All About VoIP/Meeting notes for 2015-08-17

All About VoIP

Discussion Questions

• What are you using?
• What do you like about VoIP? What do you not like?
• What providers do you use?
• What works better with PSTN? With VoIP?
• What are the pros and cons?

Arbitrary Comments

• What can we do with Teksavvy
• Vonage vs ITSP? (Unlimitel, VoIP.ms) vs ISP (Teksavvy, Rogers) vs MagicJack
• MagicJack is an ATA? You need internet
• You can get a USB dongle as well (don't work under Linux)
• It is reliable enough for faxing
• $10 extra per year for a Canadian number
• $50/year + tax ($70 for the device)
• Berleine spends $32/year for a US number and service
• Unlimited minutes
• Call quality can suffer if the internet is busy
• Magicjack and Vonage are in the same space
• VoiP.ms and Unlimitel
• $1/month for the DID, $1.50 for Emergency 911
• Unlimited minutes
• Magicjack and Vonage are in the same space
• VoIP.ms: $1 + $1.50 for Emergency 911 + 1c/minute per calls
• You can buy a home package for $3.50 per month
• You can have subaccounts
• You can have many calls running simultaneously
• Fongo
• Free phone number, free calls, free voicemail, pay to send texts
• Freephoneline.ca is the same but for desktops
• How far can you get on a wifi phone?
• Sometimes quality is an issue
• SIP phones
• TWC
• One PSTN line + voip lines + Norstar systems
• Use an ATA to convert VoIP.ms to analogue
• This does not work perfectly all the time (eg long tones)
• Brendan has tried to switch to all VoIP
• How do you trunk calls between buildings that use different systems?
• Idea: just map lines to phones so you can use Norstar handsets
• How can you receive calls in multiple locations?
  • Voip.ms makes this easy
  • You can use follow-me settings in Asterisk
• Faxing and virtual faxing
• Doesn't work so well on VoIP
• VoIP wants to break up packets, but faxes want a continuous
• Cheapest SIP phone: Grandstream GXP1400 (similar: GXP1405)
• Why VoIP?
• Cost: $40 for a PSTN line. VoIP can be cheaper
• Can use the same phone number for many calls
• We trust everything that goes over the internet
• Very configurable for free
• Why not VoIP?
• Depends on power to work. Don't have blackouts!
• Can't run faxing (reliably), DSL modems
• Can't use analog modems
• Can be reliability problems
• Security concerns
• Should have quality of service to ensure good performance
• Need upload bandwidth (16k-64kbps up per call depending on codec)
• Rollovers can be an issue between POTS and VoIP, depending on provider
• Costs more in terms of IT time
• You can do voip via internet addresses
• Older ADSL lines provide 700kbps up
• Bell VDSL is broken? Fibernetics does it right?
• Execulink is a provider that does PSTN rollovers right
• Can you do anything more with commercial VoIP than with regular Bell?
• Maybe. It depends on what the provider provides.
• Hiding callerID : easy
• Is this obsolete because of cellphones?
• The numbers are different
• Not as configurable
• But your cellphone works in a blackout (modulo batteries)
• You can't run your own cellphone service (in Canada)
• Compare to radio, community cable
• SIP clients for cellphones?
• SIPSimple?
• You can register to a local asterisk account
• Ring groups on VoIP.ms
• How can you make phones ring in certain locations only?
  • Put a sip client on their phones
  • Put Asterisk
• What Asterisk systems can be configured by Thursday?
• PBX in a Flash
• Elastix
• Cheap analog phones?

Acronym Fun

• ATA : Turns VoIP into PSTN lines.
• VoIP : Voice over internet. The trendy thing.
• PSTN/POTS : "Real" phone line
• SIP : VoIP protocol. There are others (eg IAX)
• FXO : Port that is on the phone. In asterisk, you use a port of this type when you want to integrate a PSTN line.
• FXS : Provides a dialtone. This can be from the wall, or the ports on an ATA
• DID : A phone number
• VoIP registration: What phone will ring when you make a call to the number?
• Hunt groups: Choose which order phones will ring
• QoS: Quality of service: prefer sending packets to phones rather than Bittorrents
• Rollovers: First call a POTS line, then call a VoIP line with a different provider
• MWI: Message waiting light when you have voicemail