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VOIP providers, educate me

xentr_thread_starter
Thanks Ichi. I haven't swapped routers yet but I still may. The lag has almost all dissapeared, might have been a temporary problem, I'm not sure. But now my biggest complaint is that the voip adaptor stays offline and won't wake up after a net outage. Since December Rogers has gone out twice for many hours, both times i had to power cycle the adaptor to get a dialtone again. I contacted voip.ms support, this is what they said:

1. If your router has a SIP ALG and/or SPI Firewall setting, ensure that it is disabled. That setting is common in D-Link and Netgear routers.
2. Set Register expires to a lower value (300 seconds is recommended)
3. If your device has any options similar to "Nat keep alive" and "Nat mapping" please enable them. This will make the connection not go idle.
4. Finally, verify if you have the latest firmware updated on the device, reboot and re-test.

I confirmed #2 & 3 last night and it's still working fine today. How risky is it if that SPI Firewall is disabled? I can see that setting in the router and it was enabled by default.
 
I use voip.ms with little to no hesitation I would recommend it.

HOWEVER. I have already had a SPA112 die on me due to internal issues - not software.
I also use a nortel 1120e with avaya firmware and haven't had an issue, and on android use the integrated sip protocol which seems to be more stable then a normal cell based call.
 
xentr_thread_starter
With the Canadian dollar sinking the voip.ms deal is not as good anymore, plus they refuse to bill Canadian customers in our own currency, so screw them. Any other providers you guys can recommend?
 
another point with VOIP when power goes out, so does your phone. you need a UPS on modem's and phone's to have service when a blackout happens
 
Most people use cordless phones which also do not function when the power is cut.
For those customers the line is not usable because they dont have a wired phone or must people neglect to realize the issue is with the cordless and don't check the old wired phone in the basement.

Cable based internet also has the limitation of its internal UPS of about 4-8 hours. And, in rare cases even copper based lines will go down when power is cut for an extended period of time or over a wide area.
 
xentr_thread_starter
I've been using ooma with no issues.

So you had to buy their adaptor? I've already bought the Cisco unit, don't really want to sink cash into another brand as an experiment. Is that a truly free plan once you've bought the hardware?

A friend said Google Voice might still be working, and it could be possible to route outgoing calls to them instead of using my voip.ms account, thus saving me all the per minute fees on calls. Is that possible?

I'm still looking at what options I have, I manage the family account with an average of 1200 minutes spent on the phone per month, 900 of those minutes are paid at 0.005c/min, + the $7.50 base fee including 911 access. So I'm anywhere from $12-$20 USD / month.
 
Ooma goes on sale fairly often, especially at Costco.

You have to pay the E911 fee monthly plus tax monthly, shouldn't be more than $5. Gets you unlimited Canada-wide calling for free.

I subscribe to their Premier service though, gets me a bunch of features as well as a 2nd number. Useful when I'm working from home so people don't have any of my real numbers, and I can always scrap the number if work starts calling after hours :bleh: Total bill is about $15/month. Still way cheaper than any of the major companies.
 
xentr_thread_starter
Heads up if you're with voip.ms, I checked their site a few weeks ago and prices for numbers around my region had dropped, so I sent an email about it and they lowered mine to match. My town isn't big enough to be on the list but they were good about it.
 

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