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WhyADuck
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join:2003-03-05

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WhyADuck

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Nerd Vittles hit piece on 'Unlimited' SIP Trunks

I see that the Nerd Vittles site has posted an article entitled, VoIP’s Dirty Little Secret: Why ‘Unlimited’ SIP Trunks Are a Very Bad Deal and in this case I happen to think it's quite a bit off base. There are times I agree with Ward and other times I disagree, but in this case the problem is that the data he's using to support his argument seems cherry-picked to make the strongest argument possible, and in the process to perhaps cause readers to think that the metered service he's prompting is a great deal. He does fully disclose this:
Full Disclosure: Vitelity is a Platinum Sponsor of Nerd Vittles™ and our open source projects including Incredible PBX®. We also happen to like their business practices and recommend them without hesitation.
The problem is that he's comparing Vitelity to SIPStation™, but if what he is saying about Sipstation is correct, almost anything other than Ma Bell would compare favorably to SIPStation. So, let's take the worst example you can find to make the comparison, sure it will make your sponsor look better! And considering that he says that his sponsor's rates are at most "a little less than a penny and a half a minute", from posts I have seen recently in this forum I would guess that's far from being the least expensive VoIP deal out there.

However, the part that made me take notice was this:
Third, if you believe these one-call-at-a-time unlimited trunks provide truly unlimited calling, we’ve got some swamp land in Florida that may be of interest. Leave your trunks off-hook for 2 weeks playing music on hold and see how long your account lasts.
And in that he misses the whole point of why people WANT unlimited service. If I have a trunk that is stuck open and playing hold music (or anything else) for two weeks, I want my provider to kill that f---ing connection with extreme prejudice, NOT leave the thing open and just continue billing me by the minute! If they feel they need to terminate my account and put me on a blacklist of people to never do business with again, that's fine, I'd rather they do THAT than just hand me a huge bill!

Those of us who lived through the bad old days of Ma Bell can remember people who accidentally left a modem connected to a BBS and fell asleep waiting for a download to finish (at 1200 bps), or otherwise got distracted and forgot they were online, and got a huge phone bill as a result. While we don't have dialup modems anymore, crap does happen, and I have always said that the whole point of unlimited service is that it's insurance against unexpected high charges if there's a technical malfunction, or someone hacks your account, or whatever. It also encourages your provider to help you out by killing ridiculously long connections, though I don't know if any actually do that.

Personally I am not in the slightest impressed by either of the services he's comparing, and while he doesn't frame it as an advertisement for his sponsor, it sort of smells like one. I would not be surprised if Vitelity uses that article in some promotional manner.

I really have nothing else to say about this, other than that I doubt we'd have seen such a heavily promotional article in the early days of Nerd Vittles.
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mgraves1
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join:2004-04-05
Houston, TX

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Re: Nerd Vittles hit piece on 'Unlimited' SIP Trunks

I don't dispute any of what Ward offers in his article, or any of your comments. It's all good.

The reality is that knowing your pattern of usage has real value. The restaurant example Ward cites is a very practical example. Nothing wrong with it.

Flat-rate, unlimited or otherwise plans are really about knowing your fixed cost. They are for folks who want to know that they won't ever pay more than $X.

Some have no stomach for the variability of paying for metered usage. They may have no idea what their typical usage might be. If they don't care to know that much about it, then paying a fixed rate, even if it's higher, has value.

For small situations that's fine. Get into larger scenes, like a hosted PBX for a company with some staff, and the cost for $X/mo/user adds up quickly. Facing that situation some might be more inclined to get to know their real pattern of usage, and find a more optimal solution.

When I signed up for OnSIP, many years ago, they had an offering that was $0/mo plus usage at 2.9 cents. That per-minute rate was never a great deal, but $0/mo/extension was very attractive. Knowing our real usage, this made more sense than paying $29/mo for each phone we had registered, even if that was unlimited usage.

