Hi all,
While pondering my choices for local dial tone service via a bunch of POTS lines or a T1, I began to wonder if perhaps there is another way.
Are there VoIP dialtone providers? That is, could I use only my internet connection for voice calls and not have a separate T1/POTS bank for that?
I guess I am imagining a company that gateways between the PTSN and the internet backbone. Calls come in and get VoIP'ed and sent to me as packets, perhaps IAX, perhaps something else?
First question: Does such a thing exist? Where?
Yes.
http://www.iconnecthere.com/
http://www.packet8.net/
http://www.nufone.net/
http://www.coloco.com/ (not obviously visible on the home page, but exists)
http://www.voicepulse.com/
...many others. Use your favorite search engine to look up SIP long distance providers. Some of the above (notably NuFone and Coloco) will provide IAX/IAX2 termination.
Second question: Does it work? How well?
Works great. I haven't made a long distance call on my PSTN line in months, and I spend pretty much all day on LD calls.
Third question: Would you want it? Why?
Yes. Cheap, portable, failure-tolerant. Note that your phone service suddenly becomes as (un)reliable as your Internet connectivity, so ensure that you have those bases covered through the "normal" methods such as multihoming, facility redundancy, MPLS, etc. I would also suggest you have multiple outbound VoIP providers, with automatic failover configured in your Asterisk server. This is easily done.
Fourth question: How much $$$?
As little as $.01 a minute anywhere in the US, and great international rates, depending on providers. Remember you can get multiple accounts, and send your calls to different providers based on static tables of who you think is cheapest for that dial prefix.
To address your previous question of "is it ready for prime time" the answer is:
For basic features, absolutely. I have several customers whose systems I have configured for their offices... and I haven't heard from them in MONTHS. The systems have had 100% uptime, handling calls from POTS and VoIP lines.
For exotic features: maybe. There is a HUGE list of niggly little features that everyone is in love with in their particular PBX. Some of those features, Asterisk does exceedingly well, and others that are less frequently used, it does not. However, this situation is no different with Asterisk than with any other PBX system that you might evaluate, so all things being equal I'd say Asterisk is a LOT better than a proprietary solution since you can get under the hood yourself and fix things that might need to be updated.
JT
-- Mike Ciholas (812) 476-2721 voice CIHOLAS Enterprises (812) 476-2881 fax 2626 Kotter Ave, Unit D [EMAIL PROTECTED] Evansville, IN 47715 http://www.ciholas.com
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