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Which VOIP provider would be closest substitute for CV?

reply to limejet

Re: Which VOIP provider would be closest substitute for CV?

reply to limejet
Q: Which VOIP provider would be closest substitute for CV?
A: Vonage, except they haven't given a shut down date yet.

Callcentric and F9 (don't charge as much) but have a nitch and will probably sick around if they can make the 3 year hurtle.

Edit: As jfriedman so smartly pointed out, Callacentric has made it over that hurtle.

How old is CallCentric?

reply to voiplover

said by voiplover:

Q: Which VOIP provider would be closest substitute for CV?
A: Vonage, except they haven't given a shut down date yet.

Callcentric and F9 (don't charge as much) but have a nitch and will probably sick around if they can make the 3 year hurtle.

reply to josephf
Well, Accatel.com was registered on 1-15-02. The website (under "Telengy Ltd.") was up in late '03. By '04 it was called AccaTel. And by late '04/early '05 the name changed to CallCentric.

»web.archive.org/web/200311222307···atel.com

»web.archive.org/web/200410240512···tel.com/

»web.archive.org/web/200412051629···ric.com/

»web.archive.org/web/200505150247···ric.com/

Thinking out loud.

Ah, I see.

Well, I thought callcentric had ring group but I couldn't find it. voip.ms is by far the most configurable but lacks the 'calling card' feature you are looking for.

reply to josephf
I believe that CallCentric traces back to 2001 and operations began in 2002, as was said above.

In 2004, even though Accatel was still the corporate name, they were using CallCentric as the brand name.

The corporate name itself was later changed from Accatel to CallCentric. I believe that a major reason for this was a complaint by the French company Alcatel (now Alcatel-Lucent) that Accatel was too similar to Alcatel.

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

The NY State corporation database gives us this:

NOV 15, 2006: CALLCENTRIC, INC.
OCT 23, 2002: ACCATEL TECHNOLOGIES INC.

YISHAI SHAPIR, listed as CEO.

Interesting. If this guy is really the CEO of CC, then they have a lot more in common with F9 than I thought. (let's just say we can understand each other in more than one language...)

reply to limejet
Another question involves a basic distinction.

With your old ATT CallVantage, the company supplied and programmed the equipment. I originally suggested the term DISCO for this type of arrangement (Device Is Supplied by COmpany).

PhonePower and VOIPo are some examples of companies that are almost fully DISCO.

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

Other companies have you supply and program the adapter. (It is really not hard if you have good configuration instructions and you have a Voip-friendly router). Such companies are BYOD (Bring your own device).

Some examples of BYOD are CallCentric and Voip.MS

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

This is a basic decision you need to make.

reply to nitzan

said by nitzan:

Interesting. If this guy is really the CEO of CC, then they have a lot more in common with F9 than I thought. (let's just say we can understand each other in more than one language...)

reply to nitzan

said by nitzan:

Interesting. If this guy is really the CEO of CC, then they have a lot more in common with F9 than I thought. (let's just say we can understand each other in more than one language...)

reply to soitgoes2
You can establish a third party call with PhonePower via their website (so, if you have a mobile phone with web access, you can accomplish it that way), and they do have simultaneous ring.

»www.phonepower.com/Support/Knowl···032.aspx

You can check voicemail remotely:

»www.phonepower.com/Support/Knowl···176.aspx
--
AT&T U-Hearse
Your funeral. Delivered.

reply to limejet
Like the original poster, I'm also a CallVantage customer that is using my CallVantage number as my primary contact. The feature he mentioned:

"-- The ability to use my cellphone to call into the VOIP
provider's system and then from there dial out to anywhere
and have my outbound caller ID be that of the VOIP number.
(I currently can do this with CV Control by Phone)."

is fairly important to me. It allows me to present one number to those I call.

In reviewing the Vonage voice mail help menus, and talking to their on line support, I don't believe Vonage offers the feature to call into their system from another phone, then call out. You can remotely call and check your voice mail. But there is apparently no feature to place an outbound call.

Thanks,

Art

There is always Skype. You can use skype-to-go to access your account for outbound calls and listening to voicemails. Skype dids, called "online numbers", aren't too pricey when you have a subscription. Not sure if a 2nd one is cheaper or about simultaneous ringing.

reply to Art_B
Out of curiosity- how much of a demand is there for this feature? (call in, then call out presenting your number)

Does it matter where the call-in number is - or anywhere in the country is good?

It's possible, just wondering if it makes sense to invest the time in developing.

The ability to call in to the service, then have it dial out, while presenting my Vonage or CallVantage caller ID is important to me. I want to have all of my voice mail managed at a single point. I've found that many people will just auto reply to whatever caller ID was associated with ther incoming call. So if I call them back directly from my cell phone, or office line, then that is where their return call will go to. By making all outbound calls appear to be from a single number, this helps focus all responses at a single voice mail.

I manage my voice mail by having CallVantage or Vonage send me a cell phone text message and plus internet email with voice file attached. With either service I can then place a local call to access the voice mail. With CallVantage, I can then have the service call back the caller ID of the incoming call. But per Vonage support, I can remotely call in to listen to the Voicemail, but then cannot have it call out to the caller ID.

Both CallVantage and Vonage offer the ability to reach your voice mail at a number in every area code. I do like having a local number to call within the area code of my CallVantage phone line. This allows me to access voice mail from my local work site without having to make a toll call or use my cell phone. My work site is in the same area code as my CallVantage phone. Having an additional non local area code network is less useful for me. When traveling, I tend to primarily use a cell phone, with large amount of free long distance calling included to access my CallVantage voice mail. It is more convenient than keeping track of the "free" local number in every city I travel to.

My base objective is to have a phone number that can be consistently reached. And then allow me to call out, while presenting a single phone number to those I'm calling. CallVantage and Vonage both offer multi line ring forward. So I can be reached. But Vonage appears to come up short on several elements of managing the call back. My cell phone provides a very portable point of contact. But does not work reliably across portions of my work site and home. CallVantage seems to offer the best integrated single point of contact. But of course they are shutting down. The one other credible offering I've seen in the u-verse phone system. But that would require me to switch my ISP to ATT/u-verse.