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Review by varrin 
member for 10.2 years, 10 visits, last login: 4 days ago
updated 4 days ago
 Keene,Cheshire,NH
 $5 per month "Low cost, huge features, good call quality" "One technical glitch, setup requires education" "If you're willing to learn how to set it up, the value can't be beat"
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Original review: (update below)
After years with 8x8, switched to VOIP.ms due to lower cost and better features. Our usage has been low, so the pay-as-you-go plan made great sense.
Ported two numbers at $25 each, which went flawlessly. The cost for those lines is $1.49 each per month. Added a toll free number (custom number to match one of the ported numbers = $15 to connect) at $.99 per month. Added E911 at $1.50 per month. Now our base monthly cost is $5.48 v.s. ~$37 for 8x8. With our relatively low usage, we should still be us under $10.00 per month even with caller ID, premium routing, the toll free service, and regular use of forwarding (essentially billed at double the rate).
Set up IVR's, ring groups, forwards, voicemails, and so on. All of it works wonderfully and is very useful for us.
Had one technical glitch early on. I couldn't register the PAP2T and my laptop at the same time on the New York POP. Switched to Los Angeles and all was well from there on.
Haven't been with them long, but so far so good. I'm happy I made the switch.
Update 5-17-13:
Have been with VoIP.ms for nearly 3 years now. Very happy with the service. The features remain outstanding and the service has been very reliable. Occasionally I have to reboot my PAP2T but I believe this is due to issues on my end, not theirs. There have been outages, but they're infrequent and short. Usually, the only way I know about them is by reading the news feed on their website. I continue to highly recommend them for the advanced user in non-critical environments (eg. home).
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Review by spikernum1
member for 3.2 years, 185 visits, last login: 1 days ago
lodged 8 days ago
- Burlington,ON
- $1 per month
 about 7 days- "Costs NOTHING, Incredible support, setup and save, extensive options."
- "Extensive options can be hard to understand and setup for some"
- "Absolute MUST HAVE for any new or existing home phone users."
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I cancelled my Cogeco home phone service and started using VoiP.ms over 2 years ago.
All you need to know is I deposited what I usually pay Cogeco for 1 month of phone service ($40) and I have __ NOT PAID A SINGLE CENT SINCE!!!!!! __
My cost for using the service is:
- $1/month for the phone number
- $0.20/month on average for all phone calls
This is a no-brainer...
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Review by bogtrotter
member for 1 year, 9 visits, last login: 8 days ago
updated 10 days ago
- Flint,Genesee,MI
- Contract price not specified.
- "Reliable, good-sounding, almost infinitely flexible"
- "Reliable, good-sounding, almost infinitely flexible"
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Unrivalled, (except, from what I hear, by Anveo but I can not even properly see their diagrams on my monitor) incoming call handling. Reliablity has been excellent using the Houston server; sound is fine; prices are very reasonable.
If they would add the 'press 1 before connecting' thing the service would be perfect.
======
The news that they have had a number of ddos attacks, whose effects they were able to limit to no more than 10 percent of their users, is an additional reason, if one were needed, to use their service.
= = = = =
Their reliability has come through loud and clear by their New York server staying up during Sandy. It looks like they set up a mirror image of it when it looked like their NY data center was going to lose power. Well done.
Service continues to be its usual good-sounding, smooth-running self.
= = = = =
In 3 years of using them, almost never a hiccup; the phone sounds like a pots line; the cost is negligible (1 cent/minute or so to N. America, 1.5 to London); call-handling is a dream - no unwanted calls make it through; and anybody who calls gets through when I want them to and goes to voicemail otherwise.
Extensions allow any number of phones to be linked, with calls made among them by dialing an extension number. Very handy.
Unbeatable reliability.
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Review by deafmonkey
member for 36 days, 38 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 11 days ago
- Toronto,ON
- $3 per month
- about 1 days
- "Best Provider For a cheap hearing impaired landline, lots of features, Just works."
- "not for the inexperienced"
- "Best alternative to Hearing impaired Bell/Rogers lines"
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I have been using this VoIP provider for about 11 days.
Thanks to the cheap rates, I now have a landline using the montreal.voip.ms server,
with zero problems, using Telco AC-211. ATA.
I have been using this provider on recommendation from a Friend. I am incredibly
happy with the service as I can use my Clarity Phone on it, I have yet to test
the Text Telephone via VoIP.ms - Though I'm certain it can work.
