GUIDE: How to set up multiple VoIP providers for the cheapest route

johnniegif

Hi Waqas,


Thanks for your reply. My re-type took longer than intended!


My generic 00|Z. Dial Rule for the DIDLogic Trunk and 00Z. in the DIDLogic Outbound Routing are working fine for international calls. We typically dial EU/US/Canada/Australia, which are relatively cheap with DIDLogic.


Apart from your 00923 Pakistan mobile calls via CallWithUS, I couldn't work out where other international calls would be routed. I wondered if perhaps in the outbound routing, you had explicit exceptions for 00923 in your CallWithUSOutbound routing, moved this to item 0 in your Outbound Routing list, then add my generic 00Z. into your DIDLogicOutbound routing, which is lower down your routing list (say item 2 in the
list) perhaps 00923 calls would go over CallWithUS and all other international calls would match the DIDLogic rule? To be honest, I'm confused about the order in which Outbound Routing rules are processed and am just guessing my logic above works.


As I more or less followed your helpful guide, I now realise that Sipgate is indeed the default incoming route. I still think I need to make a default outbound route for calls which are not processed through the routing logic - say for example a new 0876 number (I don't think there are any!)


I made a few changes to your rules, routing 03XXXXXXXX numbers over DIDLogic as they are cheaper than Sipgate.


I routed 0843X. 0872X. and 0873X. numbers via DIDLogic for the same reason.


As per your routing, 0844 0845 and 0871 numbers go over Sipgate as they are cheapest.


0870 calls go over my landline and my Orchid Dialler deals with these via 18185's indirect access 0808 1703703 number. I appreciate that as you no longer have a landline, you use 18185's London number via your mobile.


084 & 087 numbers can gobble up your VoIP credit at an alarming rate and could quickly reduce the savings. Unless in an emergency, I always use SayNoTo0870.com to try to find an alternative landline of freephone number. I have also used WeQ4U's 0333 543211 "free" service. It is great IF they have an alternative number for your 084/087 NG number as it only costs approximately 0.6p/minute over DIDLogic and if you are
stuck in a looooong queue, you can get WeQ4U to call you back when it is eventually your turn. I have tried to instil this behaviour in my family but the results are hit & miss.


I had toyed with routing all non geographic numbers over WeQ4U but this fails if they don't have an alternative in their database, meaning you can't dial the number you need to!
I don't know if it is possible to set up a menu structure for free on PBXes/elsewhere where all NGNs could be sent to, then the message "Press 1 to try this number with We4U" "Press 2 to hang up and check for an alternative number on SayNoTo0870" "Press 3 if you really must dial this costly number!"


What a fantastic option that would be!


Overall my setup is now stable. The calls have good sound quality with DIDLogic and Sipgate using my basic Gigaset C300H handsets. It is great paying so little for VoIP calls and no landline style con[nection] fees to pay on each call. I'm very happy with the savings we're making by not paying TalkTalk £5 each and every month for their Landline calls package. Our monthly VoIP bill over the last month is less than £1 and many of those calls were for testing the routing. I am particularly pleased that I moved from Talktalk's top Plus TV package, which was going up to £18.50/month on top of line rental - to their unlimited Simplybroadband package at £3.50 a month. I was able to switch at no cost while in mid contract because of their price rises. My broadband speed remains at around 20Mbps over ADSL, just the same as before and I'm making saving every month.


With BT soon being allowed by Ofcom to stop direct access to the likes of 18185 charging its magical 0p/minute with just a 5p connection, people will be forced to use indirect access, costing 1p/minute with 18185 + 5p connection fee, take an inclusive call package from their telecoms provider or tinker with
VoIP. This was one of my reasons for trying out VoIP as I have several elderly relatives and friends who make only a handful of calls via 18185 every month on their BT/Post Office lines.


Thanks again for your help. :T

waqasahmed

johnniegif wrote: »

Hi Waqas,


Thanks for your reply. My re-type took longer than intended!


My generic 00|Z. Dial Rule for the DIDLogic Trunk and 00Z. in the DIDLogic Outbound Routing are working fine for international calls. We typically dial EU/US/Canada/Australia, which are relatively cheap with DIDLogic.


Apart from your 00923 Pakistan mobile calls via CallWithUS, I couldn't work out where other international calls would be routed. I wondered if perhaps in the outbound routing, you had explicit exceptions for 00923 in your CallWithUSOutbound routing, moved this to item 0 in your Outbound Routing list, then add my generic 00Z. into your DIDLogicOutbound routing, which is lower down your routing list (say item 2 in the
list) perhaps 00923 calls would go over CallWithUS and all other international calls would match the DIDLogic rule? To be honest, I'm confused about the order in which Outbound Routing rules are processed and am just guessing my logic above works.

Ah I dont actually have any other international routes otherwise. I specifically put in a dial out for "00923" because that means that no one can dial out any international routes other than Pakistan mobile numbers (Pakistan numbers start with 0092 and mobile start with 00923) If other numbers need to be dialled out, I can add in a route

johnniegif wrote: »

As I more or less followed your helpful guide, I now realise that Sipgate is indeed the default incoming route. I still think I need to make a default outbound route for calls which are not processed through the routing logic - say for example a new 0876 number (I don't think there are any!)

