- VoiceOps - lists.voiceops.org

Which Softswitch?
by peter＠4isps.com June 29, 2015

June 29, 2015

Alex, either way - open source or commercial - you have a dependency. I have consulted for many companies offering Hosted VoIP of all flavors in North America. What I have found is that most people serious about delivering a quality service go the commercial route for scalability, support, less risk and known quantity. The ones that go open source, generally tinker. They are more enamored with the tech than the service. I have clients that use a combo of switches - Acme or Sansay with Asterisk and Meta and Taqua and BSFT. In either scenario - open source vs. commercial - retaining talent is significant. It isn't like if you go open source all your problems are easily solved. And I have seen spectacular failures from companies that went cheap, went open and crashed, because the mentality was go open, it is inexpensive. However, there is overhead with that including knowing how to cluster for scale, which very few people know how to do effectively. There is nothing wrong with open source as long as the mentality is: I am going that route to save money and offer VoIP as cheaply as possible. That is a disaster. One last example: M5 before Shoretel bought them. They dumped M6/BSFT and built their own platform. The cost of the developers to keep the platform running and upgraded was just a little cheaper than the BSFT mafia vig. There isn't a way around the cost of putting together a carrier grade service delivery platform. You pay it one way or another. Just my 2 cents from over 10 years of consulting on VoIP. -- Regards, Peter Radizeski @ RAD-INFO INC Circuits * Bandwidth * Consulting (813) 963-5884 "The clever ones get support contracts for core open source software from the open source software project" Oh, indeed. But it just doesn't feel as satisfying as having a long dependency chain of medium-to-large companies to blame, escalating that blame through sclerotic TACs and offshore NOCs. :-) ? -- Alex Balashov | Principal | Evariste Systems LLC 303 Perimeter Center North, Suite 300 Atlanta, GA 30346 United States Tel: +1-800-250-5920 (toll-free) / +1-678-954-0671 (direct) Web:http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.csrpswitch.com/

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Polycom CX300 R2 Speakerphone Mic
by rdawson＠force3.com June 26, 2015

June 26, 2015

Hello all, wondering if anyone might have a Polycom CX300 R2 that they wouldn?t mind cracking open and photographing how the speakerphone mic is connected? Need to investigate the feasibility of removing it from some phones for a customer. Thanks, Rob

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Mediacom and/or Charter Translations Department Conact
by telephonetoughguy83＠gmail.com June 25, 2015

June 25, 2015

Does anyone have contact information for the routing/translations departments at either Mediacom or Charter? Our tier 2 supervisor has spent several hours over the past few weeks trying to get both companies to fix routing issues that are affecting our customers (their customers can't call our customers). He's having great difficulty getting a hold of anyone at either company that can help him out. If it matters, the region I'm talking about is the Midwest (Iowa, Illinois, Missouri). Thanks, Andy Smith

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AT&T Cellular - DTMF
by Adam.Vocks＠cticomputers.com June 25, 2015

June 25, 2015

I've got an odd problem that someone might be able to point me in the right direction to get some help. AT&T cellular customer calls a number destined to our LRN. Customer presses a digit on the phone, no DTMF audio ever comes across the trunk. If that same customer calls a number with the same npa/nxx not destined for our LRN, DTMF audio comes across the trunk. These calls are coming to us via SS7 trunks and the ILEC that these calls transit through has verified that both calls come in on the same trunks, one has DTMF audio, one does not. This problem started on Thursday morning. Prior to Thursday morning, AT&T cellular calls were arriving to us via our FGD Tandem connection, now they are arriving via the local rate center switch. I've talked to AT&T and attempted to put in a ticket on the DS3 that enters the ILEC, but they refused to do that because they said the DTMF would be audio and they would just pass it through. Anyone have advice? AT&T (low level tech) states that the DTMF tones are generated at the phone and are in the audio stream the entire way. Does anyone know if AT&T uses some sort out of band dtmf signaling? Thanks! Adam Vocks CTI Fiber

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How to assure LNP accuracy as a small ITSP
by april＠teliax.com June 24, 2015

June 24, 2015

Hi Carlos, This depends on how you port. Are you acting as a facilities-based LEC with access to NPAC and tools like PortPS? In that case, it's (somewhat) straightforward to find LNP rules from carriers you're porting away from. A Google for "Teliax LNP Rules" for example brings up our LNP business rules that describe how to obtain a CSR or submit an LSR. Replace Teliax with $carrier and you might be surprised by the results. Surprised, as in, going from zero to LSR sent with CenturyLink took almost two full days...but porting from Bandwidth CLEC took almost no time at all since they publish their LNP rules and processes in an easy-to-find manner. My experience has been, the more internet-oriented the company, or the smaller the company, the easier it is to port numbers out. Some carriers like Level 3 are large, but internet-oriented, and so their LNP tools and portal make LNP very easy. Not to rag on CenturyLink, but as a tiny carrier, I had to submit 3 separate LSOG-type forms for a simple port. Just to put it out there, ATIS offers the NGIIF Contact Directories. It only requires an email to register and gives you access to *some* LNP (and repair) contacts: http://www.atis.org/ngiif/contactdir.asp If you're porting via 3rd parties (Carrier does the porting on behalf of you, and your customer) this gets difficult. Porting without access to LNP portals or CSR information can be brutal. In this case, I'd echo Matthew C.'s comments, get a phone bill (or way better, a CSR) from your end-user and submit it along with your LOA. CSRs are king, some carriers just don't offer them at all, others darn-near require them to port out (which, by the way, requiring a CSR to be obtained prior to a port is against the rules) but as you said, you can get incorrect CSRs from LECs with outdated or otherwise silly records. One last thing, I'd really encourage all carriers to publish accurate and updated information in the NGIIF contact directories and publish accurate LNP business rules...and make them easy to find :) LNP is inevitable, might as well make it as easy for the next LEC as you'd want it easy for you. > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Carlos Alvarez <caalvarez at gmail.com> > To: "voiceops at voiceops.org" <voiceops at voiceops.org> > Cc: > Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 20:11:02 +0000 > Subject: [VoiceOps] How to assure LNP accuracy as a small ITSP > Without any access to directly verify phone numbers, we run into quite a > lot of issues and rejections because of erroneous customer info that > doesn't match what the carrier has. What do some of you do to assure the > highest possible accuracy and success? > >

