| |
Re: [Equipment] Can I get PBX quality from VoIP providers?Well, it'll be time to figure this out as I just got my renewal notice for this year. Decision time is by 10-24. This year the cost is $189 for 18 months. That's $10.50 a months for "unlimited" calling.
I'm to a point where that phone rarely gets used so call minutes can be minimal at this point. I can see 500 minutes being enough. I liked the features I had when it was getting used all the time (lots of great inbound and outbound call routing). Those are less of a concern these days.
However, I will say, they're a godsend when needed. I broke a leg a few years back and as some of you know, it can take a bit for the insurance to actually pay the providers. Within a short period I had two collectors calling (both got paid of course) and they were both really annoying. I told both of them, after a few of their calls, that we'd never speak again.
The first one was really rude. His calls I forwarded to his boss's extension. I would love to have seen him arguing with his boss about my bill.
The second one I forwarded to a number that plays a recording that says, "The call you have made requires a deposit of 25 cents. Please deposit 25 cents."
Again, very nice when you need it. If I could retain such forwarding features (and blacklists) that would be great.
Do the services mentioned provide for such thing?
Perhaps I just didn't know where to look, but I poked around the sites for the two companies mentioned and didn't see what you typically see on a VoIP provider's site for standard-type service. It all seemed business based with lots of add-ons. |
|
|
| |
said by Agrajag:This year the cost is $189 for 18 months. That's $10.50 a months for "unlimited" calling. I think you still didn't tell us who this company is. I've never seen anyone with an 18 month plan. said by Agrajag:Perhaps I just didn't know where to look, but I poked around the sites for the two companies mentioned and didn't see what you typically see on a VoIP provider's site for standard-type service. CallCentric services are summarized on this page. » www.callcentric.com/products/Also: » www.callcentric.com/features/ |
|
|
| |
It's ViaTalk and early renewal always includes a free 6 months. |
|
 kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB |
to Agrajag
voip.ms can do this. I frequently route certain callers interesting places.  |
|
| |
to Agrajag
said by Agrajag:It's ViaTalk and early renewal always includes a free 6 months. Thank you. ----- If ViaTalk meets your needs, then surely no need to look around. Worth noting that their Terms of Service says that VT_Unlimited account monthly usage in excess of 5,100 minutes (double that number for a Business account) will be billed per minute. Nothing unusual about that, everyone has caps by minutes or by calling patterns or both. But (as has been discussed here many times) there is not really any true "unlimited" outbound calling in the VoIP world. |
|
| |
If they met the main need -- call quality, then I wouldn't be looking around. It's been hideous of late. |
|
carlm
join:2014-09-29
united state |
carlm
Member
2015-Sep-9 5:15 pm
You never did clarify what you mean by "call quality". It can mean different things to different people. |
|
| |
For me it means both quality and reliability. The calls recently are often broken up, lots of drop-outs. Calls that I can't pick up. They sound like I'm in a tin can, etc. Contrast that with my work calls on the Polycom into the same router. Those are crystal clear. Always work and only RARELY have a minor hiccup. |
|
1 edit |
to Agrajag
said by Agrajag:If they met the main need -- call quality, then I wouldn't be looking around. It's been hideous of late. OK, then quit bragging about how cheap they are. What good is cheap if it sucks? |
|
| |
I'm not bragging about it. I'm telling you what it cost and, as per what I said, it was fine for nearly a decade. I'd call that worthwhile. Only lately has it become a total mess. |
|
carlm
join:2014-09-29
united state
1 edit |
to Agrajag
Your connection to your ISP is OK, and your ISP's connection to the Internet is OK, else your Polycom wouldn't work as well as it does.
The problem seems to be with ViaTalk -- either their network connection, their servers, or their carriers.
I wouldn't spend any money on equipment (IP phone) without first following kevinds's suggestion to configure a spare line on the Polycom (if you can get access to it) for ViaTalk and see how that compares to your equipment.
