VoIP Providers

Russinating · 24 Apr 2019 at 11:13

There's no real section where this fits and I know if it goes into a hardware subforum I'll probably get 1 response in a couple of months!

Can anyone recommend a VoIP business provider that you or your busines suse (or a residential provider you're with that also has business packages)? We're currently with Vonage and have been for a number of years but they've been absolutely useless the last 6 months odd so we're looking to jump ship.

TIA!

dod · 24 Apr 2019 at 11:53

We're just moving ours, happy to pass on contacts etc , email in trust

mohawk · 24 Apr 2019 at 12:21

we currently use a company called Arrow - https://www.arrowcommunications.co.uk/

Liquidfox · 24 Apr 2019 at 13:38

We host our own carrier grade VoIP system based on Unify's platform. Not sure I'm allowed to post details of our own company as we're an MSP too so not sure if it would break competition rules since we also sell hardware?

Janesy B · 24 Apr 2019 at 13:48

There's loads, mostly seem to resell Gamma Horizon. Had good dealings with Pinnacle Comms.

Yaayuh! · 24 Apr 2019 at 16:13

We use Digium Switchvox and route through Magrathea. Can't fault them, it's been an easy to manage and reliable.

There's tonnes of solutions out there. All I can say, without doubt, is; DO NOT use Vodafone One Net. It's the worst thing I've ever had to deal with.

pepp77 · 24 Apr 2019 at 16:23

Janesy B said:
There's loads, mostly seem to resell Gamma Horizon. Had good dealings with Pinnacle Comms.

Hi Janesy, that's nice to hear assuming you are talking about the Pinnacle Comms that is based in London and not Wales (I work for the London one

)

Redrum · 24 Apr 2019 at 23:12

We've been using Ring Central for about 3 years and we've had no problems with it. The call quality is excellent, the support is good and you can do all the clever things like menus and different routing options etc.

The only thing I wish it had is a centrally administered company wide phone book, which is something we had with our ancient Avaya phone system that it replaced.

blueboy2001 · 24 Apr 2019 at 23:20

Are you after SIP trunks, or a fully hosted VoIP solution with handsets?

Gamma Horizon is pretty good, but it did have a very extensive outage for almost 24 hours last year. I'd probably still go for that over a providers own solution though - it's cheap and easy to run a hosted VoIP platform these days but it's much more difficult to do it well because there's not much margin in it so corners are invariably cut.

the-evaluator · 25 Apr 2019 at 08:49

Gradwell are worth a look. I've been with them about 7 years and had very few problems other than finding their portal to be pretty awful - they've done a half arsed implemenation of a new one but it works well enough.

Russinating · 25 Apr 2019 at 09:40

Just after a Vonage alternative really. It's a shame because we've been with them since 2009 but there's been a catalogue of repetitive problems over the last 6 months and the service has been shoddy, on top of a rubbish portal (we're on the box-based package as an old customer, and - apparently - can't 'upgrade' to cloud based :rolleyes:

).

RingCentral look like the only real contenders without paying an arm and a leg.

I laughed because I spoke to someone on Virgin's Cloud Voice page... their landing page has a video with a guy claiming Virgin's fibre and voip is the same price as the 6MB line they had before. Cue the live chat agent telling me their voice packages start from £87+VAT pm with a minimum of 5 lines. Wut :eek:

.

Vanquish-Storm · 25 Apr 2019 at 10:48

We used VOIPTalk (Telepliant)

Spit · 25 Apr 2019 at 11:16

That's what my business is... www.simpatico.co.uk

We are Gamma partners and sell Horizon licences at £14.95+VAT each per month including either a Polycom 411 or Yealink 52P and 2000 minutes to landlines and 2000 minutes to mobile. Plus all the other features Horizon includes.

jpaul · 25 Apr 2019 at 11:53

I was now looking for sms text support via voip, is this, as yet, not widely available ?

The simpatico site, for example does not appear to reference sms https://simpatico.co.uk/fixed-line-voip/

I probasbly need to do more research on the protocol sms it uses, since clearly it is not a tone sender type functionality,
I currently privately use X-lite(free) + localphone, localphone has a separate/expensive web service for texts,
grandstream(no windows sip phone) appear to have this service.

Yaayuh! · 25 Apr 2019 at 12:08

Whilst we're on the subject.

Who here had to set up and pay (upfront and monthly fee) for emergency service calls to be enabled?

the-evaluator · 25 Apr 2019 at 12:25

Rossi~ said:
Who here had set up and pay (upfront and monthly fee) for emergency service calls to be enabled?

That actually happens? No such requirements from Gradwell.

Lopéz · 25 Apr 2019 at 12:40

We use Natterbox as it's all inside Salesforce, some are using the Natterbox softphone, some prefer the X-Lite.

blueboy2001 · 25 Apr 2019 at 20:28

I’ve put a few relatives on Sipgate actually, and never had any problems - to the extent I’d forgotten about it.

the-evaluator · 1 Aug 2019 at 16:13

My turn to ask for advise.

I've been with Gradwell for about 9 years and generally the service is good but they do have occasional issues which they are too slow to acknowledge. Their portal is the biggest problem though, they tried to implement a new one some time ago but they never really got it working so the end result is some stuff is done on the old portal and some in the new. They've also had a few instances where the portal has been totaly knackered and considering I don't log in very often I don't think I'm unlucky enough to only try and log in to do something when it's broken. Anyway, it was broken again today so I've had enough.

My requirements are simple. I've got a single SIP extension with a former BT PSTN number pointing at it. I need voicemail and the ability to forward calls to my mobile whilst retaining the original caller ID. Your suggestions please.

TonTom · 1 Aug 2019 at 16:32

Keep away from Vonage. We’ve had nothing but issues from day one. Their polygon handsets are garbage and most of the time not set up correctly. We’ve switch to using mobiles with their vonage app which is the only way we can use the phones.