Reviews:
 ·Callcentric
| said by jugg:Just to clarify, I'm talking about PSTN terminated calls. When a call is placed, the IP portion has to terminate somewhere to be connected out to PSTN. I'd like the IP portion of that call to be routed as close to that termination point as possible. CallWithUs and FlowRoute both hand off the voice media directly to their carrier(s). This may or may not be near the termination point.
CallWithUs offers a unique service that permits end users to use the CallWithUs on-line "call simulator" to see a list of carriers (or, more accurately, carrier code numbers) that might be used to place a particular call. The list is sorted by cost with the least expensive carrier (the default route) listed first. You may also select a specific carrier by prepending the carrier code number to the dialed telephone number.
In the case of IP PBX users or ATA users who are comfortable tinkering with their dial plans, this feature can be used to select from among as many as ten carriers.
Although CallWithUs is generally quite reliable by default, I recently had some trouble terminating to a telephone number located in rural Minnesota. After a handful of test calls using various CallWithUs carriers, I found two carriers that worked quite well.
Out of curiosity, I ran a traceroute to each carrier's IP. One is based in New York; the other in Canada. he New York carrier was less expensive, so I modified my Asterisk dial plan to select that particular carrier whenever that rural Minnesota exchange is dialed. In this case, my best results were achieved by selecting a carrier that terminated many hundreds of miles from Minnesota. |
