Free DID Numbers, Free Voip Calls, & more Voip Info

Hi emoci,

i've been reading through your posts in the thread. Really appreciate your knowledge and guidance provided to the forum members.


I have a simple question that need your expertise

I am thinking of porting my Bell's number to one of VOIP providers, our usage is like mainly local + some canadian/us LD + some oversea LD.

Can you compare vbuzzer vs. voip.ms vs. Callcentric, or any other good ones?

Really appreciate!

mikesxf wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 10:02 am

Hi emoci,

i've been reading through your posts in the thread. Really appreciate your knowledge and guidance provided to the forum members.


I have a simple question that need your expertise

I am thinking of porting my Bell's number to one of VOIP providers, our usage is like mainly local + some canadian/us LD + some oversea LD.

Can you compare vbuzzer vs. voip.ms vs. Callcentric, or any other good ones?

Really appreciate!

-VBuzzer

Pros
-$25/year for number + unlimited incoming
-$25/year for unlimited Toronto Calling

Cons
-Does not allow you to port-in
-Support is a bit spotty
-No Name ID (just number) for both incoming and outgoing calls


-Voip.ms

Pros
-You can port in
-You can pay as little as $4.95/month for number + unlimited incoming calls (and by unlimited incoming they really mean about 3500 min/month I believe which is plenty)
-Reasonably good support
-Some cool features, IVR, Queues, Multiple VM Boxes if need be, and you can set your own outgoing CID

Cons
-They don't really have any flat fee packages for outgoing calls (but you do only pay only half a cent a minute to most of Canada)


-CallCentric

-It's like Voip.ms, but fewer of the those last cool features
-Their Unlimited incoming is "unlimited"


-FreePhoneLine

Pros
-Only a one time payment of $56.50 + $20 for porting in
-Unlimited Incoming calls
-Unlimited Outgoing Calls to most of Canada
-Good Voice Quality once you're setup

Cons
-It's a bit hard to get support to do stuff quickly (they're slowish)
-Given their offer of "One Time Fee, then Free for Life" there is some concerns of how long they can last (but Fibernetics and 295.ca which are behind FreePhoneLine have been around since the days of dialup)

emoci wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 7:35 pm

-VBuzzer

Pros
-$25/year for number + unlimited incoming
-$25/year for unlimited Toronto Calling

Cons
-Does not allow you to port-in
-Support is a bit spotty
-No Name ID (just number) for both incoming and outgoing calls

Unless I've misinterpreted the information, I think it's $50/year for vbuzzer unlimited local Toronto calling.

http://www.vbuzzer.com/call/toronto/call-toronto.html

EDIT: I misinterpreted the information. It is indeed $25 for unlimited Toronto calling but you have to get a Toronto number first for an additional $25.

http://www.vbuzzer.com/calling_plans.php



Will vbuzzer pass your callerID to the recipient if I use Voxalot? Will Freephoneline.ca?

emoci wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 7:35 pm

-VBuzzer

Pros
-$25/year for number + unlimited incoming
-$25/year for unlimited Toronto Calling

Cons
-Does not allow you to port-in
-Support is a bit spotty
-No Name ID (just number) for both incoming and outgoing calls


-Voip.ms

Pros
-You can port in
-You can pay as little as $4.95/month for number + unlimited incoming calls (and by unlimited incoming they really mean about 3500 min/month I believe which is plenty)
-Reasonably good support
-Some cool features, IVR, Queues, Multiple VM Boxes if need be, and you can set your own outgoing CID

Cons
-They don't really have any flat fee packages for outgoing calls (but you do only pay only half a cent a minute to most of Canada)


-CallCentric

-It's like Voip.ms, but fewer of the those last cool features
-Their Unlimited incoming is "unlimited"


-FreePhoneLine

Pros
-Only a one time payment of $56.50 + $20 for porting in
-Unlimited Incoming calls
-Unlimited Outgoing Calls to most of Canada
-Good Voice Quality once you're setup

Cons
-It's a bit hard to get support to do stuff quickly (they're slowish)
-Given their offer of "One Time Fee, then Free for Life" there is some concerns of how long they can last (but Fibernetics and 295.ca which are behind FreePhoneLine have been around since the days of dialup)

great summary, emoci, you are the man

btw, can i have a copy of your fpl guide, please? rs doesn't have it anymore...

mikesxf wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 9:45 pm

great summary, emoci, you are the man

btw, can i have a copy of your fpl guide, please? rs doesn't have it anymore...