I have to disagree with those who make blanket statements that IP phones provide better call quality (dropped calls, dropouts, jitter, etc.) than analog phones on ATAs. I'd say instead that good equipment provides better call quality than bad equipment.
I don't consider wideband audio (G.722) to be a factor in call quality. Audio fidelity isn't the same thing as call quality, although it may be nice to have. Of course, there's no such thing as wideband audio when the call transits the PSTN. |
|
| |
said by carlm:I have to disagree with those who make blanket statements that IP phones provide better call quality (dropped calls, dropouts, jitter, etc.) than analog phones on ATAs.
I'd say instead that good equipment provides better call quality than bad equipment. No one can argue that good equipment > bad equipment. But I used good equipment throughout, and my experience has indeed been that IP phones have fewer connectivity and drop issues compared to ATA/analog phones. YMMV of course.  |
|
carlm
join:2014-09-29
united state |
carlm
Member
2015-Sep-10 11:19 am
said by PX Eliezer1:said by carlm:I have to disagree with those who make blanket statements that IP phones provide better call quality (dropped calls, dropouts, jitter, etc.) than analog phones on ATAs.
I'd say instead that good equipment provides better call quality than bad equipment. No one can argue that good equipment > bad equipment. But I used good equipment throughout, and my experience has indeed been that IP phones have fewer connectivity and drop issues compared to ATA/analog phones. YMMV of course. Those are ATA problems. What ATA(s) did you experience the problems with? |
|
| |
Agrajag
Member
2015-Sep-10 11:36 am
I don't have access to the Polycom or I'd have definitely gone the route of checking it. I'm 99.9% sure the issue is with ViaTalk, though I had similar issues with all the typical providers listed above with all different hardware (all ATAs though).
I decided to pick up an inexpensive Grandstream (easily returned) to see if it made any impact. I'm pretty sure I'm heading in a new direction for service. Just need to get comfy with providers like CallCentric or Anveo. Their service seems to require quite a bit of in-depth knowledge to get similar features out of it. That's fine. I'm a techie, but getting older so it'll just take longer. |
|
| |
to carlm
said by carlm:I have to disagree with those who make blanket statements that IP phones provide better call quality (dropped calls, dropouts, jitter, etc.) than analog phones on ATAs. I'd say instead that good equipment provides better call quality than bad equipment. As one of those who said IP phones provide better call quality, I completely agree with your statement as you worded it. Not all IP phones provide better quality than all ATAs. However, virtually all IP phones eliminate two unnecessary hybrids. Those hybrids are only necessary when adapting digital signals to/from analog phones. Hybrid imperfections degrade audio quality and can create echos to distant callers. None of that will help mitigate serious problems like dropped calls, dropouts, jitter, etc. However, in my experience, it improves the audio quality of good calls to very good. |
|
| |
Agrajag
Member
2015-Sep-10 12:35 pm
The other big thing I've been dealing with are DTMF tones that the other side hears -- often. I forget about them because I never hear them. Hoping this would clear that up as well. |
|
carlm
join:2014-09-29
united state |
to engineerdan
I know about the hybrid in an analog phone. I never stopped to think: there's one in the ATA as well?
Does this apply to all hybrids, or just the one in that $15 phone at Walmart? I'm thinking the hybrid in the WE 2500DM in my closet would probably cost more than an entire cheap phone today. |
|
carlm
1 edit |
to Agrajag
said by Agrajag:The other big thing I've been dealing with are DTMF tones that the other side hears -- often. I forget about them because I never hear them. Hoping this would clear that up as well. Unlikely. Does this happen with one particular party (or parties in the same neighborhood) only? If so, try calling that party on your Polycom. The tones will probably still be there. It sounds like crosstalk. When the crosstalk is intelligible, as in this case, it's occurring between analog lines, and the only analog part left in the PSTN, AFAIK, is the trunks in the "last mile". |
|
| |
to carlm
said by carlm:I know about the hybrid in an analog phone. I never stopped to think: there's one in the ATA as well?