In recent years, even OnSIP has gone to a flat fee/mo/extension for new business. At least they have several different service bundles,from ala carte to unlimited.

Before OnSIP we used Nuvio, bought through reseller CarolinaNet. Remember them?
tm1000
join:2003-01-03
Anaheim, CA

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This blog is actually a recycled blog first published around Apr 29, 2015. It's old, however, it's never mentioned anywhere on the site (Correction it's mentioned at the very bottom of the article, the first date is from today) when blogs are recycled so you'd think many of them are new when they aren't. (»web.archive.org/web/2015 ··· les.com/)

I don't want to get into a debate about what service is better or why you should choose one over the other but there are factual inaccuracies with the article, not to mention the author has issues with Sangoma (The company that runs SIPStation) which gives an obvious bias to the article..

Also note, it was originally written in April 2015, 4 months after Sangoma bought SIPStation and Schmoozecom, which included the FreePBX trademark and most of the developers for FreePBX, and if you know the history of this blogging site at the time you will find numerous articles critical of Sangoma and Sangoma's product line, (Just scroll down on the web archive link above)

I'll comment on a couple of issues that are incorrect in this blog, these issues have been in the blog since 2015, it has never been revised, even in the republishing today:
you can only make or receive ONE call at a time
It's not as cut and dry as this. If this were true no SIPStation customer would be able to use find me follow me externally. They can. Which means a call comes into your pbx and then the pbx dials out to your external number, this means there is one call inbound and one call outbound at the same time. We actually always give you 1 additional inbound call and you also can enable concurrency bursting. Where if you have two trunks and need to place or receive more calls you can pay per minute or bursts. Both are in your control to enable through the dashboard
Second, you usually can’t spoof the CallerID number on all-you-can-eat trunks unlike the trunks offered by many providers
SIPStation does allow and does not restrict caller id spoofing and has since it's inception with Bandwidth
SIPStation trunks are touted as unlimited
SIPStation is not called Unlimited, we don't say this anywhere on the site (»www.sipstation.com/). Services are called "high volume trunks". It's been this way for a long time (But again the blog is circa 2015 and has not be updated, its just been republished).
Third, if you believe these one-call-at-a-time unlimited trunks provide truly unlimited calling, we’ve got some swamp land in Florida that may be of interest. Leave your trunks off-hook for 2 weeks playing music on hold and see how long your account lasts
I dont know why anyone would do this, but we allow our customers to burst per minute or above your trunks so you never get a busy signal. If a user exceeds normal usage, they can enable burst mode to pay per minute. They get notified as they get close to that threshold so it's not a surprise.

Source: »www.sangoma.com/wp-conte ··· ions.pdf

*PS. I work for Sangoma which is how I know this, but don't let that stop you from making your own informed choices about VoIP services. Just make sure you actually do the research yourself.

AllThumbs
join:2006-02-07
Charleston, SC

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AllThumbs

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Thanks for the update. We will modify the article. You will note that the article includes the Originally Published date.

wmcbrine
join:2002-12-30
Laurel, MD

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said by WhyADuck:

It also encourages your provider to help you out by killing ridiculously long connections, though I don't know if any actually do that.

Callcentric has a "Maximum call duration" setting that you can adjust between 30 minutes and 8 hours. I haven't put it to the test, but I'm fairly confident that it would cut me off.
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tm1000
join:2003-01-03
Anaheim, CA

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tm1000

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Re: Nerd Vittles hit piece on 'Unlimited' SIP Trunks

The blog has now been amended but unfortunately still lacks research.

Firstly caller id spoofing has existed since before 2015, before the blog was written, secondly one inbound and outbound call allowance at the same time existed since before 2015, before the blog was written.

