mmtel dialer

Nicholas

dag wrote:

If the makers of Orchid and CW Client go bankrupt, they will pull the plug on the machines that host their central servers, which would render your dialer useless.

I e-mailed Orchid on this point before I bought their V4 dialler. I received a prompt reply saying it is fully programmable from your phone, however I cannot find any online instructions about this. I suspect that if Orchid ever did go under, or decided to charge a nice little fee for using their software, the dialler would be almost useless for all but very basic programming.

BTW, does anyone know how long Orchid have been trading for?

gavinp

If anyone is that paranoid about Orchid knowing which companies you use to route your phone calls to, they also do a V2 dialler which doesn't store any information externally and is programmed using the telephone keypad:

http://www.orchid-electronics.com/Diallers/v2.htm

The V4 dialler can also be programmed using a telephone keypad but Orchid provide the software and facilities to do this free to make the programming easier. If Orchid did ever withdraw the software facility for whatever reason (and there is certainly no reason to believe they would), you could still amend your programming using the phone keypad.

I have no connection with Orchid apart from purchasing a couple of V4 diallers from them. Their service and support has been flawless in my experience.

I find it strange that a potential customer highlights "privacy and security issues" for a £13.50 box while pushing a rival product?

Maybe I'm being paranoid as well - perhaps with a bit more reason.

Thanks

Gavin

tweeter

Hi peeps,
You program your mmtel dialer from your modem, you don't connect to mmtel at all.

dag_2

I e-mailed Orchid on this point before I bought their V4 dialler. I received a prompt reply saying it is fully programmable from your phone, however I cannot find any online instructions about this.

Interesting - thanks. When you bought the V4 dialer, did it include instructions on how to do this?

they also do a V2 dialler which doesn't store any information externally and is programmed using the telephone keypad

True, but you can't put as many routes in.

I find it strange that a potential customer highlights "privacy and security issues" for a £13.50 box while pushing a rival product?

Maybe I'm being paranoid as well - perhaps with a bit more reason.

Not at all - I find it strange that Orchid say that their unit is fully programmable from the telephone, yet don't explain exactly how to do it.

I guess you could figure it out just by pressing random buttons and seeing what happens - but in order to do that, you'd need your own means of picking up and decoding DTMF codes generated by the Orchid dialer.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm keen to pick up a dialer or PBX system to do this stuff, but I'm wary of depending totally on Windows software, or the availability of an external service, to be able to configure the thing in the way I want it.

So far it seems that the V2 can't be configured how I want it at all, the V4 can but not without proprietary software and external service availability. The MMTel dialer seems to be the only one that is fully configurable straight out of the box, by using only a telephone keypad. And it costs only £19.95.

I know that they charge another £15 for the software to configure it - however, if it's completely configurable from the telephone keypad, then I can write my own software to program it for free.

But I'll check this. Although the web site says that all 12 routes can be configured from the telephone keypad - which is better than V4 - it implies you need the software to set speed-dials or blocks. And I'm not sure I'm prepared to shell out £35-odd for that yet, especially if the Orchid can do the same thing cheaper.

bbb_uk

I didn't know the Orchid could be programmed via telephone keypad. It would appear that both can be done via telephone keypad (or some other similiar way) but I'm guessing then it would only be simple programming and not possibly complicated stuff like routing depending on type of call and time of day as well as call barring and number translation, etc. That could be why software is needed to make this easier for the end user. Could you imagine selling a product that could do all this but could only be setup via very long and complicated codes, etc via the telephone keypad. I can imagine them not selling that many except to those that had the patience to sit there for ages.

tweeter

dag, bbb_uk
pm me so I can zip you programme gratis.

orchid_support

Hi All,
I would just like to clear a few things up.....
1. The V4 is fully manually programmeable, including call barr and time of day, basically anything you can do with CW Client you can do with a phone plugged in to the dialler. Why do we encourage people to use CW Client? That is why we give it away FREE, it is easier to programme whith a GUI, and it saves you having to make one, time is money. We used to have the codes in the back of a 20 odd page user guide, customers were getting confused, so we tried to simplify the process by looking at what the majority of our customers wanted.
2. Digit matches. The dialler can be configured to use any digits you want, you could make rules for 00, 001, 002, 003, 004 all over separate carriers, it doesnt say the dialler cannot do this anywhere.
3. Calling home. Your dialler NEVER needs to CALL HOME if you manually programme it, therefore even if Orchid goes BUST you will still be able to use your dialler for as long as you wish, this dialler will not be made REDUNDANT, as i have said you can programme EVERYTHING MANUALLY.
4. Orchid have no interest in your phone habits, and with the greatest respect i dont think anybody else would be either, but you could apply the data arguement to any company were you buy something and leave any personal details at all, even your telephone bill!!!!! 18866 have far more personal details than we do, and dont think it is a deciding factor in buying a product or not. DDOS attacks could happen to anybody that hosts anything on the internet, what if your ISP suffers a DDOS, or your bank? I think this might be clutching at straws a bit. It would appear that MMtel do a bit more with your information than we do......

Dag you say that the V2 cant be configured how you want it at all and the V4 can but not without software or external service ability.... Have you ever contacted Orchid and asked them this? You also begin this thread by telling everyone that there is an MMtel dialler which routes all calls to 18866, is this not what the V2 does? As someone pointed out earlier this comes down to a matter of choice, but before making an informed choice you need all the facts, if anyone has any questions regarding manual programming just contact us, i think you will see that we have a good reputation for our level of support, while work groups like this provide a great amount of information, sometimes it is better to ask the people that make things how they work before making assumptions based on what you have read.

mrnomoneybags

funny enough i recived a PM from somebody (cant remember who) telling me about the mmtel dialer ........ its more expensive and they charge for the software ........ i dont think so.

Ill stick with orchid all the way

Heinz

If anyone had any doubts about the level of support Orchid provides, they certainly shouldn't after reading THE ABOVE POST.

johnthomas_2

I have had an Orchid dialler for several months now, it has saved me a fortune the tech support i have received has been very helpful and punctual, some of the people in here seem a bit paranoid about what is a £15 product that prefixes telephone calls, i have not found a camera in mine yet, although i do hear my bins rattle at night, maybe they have "sold me" to some big marketing company, who are desparate to find out who i make my calls through. As we are all "moneysavers" and pay considerably less for our phone calls, who is going to pay for a list of customers that dont spend money!!! I think you have been watching too much Big Brother, mind you Dag, for a person that is scared of having his details passed on to others, how are you going to sign up with 18866 or 1899? You have to give your credit card details!!!! They don't allow faceless cash customers, as far as i know, although i guess you could register as "X" and send them a brown envelope once a month.