Here's a copy
http://rapidshare.com/files/237236029/F ... _GUIDE.pdf

For the record I did not write this...someone else on RFD did...

TotalDistinction wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 8:01 pm

Unless I've misinterpreted the information, I think it's $50/year for vbuzzer unlimited local Toronto calling.

http://www.vbuzzer.com/call/toronto/call-toronto.html

EDIT: I misinterpreted the information. It is indeed $25 for unlimited Toronto calling but you have to get a Toronto number first for an additional $25.

http://www.vbuzzer.com/calling_plans.php



Will vbuzzer pass your callerID to the recipient if I use Voxalot? Will Freephoneline.ca?

From provider to VoXalot
-Forwarding VBuzzer to VoX SIP URI (by using PBXes in the middle) will pass the number of the Caller to VoXalot

-Forwarding VBuzzer (using either Call Forward or Call Fork on their website) to another number and selecting 'Transparent' will pass the number of the original caller to the ringing destination.

In the case of VBuzzer there usually is no Caller Name because VBuzzer does not support the Caller Name...

-Same as I said for VBuzzer above for FreePhoneLine as well

QS: Can you pass the Name (not just the number) to VoXalot via SIP URI?

I am not a 100% sure. I can confirm that calls from a SIPBroker access number to a VoXalot acct. show both Name and Number hence Name support is there (but the name itself if passed by the access number provider).

Under the same idea...if you were to enable Voip.ms Name lookup, the name alongside the number should be showing up on VoXalot (notice I say 'should').

From VoXalot to provider

-When calling out from VoXalot with VBuzzer, the recipient sees your VBuzzer number but no name.
-When calling out from VoXalot with FreePhoneLine, the recipient sees your FPL number but usually no name (I say usually because I have had at least 5 different occasions where the actual Name I have set on my PAP2 has been passed on in one of these calls ... but I can't seem to replicate this repeatedly)

The one provider I have tested so far that had constant support for names was Acanac (despite other minor issues with limiting calls to no more that 50 different phone numbers per month)

emoci

can you comment on the voice quality of voip.ms, vbuzzer, callcentric and freephoneline.ca



BTW, got the file. Thanks again,

emoci wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 10:09 pm

From provider to VoXalot
-Forwarding VBuzzer to VoX SIP URI (by using PBXes in the middle) will pass the number of the Caller to VoXalot

-Forwarding VBuzzer (using either Call Forward or Call Fork on their website) to another number and selecting 'Transparent' will pass the number of the original caller to the ringing destination.

In the case of VBuzzer there usually is no Caller Name because VBuzzer does not support the Caller Name...

-Same as I said for VBuzzer above for FreePhoneLine as well

QS: Can you pass the Name (not just the number) to VoXalot via SIP URI?

I am not a 100% sure. I can confirm that calls from a SIPBroker access number to a VoXalot acct. show both Name and Number hence Name support is there (but the name itself if passed by the access number provider).

Under the same idea...if you were to enable Voip.ms Name lookup, the name alongside the number should be showing up on VoXalot (notice I say 'should').

From VoXalot to provider

-When calling out from VoXalot with VBuzzer, the recipient sees your VBuzzer number but no name.
-When calling out from VoXalot with FreePhoneLine, the recipient sees your FPL number but usually no name (I say usually because I have had at least 5 different occasions where the actual Name I have set on my PAP2 has been passed on in one of these calls ... but I can't seem to replicate this repeatedly)

The one provider I have tested so far that had constant support for names was Acanac (despite other minor issues with limiting calls to no more that 50 different phone numbers per month)

Thank you emoci for your reply. My port from Vonage to voip.ms should cutover tomorrow. I've setup everything with VoXalot, done my testing and I'm all ready to go.

While my outgoing calls with voip.ms are bone-dry cheap for Canada/U.S., I'm looking to squeeze more from an alternate provider if I can for posterity I think.

TotalDistinction wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 10:55 pm

Thank you emoci for your reply. My port from Vonage to voip.ms should cutover tomorrow. I've setup everything with VoXalot, done my testing and I'm all ready to go.

While my outgoing calls with voip.ms are bone-dry cheap for Canada/U.S., I'm looking to squeeze more from an alternate provider if I can for posterity I think.

