[TriLUG] asterisk meeting last saturday

Jon Carnes jonc at nc.rr.com
Tue Jun 22 23:47:31 EDT 2004


On Tue, 2004-06-22 at 22:45, John Turner wrote:
> On Jun 22, 2004, at 7:14 PM, William Schulz wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Jun 22, 2004 at 07:05:45PM -0400, Aaron S. Joyner wrote:
> >> William Schulz wrote:
> >>>
> >> And what are they charging you for said service, if you don't mind I 
> >> ask?
> >
> > I pay $7.95 for the telephone number, incoming calls are free, outgoing
> > are $0.0295/minute (US).  NuFone, one of the newer providers, is
> > offering outgoing for $0.02/minute, but they currently do not offer
> > incoming DIDs for our area (though they do offer 800 numbers), so I may
> > end up using VoicePulse for incoming, and NuFone for outgoing.
> >
> >
> 
> This is a question I have. With the normal VoicePulse service $14.99 
> gets you unlimited in/out local calls and 200 minutes of long distance 
> and then 3.9 cents/min above 200 mins.  I can't tell from the "Connect" 
> service if outgoing local calls are free or billed at 2.95 cents/min.
> 
> Next question do you lose anything with going with one of the other SIP 
> providers instead of the IAX connection from VoicePulse?
> 
> John

VoicePulse gives you unlimited local dialing - but you'll need to find
out just how "local" that dialing is. As an example, with Bell I can
call Franklin County as local but with Voicepulse that is long distance.

As to 911, most VoIP companies make you sign a wavier (its in the fine
print) saying that this phone is purely a secondary phone and that your
primary will be used for emergency contact.

FeatureTel gives 911 to its customers (but then we're local). Vonage and
other providers have their users fill out a website with 911 info that
they try to pass on to the proper 911 center in case of a call. They
promise a good faith effort, but they don't promise to succeed.

I've dealt with this issue a lot in our setup and I can tell you that
911 is a fscked up setup. There is only "trunk" access to the various
sites - you can't dial a regular phone number and access a 911 center.
You have to have direct trunk access.  Why?  Because when 911 was
invented they sprang out of the local Bells; that's all there was. Plus
it was the only way to "guarantee" CallerID (even if blocked).

As usual technology has far outpaced these institutional setups. I don't
know why the Bells don't give dialed access to each of the 911 centers.
That would certainly make setups like ours much much easier.

Jon Carnes




More information about the TriLUG mailing list