]).
If it does in fact mean that; then this too would make extension numbers more usable.
Then you could dial your child's (or employe's) extension, and ring their office/home, and cell phones in one shot.

member for 18.3 years, 25 visits, last login: 9.4 years ago
lodged 12.4 years ago


Review by pende_tim See Profile

  • Location: Andover, Sussex, NJ, USA
  • Cost: $6 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
Great Service
It just works
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:


Origional post from I have been a VOIP.MS customer for over a year and an very satisfied.
Call quality is excellent, reliability is very good and pricing ( PAYG) is more than fair.
This service has lots of call features, more than I use, however the website can be a tad hard to understand to make use of these features.

Tech support I used is by trouble tickets and e-mails. Replies are usually very timely and the technicians have patience. (;>).

This service is a keeper!

Update 10/17/2011:
VOIP.MS just keeps working. Audio is clear, calls connect promptly and no outages to speak of.
Calling rules are very powerful and useful allowing a mix and match of what phones ring and controlling forwarding / simultaneous ring of my home phones and cell phone.

member for 20.2 years, 10670 visits, last login: 3 days ago
updated 12.4 years ago


Review by wseverin See Profile

  • Location: Phoenix, Maricopa, AZ, USA
  • Cost: $11 per month
Fantastic features, great pricing, flexible configuration, excellent tech support, great audio
Not for the plug-and-play set
If you're techincally proficient this is your service. If not, get Vonage or Magic Jack.
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been using voip.ms for just several days. That after evaluating the
specs of many services on-line and trying test accounts on several VOIP
providers (sipgate, callcentric, Google Voice).

So far I'm loving it.

Pros:

* Excellent audio quality. On the other end of the line they say
"best I've ever heard you sound over the phone". And that's in
comparison to the Qwest (aka Centurylink) land line.
* Distributed servers permit connection to the server with least
latency. (–> Before setting up your accounts, ping their servers
to find the fastest based on your own local routing!)
* Very reasonable pricing
* Portable numbers
* Feature rich! Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and good voicemail
with lots of options.
* Techie oriented. If you're OK with getting into the technical
issues you can do just about anything with this service that you
could with a pbx.
* Supports high-quality codecs.
* Excellent, fast real-time chat tech support within their hours of
operation.

Cons:

* Not the service for the technically challenged. If you're of the
plug-and-play mentality, get Vonage or MagicJack.
* Real-time tech support not 24/7

My configuration:

* Cox cable internet service (Phoenix, AZ).
* Cheap Airlink-101 AR670 router hardware running DD-WRT firmware.
* OBi110 ATA (a piece of electronic wonderfulness worthy of its own
review) that bridges two SIP services and an existing land-line to
your existing local analog phone network – all for fifty bucks.
* Uniden 2.4GHz wireless 4-handset phone setup

Right now the only thing standing between this becoming our standard
telephony service (aside cell) is the "wife factor". While I handle the
technical aspects, she just needs to be able to pick up the phone next
to her desk and have it work with no side issues. So far, so good. As I
said, it's been just a few days. She's very impressed. And when I tell
her what we'll save every month on phone bills, she's downright excited.
Another few days and I'll flip the switch – port the old Qwest phone
number to voip.ms.

I'll update this report as the experience evolves.

—W—
------------------------------------------------------------------------

member for 20.5 years, driveby review (so far)
updated 12.4 years ago

PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Big world out there.

You said:

"If you're technically proficient this is your service. If not, get Vonage or Magic Jack."

I agree that Voip.MS is a fine BYOD service. Thanks for a very useful review.

--------------------------------------

But for those who do not want BYOD service, there are many more plug-n-play options than just Vonage or Magic Jack.

VOIPo and PhonePower offer better features than Vonage, at a lower overall price.

NetTalk offers a service that is superior to MagicJack in many ways....

--------------------------------------

Thanks again for your fine review of Voip.MS

Review by ZZink See Profile

  • Location: Etobicoke
  • Cost: $5 per month
Very cheap, lots of options and flexibility, good online tech support, cheap long distance
Call quality may lack from time to time, but i'm on value routing
Very happy not paying BHell any money for a home phone
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

Voip.ms is a solid service. I was having issues with keep alive but it turned out to be my ata device. Customer service is helpful and quick through the online client shell. The website has a bunch of options to personalize your account.

Give BHell the shaft and save.

member for 21.7 years, 1198 visits, last login: 274 days ago
lodged 12.4 years ago