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

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All About VoIP

Date
Monday, 17 August 2015
Event Announcement
http://www.meetup.com/NetSquared-Kitchener-Waterloo/events/223550824/

What combination of VoIP and PSTN lines do you use? What problems does VoIP solve for you? What problems does it create?


The meeting on Monday, 17 August 2015 was 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
  • The Working Centre
    • 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

  • ADSL : Asymmetric Digital Subsriber Line - High-speed Internet over an analog phone line
  • ATA : Analog Telephone Adapter - Turns VoIP into PSTN lines.
  • DID : Direct Inward Dialing - A phone number
  • FXO : Foreign Exchange Office - Port that is on the phone. In asterisk, you use a port of this type when you want to integrate a PSTN line. Wikipedia:Fxo
  • FXS : Foreign Exchange Service - Provides a dialtone. This can be from the wall, or the ports on an ATA
  • Hunt groups: Choose which order phones will ring
  • ISP : Internet Service Provider
  • ITSP : Internet Telephony Service Provider - The company that provides VoIP service
  • MWI: Message Waiting Indicator - The light that shows when you have voicemail
  • PBX : Private Branch Exchange - the device that routes phone calls
  • PSTN/POTS : Public Switched Telephone Network / Plain Old Telephone Service - A "Real" phone line
  • 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
  • SIP : Session Initiation Protocol - VoIP protocol. There are others (eg IAX)
  • VDSL : Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line - ADSL on steroids
  • VoIP : Voice over Internet Protocol - The trendy thing.
  • VoIP registration: What phone will ring when you make a call to the number?