I highly recommend it to hearing impaired even with 80% bell-relay discount,
it still can't beat voip.ms rates - I don't see myself going back to POTS services
after my recent pleasant experience with VoIP.ms
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 Review by XR999
member for 2.9 years, 226 visits, last login: 5 days ago
updated 21 days ago
- Ottawa,ON
- $2 per month
- "Cheap, works beautifully, tons of options"
- "Definitely not for the tech inexperienced"
- "If you want a cheap phone line this is the solution"
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Well I setup a voip.ms account a few weeks beforehand, then ran out and got a Linksys SPA-2102. Come home, get the adapter up and running, add credit to my voip.ms account, activate a new DID, configure the Linksys and boom I'm up and running with VoIP.
Call quality is excellent off the montreal2 server, whether off my ATA or my Android phone, absolutely no issues have arisen since I started service and overall voip.ms is a great VoIP service. Plus I haven't even scratched the surface on features yet but that's something I'll ease into.
UPDATE: October 18th, 2011:
Nothing to report but rock solid service that costs me less than $5 a month with my usage. In other words I couldn't be happier with voip.ms since they allow me to laugh in the face of Bell.
UPDATE: August 20th, 2012
Still enjoying rock solid service out of voip.ms along with features like call redirection since now I can just redirect telemarketers and other associated junk calls to the Canadian government's anti-fraud center along with the fact I can also redirect calls to my smartphone if I don't happen to be home to answer the call. The even better part, I've yet to use up my initial $30 deposit into my account yet and I've been using my account for over a year, something flat out impossible with some other VoIP providers and traditional POTS service. In other words, I couldn't be happier with voip.ms.
UPDATE: April 30th, 2013
Once again, still loving the service I receive with voip.ms, finally had to make a deposit into my account and I have switched away from the montreal2 server in favor of Toronto but otherwise nothing has changed and I still can't recommend voip.ms enough for the occasional phone user.
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Review by Rendering
member for 129 days, 15 visits, last login: 30 days ago
updated 31 days ago
- Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
- Contract price not specified.
- "Everything is good with voip.ms"
- "Innovative and Reliable. They go from strength to strength"
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Update 2013 04 20
I haven't tried it yet, but the new sms should be useful to me. It is truly impressive how innovative and flexible voip.ms's service is: whether it is the ivr, or sub-accounts, or sms, they tend to stand out from the crowd.
And the basics, reliability and good sound, can be counted on as well.
Original Review
If you want to shut telemarketers and weirdos out of your phone; if you want to keep them from disturbing your tranquility and you want to do it with 100 percent certainty, and you want to do it with minimal effort, than voip.ms is the way to go.
If you want more call-handling features than you can shake a stick at, including IVR, DISA, callback, fine-grained failover, call-forwarding, etc. then voip.ms will do the job for you with a minimal learning curve.
So what do I mean with these jargon words?
whitelisting - you block everybody except:
1. people whose caller id you have whitelisted
2. people to whom you have given an 'extension' number and who enter the extension when prompted.
IVR - Lets you create a recording, a .wav file which you upload to the voip.ms server. You have it set to play when someone calls your number who is not whitelisted.
For example, it might say: Hello, please enter the extension to ring through; otherwise, enter 1 to leave a voicemail.
If you are going to whitelist, you need to have an IVR so the caller has a voice menu instructing him what to do.
DISA
You really need an IVR for this as well. When you call and get the IVR greeting, you enter an extension which asks you for a 'pin' number - a second extension. When you enter that, you are prompted to enter a phone number - call anywhere at voip prices.
It can be very handy if you use your cellphone a lot and want to save on cellphone charges.
CALLBACK
If you call from a number you have entered into the callback directory, you will hear a busy signal. You hang up, and a few seconds later your phone rings. When you pick up you hear a dial tone and can then dial out at voip prices.
FAILOVER
If you call a number and it is busy, or not in service, or otherwise not reachable, the failover will take you to voicemail, or forward your call to another number.
There are many other features of voip.ms that you will probably want to use.
They have had long-standing problems with the Toronto and Montreal servers but it looks like they are finally getting them fixed. I long ago switched to the Houston server and have never had a problem with it.
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 Review by Gixxer
member for 4.7 years, 2052 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 33 days ago
- St Catharines,ON
- $5 per month
- about 200 days
- "Price, Quality"
- "None"
- "The Best Alternative To Phone Lines"
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I've been using voip.ms for about 5 months now, haven't encountered a single issue.
Extremely easy to setup, they have step by step guides using the most popular VTAs.
I'm able to customize most of my settings.
My phone bill is roughly $5.00 per month with moderate use, 300% cheaper than what I was paying before.
Really not much else to say, price is excellent, quality is generally good and it comes loaded with features that one usually has to pay for.