I easily found the softcap minutes by searching in google "sipstation softcap". I linked this originally in my first post as a source: »www.sangoma.com/wp-conte ··· ions.pdf
(also mentioned in our own external wiki (4th link down): »wiki.freepbx.org/display ··· runk+FAQ)
(Post from October 2015 user is aware of the limit and talks about it with Philippe (3rd link down): »community.freepbx.org/t/ ··· ed/31404)

Furthermore all undisclosed "per minute rate" I found by typing into Google "sipstation bursting" (I had to use a url shortener because DSL Reports dosn't allow spaces in urls): »bit.ly/2M7iPOW

I did this in the span of about 5 minutes. First guesses and first links on google.

A little research goes a long way.

sammoats
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join:2014-02-16
Winchester, VA

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I'm going to defend AllThumbs' assertion here and perhaps incur the wrath of the Duck.

Lets say you buy 1 trunk at $24.
The soft cap is 3,000 minutes as stated in their AUP (and calls to or from Canada count double in your minutes).

So lets say your only receiving and making calls from the US and start regularly exceeding the soft limit by placing or recieving 5,000 total minutes. You're going to have to add a second trunk at $24. So that 5,000 is costing you at least $48.

That same 5,000 minutes actually costs around $12 on our service or one of our similarly priced competitors.

I really can't think of any situation where buying an "unlimited" trunk makes for any kind of real cost savings and I tell customers this all the time but still have some who do buy it. Not for cost savings but for cost consistency.

From their AUP:

"Inbound & Outbound Minute Thresholds: Each High Volume SIP trunk has a softcap of 3,000 combined inbound and outbound minutes (excluding metered international and toll free calling) in any calendar month (or billing cycle, if applicable). If you purchase 10 High Volume trunks your softcap would be 30,000 minutes during any billing cycle that you maintain those 10 trunks in your account."
...
"Calls to Canadian numbers or inbound calls on Canadian DID’s account for 2 minutes per actual minute called as it applies against the 3,000 minute softcap due the high cost of calling to and from Canada."

The final fragment in that last sentence "due to the high cost of calling to and from Canada" made me lol... Canada is crazy cheap to terminate calls into.
Sam
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join:2017-01-15
Ho Ho Kus, NJ

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said by sammoats:

I'm going to defend AllThumbs' assertion here and perhaps incur the wrath of the Duck....

I really can't think of any situation where buying an "unlimited" trunk makes for any kind of real cost savings and I tell customers this all the time but still have some who do buy it. Not for cost savings but for cost consistency.

I don't think there is a right or wrong here.

I myself do have some flat-rate outbound plans, and some unlimited inbound plans, EVEN THOUGH pay-per-minute would be less money overall.

And the reason is, just not wanting to even THINK about usage.
said by sammoats:

Not for cost savings but for cost consistency.

That's a good point and a good phrase.

AllThumbs' discussion did not recognize that criteria, and I believe that led to WhyADuck's response.
tm1000
join:2003-01-03
Anaheim, CA

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The point I was trying to make is that any sensible person can do a little bit of research online and find resources and answers. Nothing is "undisclosed" we try to be very transparent in our terms of service and documentation. The issue I have with the blog is the fact that it completely recycled information from 2015 and even in 2015 it was inaccurate. Defend assertions all you want but don't just blindly defend inaccurate data that's just reposted to increase SEO and give the illusion of new content.

sammoats
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join:2014-02-16
Winchester, VA

sammoats

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Point taken and your correct, I wasn't defending the article itself but rather the assertion it made.

Sam

AllThumbs
join:2006-02-07
Charleston, SC

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said by tm1000:

The point I was trying to make is that any sensible person can do a little bit of research online and find resources and answers. Nothing is "undisclosed" we try to be very transparent in our terms of service and documentation.

Most reputable providers publish straight-forward pricing information on the web site where their services are actually offered. Having reviewed the rates, I understand why Sangoma prefers to bury them with SIPStation and why you haven't mentioned them in this thread. A Canadian company charging 4.9 cents/minute for a call to or from Canada, a 5 cent surcharge on 5-second calls, a 1,500 minute cap on a $25 SIP trunk used for Canadian calls, seriously?