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SMS and MMS to Hosted PBX Offering
by colton.conor＠gmail.com June 24, 2015

June 24, 2015

What is needed to add full SMS (and maybe MMS) to a hosted pbx voice offering? I know some providers, like bandwidth.com and Level3, support SMS on their numbers. Then I have heard that there are some providers that can add SMS to any phone number while another carrier handles the voice side, but I am unsure who these providers are. What providers are truely wholesale providers in the SMS world? Then I assume you need a class 5 softswitch that is able to handle SMS, and distribute the messages to end clients either on their phone, app, or by email. Does anyone do this today? I know ringcentral offers business SMS on all their plans. Is MMS much harder to add the SMS?

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How to assure LNP accuracy as a small ITSP
by caalvarez＠gmail.com June 23, 2015

June 23, 2015

Without any access to directly verify phone numbers, we run into quite a lot of issues and rejections because of erroneous customer info that doesn't match what the carrier has. What do some of you do to assure the highest possible accuracy and success?

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Rogers Wireless (Canada) Network Contact
by ivan.kovacevic＠startelecom.ca June 22, 2015

June 22, 2015

Hi Everyone, Hoping someone is able help here.. Here is what we have run into: We are experiencing an intermittent issue with calls to Rogers Wireless subscribers. We use a number of different wholesale carriers, and the issue is ubiquitous across these carriers and across different interconnects these carriers use to route calls to Rogers Wireless (SS7, PRI/ISDN). Seems to point to a problem on the Rogers Wireless network across Canada. The issue is intermittent enough to probably not generate any subscriber complaints (estimated below 0.1%), but because we have such a large volume of calls, it produces a number of complaints from our clients. The issue is that the caller (our clients) making an outbound call to a Rogers Wireless customer, does not hear the far end once the call is connected. Ingress Audio SS7 trace shows very few packets coming in from the Rogers Network (no packets beyond ringing). Anyone from Rogers Wireless on the list ? or have a contact from someone on the Rogers Wireless carrier/network teams? Appreciate any help. Best Regards, Ivan Kovacevic Vice President, Client Services Star Telecom | www.startelecom.ca | SIP Based Services for Contact Centers | LinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/company/star-telecom-www.startelecom.ca-?trk=top_na…>

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Wholesale Orig Provider with Low DID MRC and LNP Fees
by colton.conor＠gmail.com June 22, 2015

June 22, 2015

What nationwide providers offers DID's at a true wholesale rate? I am looking for something $0.25 per DID and under, and LNP cost of $5 or under per port. Am I asking for too much? I know Verizon has a SIP origination option. What about AT&T, Sprint, or T-Mobile? They seem to be on-net in most all markets due to their cell phone entities.

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Which Softswitch?
by Greg＠thesummitgroup.com.au June 22, 2015

June 22, 2015

Hi All, We are in the process of going down the path of deploying our own Softswitch infrastructure to transition away from purchasing from SIP Trunk providers and moving to getting CTS direct from VoIP Carriers. There seems to be a lot of solutions out on the market and weeding out the "Built on Asterisk" / "Built on Freeswitch" with little or no support vs Commercial Supported solutions is proving to be difficult. There are the "leaders" (or strong marketing companies) such as Broadsoft & Metaswitch - but what I am trying to uncover is what else is great out there that may not have the exposure but is worth looking at. What we are looking for... 1. Class 4 Softswitch 2. Geographical Redundancy (Active - Active) 3. Preferably not built on Freeswitch or Asterisk (Not saying they're bad just tired of OpenSource for Core products) 4. Must have commercial support available (preferably during Australian hours) 5. Windows or Linux doesn't phase us - we have skill set on both platforms. Happy to hear the good, the bad, the ugly, the war stories so that we can get some real world feedback on what's out there, what works, what doesn't and hopefully not make the same mistakes that others have already made. Offlist replies are perfectly fine if you don't wish to discuss on-list. Thanks in advance and enjoy the rest of your weekend! :) Cheers, Greg Greg Lipschitz | Director | The Summit Group E: Greg at thesummitgroup.com.au W: www.thesummitgroup.com.au The Summit Group (Australia) Pty Ltd | P: 1300 049 749 | Level 1, 39 Railway Road, Blackburn VIC 3130 The Summit Group (USA) LLC | P: 321 216 3844 | Suite 561, 40E Main Street, Newmark DE 19711 Postal: P.O. Box 3225, Doncaster East VIC 3109

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