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 Review by user17600
member for 10.7 years, 400 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 52 days ago
- Boston, MA
- $10 per month
- about 50 days
- "Pricing, 6 sec increments"
- "Customer support responsiveness (Feb 2011); porting and CNAM issues"
- "Excellent quality, very stable"
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Went looking for a provider to which I could port my Manhattan exchange. I have used several VOIP vendors over the past couple of years, and had the best luck with localphone.com (see my other review). With localphone.com I could put my ATA behind my firewall/router and not have to worry about port forwards, DMZ, or anything else. Most of the other providers require some sort of work-around, and VOIP.MS is no exception. But localphone.com couldn't port my Manhattan number, so it got relegated to the "kids phone".
Wanted to try out VOIP.MS, but the up front minimum (2 drinks or $25) was pretty steep even with their 'guarantee' to refund if it didn't work out. Instead, I sent a PM to one of the VOIP.MS folk who frequent the forum, and they generously gave me a buck or so to work with. Experimented with SIP-to-SIP and calls via Inum, forwarding GV via Gizmo, etc., and was satisfied with the quality. The ports and firewall thing took a bit of effort, but got that sorted. Occasional chats with the tech support folk have generally led to successful resolution of whatever issue was pending.
I like the sub-account thing, but I wish that there were fail-over choices for sub-accounts; hopefully that will come. Right now if the router loses registration, all calls go to voicemail, and I would prefer to have some option to fail elsewhere (like my mobile).
Another weird thing is the inability of a sub-account to call the main account. The reverse is built in (x101 for the first sub account), but no way to call the main account back. I found a workaround (dial plan - forward ), but it's kind of a hack.
And about the statistics: as I posted elsewhere, my ATA tells me that the roundtrip delay for my call is on the order of 3700msec. It's not (only a slight delay when speaking), but no other provider has the same thing on the same router. I'd like to be able to solve it, but nothing yet.
The porting process took about 3 weeks, with several rejections along the way. I'm not sure if it is the fault of VOIP.MS or the underlying carrier, but it was weird things like asking for info that the losing carrier would not have (it was a pre-paid VZW MVNO, and I was asked for addresses, SS#, etc, which do not exist on a pre-paid account; the MVNO also stated no record of the requests/failures the first couple of times). At any rate it did complete, and I'm a happy camper.
Will report back as my experience evolves, but I don't expect, based on the other comments in dslr-ville, to have any real issues with VOIP.MS.
Update Feb 2011: Significant problems with customer service handling a simple CNAM/LiDB update. When the original port took place I was told that CNAM could be added at the time of the port or later. When, a week after the port completed, I went to add CNAM, I was told the request was rejected! After pushing back a bit, and having suppafly intervene, they told me they could do an "internal port" to a provider who would support CNAM. Ooookkkaaayyy... another 15-25 days before this would be done.
Flash forward 25+ days. My CNAM has gone from saying Unknown Name (dubious, but hey, a lot of cell phones say that), for which people will answer the call if they recognize the number, to now showing Vitality LLC, which no one will answer.
Customer service now says "6 weeks from the original request", and it will take at least another 2 to update the name to my request. Huh? Are you kidding? Messages to customer service and the dslr reps now go long stretches or unanswered. When I do get a reply it's "we're working on it".
On the plus side, the "internal port" seems to have fixed the wacky roundtrip numbers mentioned above, and with the exception of the NY server acting flaky, the quality of the service has been fine. I wish you could register multiple devices on a single account (rather than using subaccounts all the time) like Localphone, but I can accept this limitation. I also wish there was distinctive ring for phone book entries, which might drive the decision going forward.
Update: March 2011:
The CNAM/LiDB issue has been resolved, at least for several of the providers I use. Some are still showing Vitality, while others now show a funky NY switch name. Again, it's the Vitality thing that throws people. So while I'm unhappy with the process of the updates, I'm satisfied now with the outcome. I have re-adjusted my ratings to reflect this development. It's still harder than it needs to be, IMHO.
Update: June 2011:
After the initial growing pains, VOIP.MS has turned into a reliable, trusted partner. Can't convince the wife to give up the landline, so I've stuck with the paygo model and use it primarily for family and home office calls. I've been very satisfied since the early issues have been resolved and have increased the scores based on my experiences.
Update: March 2013
Still use VOIP.MS for my home office line, it's been pretty solid. Recently went with VOIPO for our home line (all you can eat for 7 bucks a month). Due to a recent relocation, the wife is on the phone for an hour or two a day with the folks back in the old area, so the appeal of unlimited (within reason) at a fixed cost was attractive. Wish VOIP.MS offered the same for residential use.
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 Reviews:
 ·Cablemas
| Update after resolution For the sake of clarity we would like to clear up this case, even though it is now solved:
The customer entered a port request for his number to our network. The number did port correctly and worked fine.
Customer then approached us asking to do the CNAM update. The customer was on the firm idea that there is NO US-based telephone number that cannot have the CNAM updated. Please note that CNAM can not be updated for ALL USA ratecenters, so I mentioned on a ticket that it is not the case. We can gladly find out if any DID in our stock is editable, and in this case it was not.