Does this apply to all hybrids, or just the one in that $15 phone at Walmart? I'm thinking the hybrid in the WE 2500DM in my closet would probably cost more than an entire cheap phone today. The purpose of a hybrid in a phone is to combine/separate transmit audio from audio that's being received. As you know, with plain old telephone service, these signals are carried together, by the same wires. The purpose of a hybrid in an ATA is exactly the same, but in reverse. Transmit and receive data is sent over the Internet as separate signals. Keeping these signals separate is ideal for telephony. However, an ATA must use a hybrid to separate/combine these signals just for compatibility with old phones. The WE 2500 hybrid was a passive device based on an audio transformer. It is possible to simulate such a device using smaller (and far less expensive) analog integrated circuits. Either way, because these are imperfect devices, they often tend to leak some transmitted audio into the receive signal path or vice-versa. This, along with a little latency, results in echos. Sorry... This has gone way off topic. (Edited for clarity.) |
|
| |
to Agrajag
said by Agrajag:The other big thing I've been dealing with are DTMF tones that the other side hears -- often. I forget about them because I never hear them. Hoping this would clear that up as well. I believe that you and carlm are describing two different issues. If your contact hears isolated loud tones, only while you are speaking, as if you had pressed a number button on your phone, this is "DTMF talk-off". An IP phone should completely eliminate it. This thread » www.ooma.com/forums/view ··· p?t=8068 has a fairly good description. (If you are pregnant, the problem will likely be greatly reduced after you have the kid, even if you don't get an IP phone. » Re: voip is digital - why use an ata? .) In the scenario described by carlm, weak crosstalk is most apparent when the user who is the source of the crosstalk is dialing, because DTMF tones are considerably louder than normal speech. In that case, the sounds would be most apparent to your contact when you are silent, and he would usually hear seven or more in a row. |
|
carlm
join:2014-09-29
united state |
to engineerdan
What's an integrated circuit?
(Kidding.)
Thanks for the explanation. I don't dispute anything you said.
I wonder if you would agree with me, though, that the principle determining factor of sound quality is virtually always transducers, not electronics (assuming well designed and properly working electronics). Degradation caused by the hybrids should be a second order effect. If that is correct, then unless one used the same handset (which might not be possible in general) on the IP phone and the analog phone, I don't know how one could make a meaningful comparison of IP phone vs. analog phone/ATA sound quality.
In partial support of the above:
I have used three different modern (1996 and later -- no carbon mics AFAIK) analog phones on my Obi recently. When I listen to test voicemails recorded from the three phones I can easily identify which phone was used to record which voicemail. |
|
| carlm |
to Stewart
Learn something every day (if you're lucky). I never heard of DTMF talk-off before. Thanks, Stewart. So, Agrajag, if that's what your contact is experiencing, speak softly and in a very deep voice. On the off chance that what your contact is hearing is in fact a single continuous tone, that's yet something else, but I won't go into it unless you confirm. |
|
| |
As a trademark, DTMF was "Touch-Tone", and talk-off is a problem that Bell Labs people were investigating in the late 1960's.
This 1975 paper is often cited as landmark research, yet getting a copy of the actual report is quite hard.
AT&T Compatibility Bulletin No. 105, Issue #1, August 8, 1975 |
|
carlm
join:2014-09-29
united state |
carlm
Member
2015-Sep-10 5:46 pm
said by PX Eliezer1:This 1975 paper is often cited as landmark research, yet getting a copy of the actual report is quite hard.
AT&T Compatibility Bulletin No. 105, Issue #1, August 8, 1975 Thanks for the pointer. Couldn't find the 1975 paper with a quick Google Search. Guess you're right about its being hard to find. |
|
| |
to Stewart
In my case I was describing DTMF talk-off. |
|
| |
to Agrajag
If you are a techie then why not consider your own PBX like PIAF? Just a thought. |
|
| |
Agrajag
Member
2015-Sep-10 10:29 pm
Too involved for me at this point. hehe |
|
