[VoiceOps] No-commit international calling

Thu Jul 13 23:34:41 EDT 2023

Hi Ross -

I've used Voxbeam forever and they're pretty good, although not glitch-free
with the current state of international calling as other folk have already
highlighted.  Their payment verification is to protect against fraud, which
is also rife in the international calling sector.

We just pay them by bank transfer, for which they don't require copies of
all fingerprints etc.

Cheers --

Dave

On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 3:55 AM Ross Tajvar via VoiceOps <
voiceops at voiceops.org> wrote:

> Thanks all for the replies.
>
> Jay - I'm looking for "no-commit" for a reason :) I use this for my own
> calls (personal and business) and spend maybe $20 in a busy month
> (including DIDs). If your retail offering includes a SIP product, though,
> I'm open to it. A higher per-minute rate (within reason) is no object given
> my low volume.
>
> Dovid - I took a look at the vendors you suggested. Net2Phone appears to
> require filling out a "contact us" form, which suggests I would need to
> participate in a sales process in which I'm quite disinterested. Voxbeam
> let me make an account right away, but has extremely onerous verification
> requirements for adding payment methods:
>
> > Credit Card - Payments will be accepted up to $500 in any 24 hour
> period. We require a copy of the latest card statement, copies of the front
> and back of the card (blanking out the middle 8 digits) and Government
> issued photo ID. This needs to be uploaded for each new card you would like
> to use on the Verification Documents Page. A charge of 2.5% will be
> deducted from payments.
>
> > Paypal Express - No limit to the amount we will accept on condition that
> account is FULLY VERIFIED & ADDRESS CONFIRMED. There is a charge of 2.5%
> fee. We require a government issued photo ID and utility bill (for example,
> gas bill, electricity bill, cable bill). This needs to be uploaded for each
> new paypal account you would like to use on the Verification Documents Page
>
> Why anyone would consider it acceptable to provide a CC statement to a
> vendor is beyond me...
>
> I also have the option to make a bank payment, but 1) that takes 3-5 days,
> 2) I'm not keen on giving my bank details to a company I just met, and 3) I
> don't even know how to initiate an ACH transfer from my side.
>
> I guess I'll give voip.ms a shot - there's been no nonsense with them.
>
> -Ross
>
> On Thu, Jul 13, 2023 at 6:46 PM jay binks <jaybinks at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ill Totally agree with Dovid here,
>>
>> It's a huge mess, and a massive PITA, and this kind of thing have
>> the possibility be the demise of the voice industry.  (because it will
>> force more traffic to OTT communications)
>>
>> I built and operate a Tier 1 in Australia, and I know that as a result of
>> Scam / Spam call regulation, the whole CLI presentation thing is just all
>> over the shop.
>>
>> 1 Carrier has started with an automated IVR ( "Press 1 to connect your
>> call" ) if they dont like your traffic, in an attempt to cut down on
>> robocall's to their customers.
>> Another has just notified that they are now not accepting international
>> CLI to their customers, and / or are restricting it heavily on some paths.
>>
>> It's gotten SO bad infact, that part of me wishes for something like
>> STIR/SHAKEN  just so we have an industry wide standard, rather than the
>> wild west we have right now.
>>
>> If you have good / clean traffic to Australia, you can hit me up.
>> If it's only a few hundred $$ per month, I'm going to direct you to our
>> retail offering, sorry.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 14 Jul 2023 at 07:16, Dovid Bender via VoiceOps <
>> voiceops at voiceops.org> wrote:
>>
>>> TLDR; Global routing is getting messier and messier. Get a few carriers
>>> in route for intl calls. Anything other than a BUSY should fail to the next
>>> carrier in route.
>>>
>>> Global routing has been a cluster **** as of lately. Two issues have
>>> risen as of late. The first is countries cracking down on spam traffic.
>>> Lots of countries (Australia, UK etc.) are forcing carriers to watch the
>>> traffic coming in a lot closer. The second is the rates. A few years back
>>> the EEA put in regulation that inter EEA calls need to be charged the same
>>> low rates. The carriers started a two tier billing system. If the CLI was
>>> in the EEA it was the lower rate and if the CLI was non EEA it was billed
>>> at a higher rate, there were some exceptions. This set off a chain
>>> reaction. South Africa was next. Wholesale was about 0.025 per minute for
>>> Mobile. Overnight inter SA calls were charged the same while calls from
>>> outside SA were charged at 0.16 per minute. In SA they were more strict and
>>> spoofing CLI didn't help. It took about 1-2 years for the routes to
>>> stabilize. Tier1 carriers had GSM gateways in route (we proved this by
>>> using iTest). Carrier started spoofing CLI to EEA countries with a local
>>> number (e.g. if they called Germany they made up a number that started with
>>> 49). This led the German carriers to charge a higher rate if calls to
>>> Germany came with a local CLI (it's still cheaper if the CLI is from
>>> another EEA Country). The Israeli carriers recently started charging an
>>> extra 0.10 per minute if the calls come from out  of the country. This led
>>> the UK carriers to raise their rates. Where the CLI to UK calls is Israeli,
>>> they started  charging 0.30 per minute. Currently BICS has more route
>>> exceptions for pricing than they do have actual routes.  There is a lot
>>> more here and I can talk for hours on the subject.
>>>
>>> Carriers want to advertise/offer the best route to win your business. So
>>> say Cyprus cost 0.10 per minute for non EEA CLI, if a carrier has a GSM
>>> gateway option that costs them 0.02 per minute they will issue you a rate
>>> of say 0.3 per minute and if the GW is busy simply reject your calls. This
>>> they they win whatever traffic you have going to them based on your A-Z
>>> routing. I would tell you to look at:
>>> Voxbeam
>>> IDT (Net2Phone) - Ask them for their platinum rate deck, I would not go
>>> any lower.
>>>
>>> My 9-5 is the equiv of a CLEC in Cyprus and our "specialty" is getting
>>> good quality routes. If the others don't work free to email me off list and
>>> I can try to help out.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 13, 2023 at 3:34 PM Ross Tajvar via VoiceOps <
>>> voiceops at voiceops.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I have an asterisk PBX for personal/business use. I use Flowroute for
>>>> both origination and termination.
>>>>
>>>> Recently I've started needing to make some international calls
>>>> (specifically mostly to the UK, but also some other places in Europe and
>>>> Australia). There've been a few numbers where completion is very
>>>> hit-or-miss, and a few that seem not to work at all (in both cases I get a
>>>> SIP 500 back from the carrier).
>>>>
>>>> I'm wondering if this is a carrier issue - maybe Flowroute just has
>>>> low-quality routes to some destinations? I'd like to try other carriers,
>>>> and ideally keep a second one as a fallback, but I'm not sure who's out
>>>> there with no commit.
>>>>
>>>> Looks like voip.ms is one option. Does anyone have any other
>>>> suggestions?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Ross
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> VoiceOps mailing list
>>>> VoiceOps at voiceops.org
>>>> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> VoiceOps at voiceops.org
>>> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sincerely
>>
>> Jay
>>
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