DID Blocks from an IAX provider

Asterisk Asterisk General
1

Howdy –

I’m looking to put together my first asterisk solution (I think I’m actually going to use trixbox). I have it setup and running with some IVR’s and queues, using teliax.com and it seems to work well so far!

However, coming from a traditional leased line world, DID’s are cheap. A block of 100 DID’s usually runs less than $50/month from most telco’s… whereas DID’s seem to cost $1-$10 per DID in the VOIP world… I would like to get a block of at least 50 (100 would be nice), so that each user can have their own DID which matches their extension.

Does anyone know of an enterprise class IAX provider which will assign me a block of DID’s at a fair price?

Thanks!

2

The difference is that in the PRI world you already have the channels and when you buy the DID’s it uses your channels, but in the voip world you are using the voip providers channels and everytime you recieve a call you use a 23rd of their t1 therefore they can’t give you a pack of 100 DID’s for $5-$50 because you will just use their entire PRI for $5 a month, therefore you pay more, and most companys that provide unlimited incoming calls will limit it to 2 channels per DID.

Now about a fair price I use www.les.net its a small company it seems like its a 2 man operation Lesley and Jason they where very helpfull when I had problems (porting my number from Verizon) and their price is very decent at $4 a month for unlimited calls, and they have a pretty decent variety of local numbers.

However I did find once a company that sells a virtual PRI, the way it works is you pay a monthly fee (I dont remember exactly the price but I think it was around $200) and you get 23 channels and then you can buy DID’s in bulk for approx the same amount as you would pay on a real PRI, so basically its like owning a T1 without the hardware, go ahead and google “virtual pri” and after some digging around you should find a few companies offering this service.

3

It seems that most folks don’t advertise it, but its generally available…

I’ve been calling around to a few providers… below are some notes I’ve started taking…
Notes: This is all from my scribbly hand writing as I was talking to these guys, please double check my facts and figures if it matters for your business :smile: I am located in San Francisco Bay Area, so I was looking for servers close to me.

Teliax - $2.50 per Virtual DID in small quantities. $1/DID in quantity 200. a Virtual DID points to an existing DID/Channel bank. Channels are unlimited in their pay as you go plan. $.02/minute domestic USA $.029/minute Toll free incoming. Service includes Failing over to Land Line, but I seem to have found some issues with it, so it may not work for our situation? More testing is needed.

Servers closest to me: voip-co3.teliax.com, and a beta California server (what I’m interested in) at voip-ca1.teliax.com

Netlogic - They do not offer bulk DID’s at the moment, but they are in the process (1-3 months). My interpretation of my phone call about their future plans (ie: not binding, don’t hold anyone to it): Cost will be roughly $1/DID even in relatively small quantities (50 or so). You will either be able to pay per DID per minute rates, or per channel rates. Per channel rates would be roughly $20/channel currently their rates are $0.015 outbound. $.01 inbound.

At the moment these guys seem to have the most reliable ping times (see the next post for more on this)

Servers closest to me: scooter.netlogic.net (200 paul, san francisco, using level3)

Junction Networks:

$2/DID/Month
Unlimited channels
2.9c per minute
3.9c per minute toll free
Manual failover to land line - few dollars per month (exact amount not known by sales agent)
Auto Failover to land line: $20/month

They’re in New york, colocated at 60 Hudson.

Nearest server to me: sip.jnct.net (This doesn’t resolve?? anyone know their actual server name or IP?)

Vitelity:
40 cents per DID
$.009 incoming
$.0139 outgoing

Failover is charged per minute (not sure on rate)
Servers are located in colorado: sip2.vitelity.net sip3.vitelity.net

Voicepulse:

Their 1800 number folks dont’ handle large DID orders, and referred me to biz dev. Waiting to hear back from them (I just emailed them yesterday, its not a problem that I’m waiting).

Their servers are in Manhattan: connect01.voicepulse.com

They are bringing up a server in California, at a TBA date in the somewhat near future (1-4 months)

4

I’ve removed all the graphs from this post, and moved them to their own thread over here: forums.digium.com/viewtopic.php?p=52243#52243

5

No. There is no connection between the number of DID numbers I am given and the number of voice channels I am allowed to use simultaneously. These can be priced separately and provisioned separately (just as you noted they can and do already limit how many calls I can receive with their current services).

In the circuit-switched voice world, I can purchase a single DID trunk, I do not need to purchase a PRI to do this (PRI and partial PRI is probably the most common way to provision DID trunks these days, but not the only one). In the VoIP world, most companies seem to model their service on Centrex, an expensive charge per phone number, not DID trunks.

I would also be interested in the ability to purchase 2-4 VoIP trunks and blocks of phone numbers at close to the $0.10 that I would pay my circuit switched ILEC/CLEC for those DIDs).

Bandwidth.com is the only vendor I have found that provides this service along with free incoming calls (and as it turns out, free outgoing local calls). The do have a 5 channel minimum as I recall ($25 a channel I think).

/carmi

6

youre right that there is no connection of the amount of did’s you get and the amount of channels you get, but most voip providors that give you unlimited incoming will give you 2 channels, and the reason they give 2 is that you should be able to get call waiting, but lots of providers (ie voxbone etc) will sell you extra channels for between $10-$25, and what your saying about bandwith thats exactly what I was saying about virtual pri’s, but I assume that the original poster who was looking for a pack of did’s was not looking to get 100 did’s and place them on only 4-5 channels because it would always be circuit busy, he was just wondering why they charged him so much for each did, and I explained to him that all the DID providers that he was talking about were giving him 2 channels included in the monthly price for the DID’s.

The providers that do provide unlimited channels charge you per minute, and its not worth for most companies.