It shouldn't take multiple Google searches for consumers to dig out pricing information for any SIP provider. When we visit a provider's web site that hides pricing information, it tells us one thing: RUN! I would think you'd thank us for not publishing this stuff even though it was pretty apparent that you were avoiding the details for a reason.

If you want the ugly details published, we'd be happy to oblige. You can even draft the pricing summary so long as it is accurate, complete, and includes all potential charges, fees, and taxes.
tm1000
join:2003-01-03
Anaheim, CA

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tm1000

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said by AllThumbs:

I would think you'd thank us for not publishing this stuff even though it was pretty apparent that you were avoiding the details for a reason.

I linked you directly to both PDFs. Three times. If I was trying to hide anything I wouldn't have posted links that are the first hits on Google and also in the Terms of Service on signup. If I post the prices directly here and they later change then I have to go find this post and update it otherwise the information will be out of date, much like keeping a blog from 2015 around with inaccurate data and then reposting it in 2018 without researching or changing a word.

There are plenty of other 'Unlimited' (SIPStation is not) carriers out there that you could have discussed in this blog but instead it speaks solely of SIPStation (and Vitelity). That speaks volumes about the intent of this article and the reasoning it was made. It's encouraging others can see that for themselves..."The problem is that he's comparing Vitelity to SIPStation™"

Not all services are created equal and not all services are meant for all customers, and that is why Sangoma has customers connected to hundreds of providers, telephone equipment manufactures, and everything else. All our information is provided and readily available, and the beauty of this business is customers have a choice in who they can do business with. You can buy a piece of hardware from any anonymous no-name manufacturers and hope you can figure it out on your own, or you can buy something form companies that will answer the phone and help you through issues. They all have their place...

Unfortunately this is another Nerd Vittles' hit piece against Sangoma Technologies Incorporated. Not 'Unlimited' carriers.

With that said, I'm bowing out of this conversation.
System

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(topic move) Nerd Vittles hit piece on 'Unlimited' SIP Trunks

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The post that was here (and all 23 followups to it), has been moved to a new topic .. »Nerd Vittles hit piece on 'Unlimited' SIP Trunks

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Re: Nerd Vittles hit piece on 'Unlimited' SIP Trunks

Friendly warning

Recent particpants in this topic are warned to be aware of site and forum posting rules. Warning cause: 'Off topic' (posts)
OzarkEdge
join:2014-02-23
USA

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What we have here... dramatic pause... is a marketing hit piece within a hit piece. I doubt staying on topic will make any of it worthwhile.

OE

AllThumbs
join:2006-02-07
Charleston, SC

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said by OzarkEdge:

What we have here... dramatic pause... is a marketing hit piece within a hit piece. I doubt staying on topic will make any of it worthwhile.

OE

Perhaps a little more focus on when "unlimited" SIP trunks actually make business sense could make the entire thread worthwhile. The revised article attempts to make that point and also notes why we chose SIPStation for the comparison.
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Stewart
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Re: Nerd Vittles hit piece on 'Unlimited' SIP Trunks

Almost all premium products and services are priced several times higher than their commodity equivalents. Depending on model and options, a Mercedes may cost three to ten times as much as a Toyota, even though they basically do the same thing. The price of an iPhone (or top Samsung) is about four times that of a mid-range phone with similar screen size, resolution and camera pixels.

Value-oriented consumers believe that the 'minor' improvements offered by premium products are way overpriced and choose the commodity, even if they could easily afford premium. OTOH, the vast majority of Mercedes and iPhone owners are very satisfied and will likely be repeat customers. One size doesn't fit all.

The availability of US termination for ~$0.0025/min. and origination at ~$0.001/min. (or even at $0 with GV) does not mean that a Vitelity or SIPStation customer has made an unwise choice.