Since the customer was so upset, we decided to do an internal port to another provider, and we paid for the internal porting fee as a courtesy. In cases when we need to do an internal port And then request the update, there may be some delays. The customer was advised on january 25th that this could take up to 25 business days, which were up on the date today march 1st (the review here was updated before the timeframe we gave to the customer was up).
Please be aware also that CNAM updates are not something automatic. It can take usually up to 15 business days (without taking in consideration the time of an internal port) and since there are several cnam-query providers used by companies in USA, it may be possible that for some specific provider they could be still fetching unrefreshed records. That is beyond our control since each provider may refresh their CNAM database as they please, however as mentioned on the ticket we verified the national database and this CNAM IS returning properly now.
The issue when vitelity was showing up as CID name was just transitory, as this was ported internally and then the CNAM update was applied.
Thank you for your understanding
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Peter Sahui - VoIP.ms | |
| | Reviews:
 ·VOIPo
·Metrocast Commun..
·localphone.com
·voip.ms
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| Re: Update after resolution Peter has been good about staying involved in this issue. As I observed above, I was told one thing at the time of the port (regarding CNAM/LiDB) and something else after the port completed, and VOIP.MS did the right thing to solve that issue.
However, w/r/t the recent CNAM/LiDB issue, as other reviewers have noted, and I observed as well, having tech support state that "we're working on it", with no detail, is quite frustrating and does nothing to allay concerns of customers. Had customer service been more forthright (e.g., the Vitality name thing is only a day or two until your LiDB is fixed, as Peter now states above), there would have been less consternation and heartache. Rather, I was told it would be 2 more weeks before it was fixed. CS needs a bit of training me thinks.
I do want to confirm that this seems largely resolved, if that wasn't clear above, and I plan to keep VOIP.MS as a provider. | |
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Review by JeanInNepean
member for 244 days, 211 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 58 days ago
- Nepean,ON
- $5 per month
- "Very low rates for outgoing calls, highly configurable interface"
- "Setup has a lot of options; can be overwhelming for some"
- "Excellent VoIP service, low prices"
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I only signed up with voip.ms service early last month. I was planning on porting one of my secondary, less-used, numbers from Primus to voip.ms, but the port is difficult due to Primus not finding that number under my name, at my address or having it linked to my account... I've talked to Primus several times in the past weeks with still no resolution...
As for the main number, I'm still debating whether I'm better off paying 30$/month for unlimited or pay as I go. It's hard to tell when the bills I get don't show how many local call minutes I use every month...
I have nonetheless used voip.ms to make calls, using their value route service. So far, the quality has been excellent and I don't really see the need to use the premium routes. So far, I made calls up to 90 minutes long without a drop or choppiness.
The web interface is pretty straight forward, but has lots of options. Although I was up and running in a few minutes, I can see why some users (like my parents) would be intimidated by the amount of options.
I will review my review after I've used the service for a few months...
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Review by rampler
member for 61 days, 0 visits, last login: 4 days ago
lodged 61 days ago
- Calgary,AB
- $8 per month
- about 4 days
- "Great transition, fast and helpful LNP support, great call quality."
- "Like any self-managed voip, be prepared to learn and tinker"
- "Very happy to leave Primus and have great service/value for home line."
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My Other Reviews·Shaw
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Was with Primus TalkBroadband for about 6 years, but had a few support issues and we don't need a $35/month home phone anymore (it was amazing price/features ratio in 2007 btw). We're pretty low usage, mainly family calling an alternate number and a building entry intercom is what kept us from going mobile only.
I purchased an Obi100 (via AcroVoice) and began the porting process once I had the Obi setup. Creating and pre-loading my voip.ms account was easy.
I attempted to port 2 numbers from Primus: a primary 403 and alternate 905. My primary number ported fine within 5 days of request. My alternate number was mishandled by Primus: never put in my name and after a few days and numerous phonecalls, I just let it die with my Primus account closing. Less than 10 immediate family members use it anyways.
Which brings me to the ease that I was able to obtain a new 905 alternate number (well 289 to be clear). After giving up with Primus trying to get the port arranged, I had a new 289 number to replace it in 2 minutes. So easy.
My new fixed costs are $4.50/month (3.00 in DID charges, 1.50 in e911) and am on the standard 0.00125/min pricing as our usage is low. My setup costs were $20 in porting, 1.5 e911, 0.5 for a new DID. I did pay $10 for an unsuccessful port but voip.ms tried twice and failed due to Primus, not their own efforts.
I connect (via Shaw Cable) to the Seattle server from Calgary and have 40-60ms response time. I tried the Toronto server as well and typically had 100-130ms response but still really good call quality.
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