Hmm I think that comes under the 08XXXXXXX rule, via DIDLogic

johnniegif wrote: »

I made a few changes to your rules, routing 03XXXXXXXX numbers over DIDLogic as they are cheaper than Sipgate.


I routed 0843X. 0872X. and 0873X. numbers via DIDLogic for the same reason.


As per your routing, 0844 0845 and 0871 numbers go over Sipgate as they are cheapest.

johnniegif wrote: »

0870 calls go over my landline and my Orchid Dialler deals with these via 18185's indirect access 0808 1703703 number. I appreciate that as you no longer have a landline, you use 18185's London number via your mobile.

Ah I dont think you can buy the Orchid Dialler any more. I did look at that. And yup, pretty much just that tbh. We don't have to have line rental because of Virgin Media broadband

johnniegif wrote: »

084 & 087 numbers can gobble up your VoIP credit at an alarming rate and could quickly reduce the savings. Unless in an emergency, I always use SayNoTo0870.com to try to find an alternative landline of freephone number. I have also used WeQ4U's 0333 543211 "free" service. It is great IF they have an alternative number for your 084/087 NG number as it only costs approximately 0.6p/minute over DIDLogic and if you are
stuck in a looooong queue, you can get WeQ4U to call you back when it is eventually your turn. I have tried to instil this behaviour in my family but the results are hit & miss.

Hmm we very rarely use the landline, unless there really is a need to use it. And yeah I try to do that as well, BUT I know that family members won't always do what I want them to - hence making specific rules and if we do need to use premium rate lines, at least they're a lot cheaper than they used to be. Theres also no 15p connection charge

I think I saw ONE destination which was cheaper via VM, but again we rarely use it, there's a connection fee charge, and we dont need the landline, so it's a bit of a "meh" thing. The only destination 18185 is useful for now, are 0870 numbers, because of the 5p connection charge

johnniegif wrote: »

I had toyed with routing all non geographic numbers over WeQ4U but this fails if they don't have an alternative in their database, meaning you can't dial the number you need to!
I don't know if it is possible to set up a menu structure for free on PBXes/elsewhere where all NGNs could be sent to, then the message "Press 1 to try this number with We4U" "Press 2 to hang up and check for an alternative number on SayNoTo0870" "Press 3 if you really must dial this costly number!"


What a fantastic option that would be!

Unfortunately, I dont think that can happen. Perhaps using FreePBX?

johnniegif wrote: »

Overall my setup is now stable. The calls have good sound quality with DIDLogic and Sipgate using my basic Gigaset C300H handsets. It is great paying so little for VoIP calls and no landline style con[nection] fees to pay on each call. I'm very happy with the savings we're making by not paying TalkTalk £5 each and every month for their Landline calls package. Our monthly VoIP bill over the last month is less than £1 and many of those calls were for testing the routing. I am particularly pleased that I moved from Talktalk's top Plus TV package, which was going up to £18.50/month on top of line rental - to their unlimited Simplybroadband package at £3.50 a month. I was able to switch at no cost while in mid contract because of their price rises. My broadband speed remains at around 20Mbps over ADSL, just the same as before and I'm making saving every month.


With BT soon being allowed by Ofcom to stop direct access to the likes of 18185 charging its magical 0p/minute with just a 5p connection, people will be forced to use indirect access, costing 1p/minute with 18185 + 5p connection fee, take an inclusive call package from their telecoms provider or tinker with
VoIP. This was one of my reasons for trying out VoIP as I have several elderly relatives and friends who make only a handful of calls via 18185 every month on their BT/Post Office lines.


Thanks again for your help. :T

Hmm AND it's pretty quick to the UK location where DIDLogic have some servers co located in the UK (Telecity?)

I get a ping response of 17ms which is FANTASTIC

(Doing a ping of "ping lon01.media.uk.didlogic.net" )

To put that in to context, pinging voice.google.com gets me an average response time of around 15ms

I think up to 150ms is "acceptable" so really 17ms is bloody amazing, for a company much smaller than Google

Skoorb

Although this thread is a few months old I'm just posting to say thank you for this; a quick guide as to how to get a VoIP setup and which providers are decent were exactly what I was looking for and rather hard to find!

waqasahmed

Skoorb wrote: »

Although this thread is a few months old I'm just posting to say thank you for this; a quick guide as to how to get a VoIP setup and which providers are decent were exactly what I was looking for and rather hard to find!

Hey!

Sorry for the late reply. Been somewhat busy

And no worries! Tbh, I first made this guide, because I got really quite annoyed that there was very little information on the internet about pbxes.com specifically. There was some stuff about PBX's, and rules for Asterisk, but there was barely any thing for this system

And if you want support from the company that is pbxes.com, you have to pay €1/min, which can get seriously expensive

In a way, it sorta helps me as well ie: for reference