VOIP Tech Chat → VOIP aspect that I don't understand

OKay, I've learned a TON here at dslreports. And the more I've learned, there's one thing that bugs me.

See, I understand why companies won't offer cheap, flat-rate call forwarding to a PSTN number, because I understnad that they have to pay termination fees.

So if I want to port my number to a company that I'm going to use to forward my calls to another number, that's similar to what I should expect to pay for flat-rate unlimited caling service.

Those things I understand.

But why isn't there a company out there that I can port my number to with the understanding that all calls will be forwarded via SIP directly to to my ATA, for a REALLY low price? After all, they'd make money on the termination fees for my incoming calls. Their only expenses would be the amount that they have to pay their wholesale DID provider (oftern $1 or so per month or less) and the bandwidth cost to handle my call being routed to my ATA.

But what I'm finding is that for this sort of service I'm having to pay around $8/mo or more.

It seems like someone would do it for considerably less, considering how little it should be costing them. I'd be willing to pay a reasonable setup fee to cover the cost of porting. What about this equation am I missing?

Perhaps the voicestick Next2Nothing plan is what you
are looking for. I think it is free incoming and they
will port your number. If you are trying to use
multiple providers to create a single VoIP service
for yourself, voxalot.com may be able to help with
that.

I chose to give up my number and go with Grandcentral
and gizmoproject for now. Though since voicestick will
provide a free DID that grandcentral could forward to,
I may try them at some point down the line.

DID costs are more like $6/month or more. Never heard of any DID costing as low as $1/month. I could be wrong or could have missed some super low priced carrier, but I'm pretty sure DIDs are why no one offers incoming lower than $5 or more.

I was speaking in terms of the wholesale price for DIDs. DIDx.net posts their rates as $1.10 per DID with a monthly minimum purchase of $20.

I'm sure other DID providers are in the same general neighborhood since I've seen small VOIPS that offer DIDs for as low as 99c/mo. Heck, Voicestick offers them for free, as does IPKall and a couple of other providers. So they can't be TOO expensive.

Sunrocket were paying Choice One $10/month for each block of 100 DID's, 10 cents per month each !

The companies you mention have different business models.

IPKall has their own equipment in COs and they get paid for call termination (I expect they have above average termination price).

Voicestick buys DIDs from vendors (not for free!), but tries to offset DIDs cost with relatively high outgoing rates.

DIDx.net do not own any equipment in COs, but resells numbers offered by other DID vendors, adding some profit to the DID price, that's why different numbers are priced differently - the base price is set by DID vendor.

Callcentric?

Unlimited incoming to SIP or per minute forwarding to PSTN

$6/month or $3/month ( in specific areas ).

»www.callcentric.com/dids ··· nlimited

Okay, after reading around the boards for awhile, it looks like OneSuite might do what I'm suggesting for $2.95/mo and unlimited inbound calls. I'd set up for a different solution for outbound,something under 1.5c/minute.

Have you looked at LES.net?
$3.99 unlimited in, $0.015 per min out.

TJ

Yes Onesuite SuiteAdvantage charges $2.95 (1 month free trial until 08/20) maintenance fee for DID and including unlimited incoming calls.

Additional numbers is $1.95

Suits my needs well.

It seems that OneSuite calls can only be received on the softphone right now. That's a big limiting factor. Has anyone tried SuiteAdvantage and do they share the SIP configuration parameters?