VOIP etc > Voice Over IP - VOIP > VOIP Tech Chat > [General] Help me choose a new cheaper VOIP provider

[General] Help me choose a new cheaper VOIP provider

I suggest you consider Anveo. It's a provider with very high quality, excellent customer support and low prices. All your requirements will be filled by Anveo.

Anveo is located just outside of Philadelphia, PA.
 
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Main provider: Anveo - Secondary providers: VoIP.ms, Callcentric, Localphone and Rebtel
Hosted PBX: PBXes.org - Phone: Gigaset S685IP

reply to ddrant
I believe VOIPo meets all your requirements with the exception of outgoing caller ID names.

For a low cost provider, I suggest VOIPo. I've used them for over 2 years and don't have many complaints.

Unlimited in/out bound for ~$7/month during their pre-paid promotions.

reply to ddrant

reply to ddrant
You seem to have basic needs most almost any will have what you are looking for except the outgoing callerid with name. Think if you port in to voipo with it working it stays working. Not sure.

Have no clue about anveo callerid with name. The site confuses the hell out of me.

reply to ddrant
What is your approximate monthly minutes usage in/out?

What make/model adapter do you have for Teleblend? (You may be able to use it with the new provider.)

VOIPo and Phonepower include a "cloned line" feature, which allows you to make or receive a call while another family member is on the phone. (You can answer via call waiting as well.) Is that useful to you? With some care, you can also have that functionality with Anveo and other providers.

Be aware that Google Voice does not permit caller ID spoofing and has no inbound or outbound CNAM. If you use them for outbound and another provider for inbound, your contacts will not see your name, but will see your GV number (and will likely use it when returning calls).

The lowest cost solution (with several shortcomings) would be to port your number to GV via a prepaid mobile, and use Anveo just for 911 ($0.80/mo.). For an additional $1.99/mo., you could have your incoming number with Anveo, though you would still have the caller ID and CNAM issue. If your outbound usage is modest, the simplest solution is to use Anveo for outbound, too (at $0.01/min.)

If you have heavy outbound volume, you might consider Ooma. Their non-Premier plan also has several shortcomings, but would give you "unlimited" service at about $3.50/mo., plus the initial high cost of the device.

reply to ddrant
What we did was purchase a OBi110 and port the Home Number to GV. Since we had T-Mobile@Home Home service ($~10/month), Google Saw the number as a Mobile number, so we did not have to use the two-step process. Total cost to port number was $20.00 and was accomplish within 24-hours. We setup anveo for e911 at a cost of $0.80 per month and set outgoing calling ID as the GV Number in case we wanted to us the anveo Trunk setup on SP1 for outgoing calls. Total Monthly bill is $0.80! We could buy a DID from anveo, but it is not needed at this time, since we have a free DID from IPcomms forwarded via SIP URI to anveo for the occasional fax.

We also setup CallWithUs on one of the gateway accounts for international calls. We recently shipped a OBi110 (with GV setup) to the International destination, so we expect zero cost to that international location where 90% of the calls are made to.

We really like the call treatment that GV offers and the use of the OBiON app on our Android phone to make outgoing calls through the OBi Gateway. One draw back is no incoming CNAM, but program all know names into our phone attached to the OBi110 and blocked all known telemarketing calls. Also list the GV number on the DONOT Call List.

Per the Mazilo Doctrine....Why pay for something you can have for free?

reply to dcurrey

reply to ddrant

reply to ddrant

reply to ddrant
You got to love that talking calleried with Panasonic phones.

If you can figure out your minute ratio inbound vs outbound you could probably craft an inexpense plan with callcentric. Think unlimited inbound would be $7.45 with e911 and 0.0198 per minute outgoing. If I got my numbers right 300 outbound minutes would cost you around $13.50 a month total.

reply to ddrant

reply to ddrant

One more thing - VOIPo will provide an adapter for free.

reply to ddrant

You can set up a CallCentric "IP Freedom" account for free, just to get a feel for the web interface.

»www.callcentric.com/rate_plans01.php

Take a look at Call Treatments, the main dashboard, Preferences, and so forth.

If you want to look at Voicemail settings, you need to add Voicemail as a service, but that's free as well.

The only one I'd suggest is VoipO; however, I always ask people this question.

"If you're happy with you're provder; haven't had any real outages or issues; get the features you want; etc... then why in the world would you want to change"?

There is no perfect voip provider. Anyone who says there is, doesn't know what they're talking about. Unlike POTS, voip is not an internal network. It relies on your ISP, your NETWORK, bandwidth, backhaul to where you are calling, etc... Every voip provider has customers that will say they are the best in the world. And there will be some customers who will say they totally suck. And both groups will have you believe that "Their" experience is the NORM. The fact is, each customer will have a unique experience with a voip provider.

I'm all for saving money. Especially in these crappy economic times. But to go through what it takes to move your phone number; risk a lower level of quality (Not because of the new voip provider but because of the combination with your ISP and network), all for SAVING $5.00 a month. That just doesn't make any sense. But it's your $5 and your time and your risk. If you were having problems, or was cutting your phone bill in half, I could understand it. But $5 on a service you are currently happy with?

Mike, welcome back to the forum! Haven't seen you around this neck of the woods in years. Hope everything is alright with you.

reply to christcorp