Well if it helps this is what I'm currently using:

-US/Canada: Voip.ms (was using a combo of CallWithUs/FutureNine previously)
-International Western (by that I mean EU Countries, Australia...most places you'd expect decent networks): InternetCalls (I still have a bunch of cash in there even though my FreeDays have expired)
-International Other (Eastern Europe, Middle East etc.): Primarily LocalPhone (they have a cool little feature that'll let you assign each Intl contact a local number to be called from regular phones too), with F9 and CallWithUs as backups
-Emergency: Both F9 and CallWithUs have a 1-800 access number which you can call from any payphone without need for coins...at which point you enter your pin and call as neccessary

mikesxf wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 10:28 pm

emoci

can you comment on the voice quality of voip.ms, vbuzzer, callcentric and freephoneline.ca



BTW, got the file. Thanks again,

Voice quality on all of them is really good...but if you had to go for really really minimalistic differences (and this is a bit subjective) I would say:

1) FreePhoneLine
2) VBuzzer
3) Voip.ms and CallCentric

emoci wrote: ↑

Jul 24th, 2009 1:01 am

Well if it helps this is what I'm currently using:

-US/Canada: Voip.ms (was using a combo of CallWithUs/FutureNine previously)
-International Western (by that I mean EU Countries, Australia...most places you'd expect decent networks): InternetCalls (I still have a bunch of cash in there even though my FreeDays have expired)
-International Other (Eastern Europe, Middle East etc.): Primarily LocalPhone (they have a cool little feature that'll let you assign each Intl contact a local number to be called from regular phones too), with F9 and CallWithUs as backups
-Emergency: Both F9 and CallWithUs have a 1-800 access number which you can call from any payphone without need for coins...at which point you enter your pin and call as neccessary

Thanks for sharing your setup. Who are you using to manage all of your voip providers? (VoXalot, pbxes.com, etc.) How are you able to establish voip providers as backups?

I'm using VoXalot. I can only assign one provider to a "smart dial" setup. Is it possible with anyone to set something up where if a busy tone or error is encountered on an outgoing call, it can try an alternate provider?

Not asking for the world. I'm happy with my setup. Just wanted to know if it's possible.

TotalDistinction wrote: ↑

Jul 23rd, 2009 8:01 pm

Unless I've misinterpreted the information, I think it's $50/year for vbuzzer unlimited local Toronto calling.

http://www.vbuzzer.com/call/toronto/call-toronto.html

EDIT: I misinterpreted the information. It is indeed $25 for unlimited Toronto calling but you have to get a Toronto number first for an additional $25.

http://www.vbuzzer.com/calling_plans.php

Freephoneline.ca?

FYI: Vbuzzer just started recently to offer number portability...

http://www.vbuzzer.com/ld/land_page_loc ... try=CANADA

emoci, after reading over and over yours and others posts, I came up with my plan

sign up voip.ms 3000 minutes incoming plan - $5
port my number to voip.ms - $20
Forwarding voip.ms to VoXaLot using SIP URI - will it work?
get Freephoneline config - $50
create 2 trunks in VoXaLot to dial out
1. freephoneline - free local and some cities
2. voip.ms - other LD and overseas 1-2cents/min

that idea is to take advantage of FPL's free local calls, and try to save $15/year of VoXaLot premium
but it really relies on voip.ms has SIP URI forwarding feature


any comment?

mikesxf wrote: ↑

Jul 25th, 2009 8:37 am

emoci, after reading over and over yours and others posts, I came up with my plan

sign up voip.ms 3000 minutes incoming plan - $5
port my number to voip.ms - $20
Forwarding voip.ms to VoXaLot using SIP URI - will it work?
get Freephoneline config - $50
create 2 trunks in VoXaLot to dial out
1. freephoneline - free local and some cities
2. voip.ms - other LD and overseas 1-2cents/min

that idea is to take advantage of FPL's free local calls, and try to save $15/year of VoXaLot premium
but it really relies on voip.ms has SIP URI forwarding feature


any comment?

I use voip.ms and VoXalot and I can confirm that voip.ms has SIP URI forwarding as I'm using it myself in my config.

TotalDistinction wrote: ↑

Jul 25th, 2009 8:40 am

I use voip.ms and VoXalot and I can confirm that voip.ms has SIP URI forwarding as I'm using it myself in my config.

How did you do it?