In my last four years in business, primary service was with Vitelity. AFAIK, there wasn't a single call that did not at least go to voicemail; the few failures to reach my phone were caused by problems with my equipment or ISP. There was once a problem with the 800 number. Although the carrier (XO) had a 12-hour outage, Vitelity is a resporg and rerouted the service to another carrier; my downtime was only ~45 minutes and outside of business hours. After retirement, extreme reliability was no longer a priority and I downgraded to cheaper services (except for fax; Vitelity offers TDM at a reasonable price).

Purchasers of premium products do so for specific 'must have' features, even though they are paying for others they don't need. When you call Vitelity for support, your call is answered promptly by a US-based native English speaker who knows what he's talking about and has the skills and authority to fix your problem. That's very expensive for them to provide; I estimate that of the $0.0144/min. + USF charged for US termination, about 15% goes for phone support, roughly the total cost of Sam's service! IMO, this is mostly fluff. Tech support (of any kind) is best handled via tickets. Details such as addresses, usernames and phone numbers can be transmitted accurately, there is no need to repeat information if the request is escalated, screenshots, invoices, SIP traces, etc. can be attached and a repeat problem merely requires a link to the previous occurrence. Of course Vitelity also has a fine ticket system.

Similarly, I believe that many SIPStation customers sign up despite the 'high usage trunks' pricing model, rather than because of it. Ward is IMO 100% correct that 'unlimited' or similar is almost always a poor value. It surely isn't the security feature implied by WhyADuck See Profile. In the absence of fraud controls, you could still face a big liability for international calls or burst usage. But SIPStation, Vitelity and most other providers offer good controls. My AnveoDirect account has (among others) a 'Monthly Calls Spending Limit' set at $50, with notification if near the limit. If it's reached, further outbound calling is blocked but incoming continues to work for at least five days while the issue is resolved. Surely that's better than paying $50 every month. And though I agree with mgraves1 See Profile and sammoats See Profile that many users want cost consistency, others want the opposite. For a seasonal business, they'll take higher bills in Q4 when business is booming and pay less in Q1 and Q2 when it's slow.

There are good reasons for choosing SIPStation. First, you are supporting the team that brings you FreePBX, very much under active development. (Ward also provides free software to the community, which is a good reason to purchase from his sponsors). But take a close look at »wiki.freepbx.org/display ··· d+PBXact . Some of these features are unavailable from any other provider and represent real value for many customers. For a business with relatively constant usage, SIPStation may cost less than other high end providers. For example, assume average usage of 15,000 min./mo., half incoming and half outgoing. Usage is normally distributed with a standard deviation of 3000 min. You buy 7 trunks (allowing for 21,000 min.) at $24.99 each. On average, 341 minutes exceed the 7-trunk capacity and are billed at ~$0.024/min., resulting in an average cost per minute of $0.0122. With Vitelity, your inbound usage is far above the 4000 min. cap on Link Plus, so you'd be paying incoming at $0.012/min, for an average cost per minute of $0.0132, about 8% higher than SIPStation.

However, I do have one issue with SIPStation for many (most?) applications. The ToS at »portal.sangoma.com/marke ··· vice.pdf says "No Use with LCR: Customer may not use the Service with (or in connection with) a least cost router (or “LCR”), which Sangoma will determine, in its reasonable discretion, based upon analysis of Customer’s traffic patterns in the ordinary course of business." Yes, I understand that they don't want me using a cheap termination provider for most calls, sending Sangoma only calls to rural Iowa and other high-cost destinations. But, when I can't answer a call at my desk and it's forwarded to mobile, I surely don't want to pay their obscenely high rate of $0.31 to Thai mobile. Calls via AnveoDirect using BICS Prime at $0.022 work just fine. And don't tell me that SIPStation is better quality (it probably is), Verizon International (IMO the gold standard) is also an option on AnveoDirect at $0.077/min.
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