Friday, August 22. 2008VoIP's Come A Long Way Since 1993John Linton VoIP customers for Exetel continue to rapidly increase for as I have no doubt they do for every other ISP who provides either their own or a re-sold VoIP service. I was reviewing what Exetel needed to do last night in terms of improving its VoIP service, not in terms of quality which I can never tell the difference between toll and VoIP via Exetel, but in terms of removing the remaining barriers to a 100% take up by our broadband customers. Of course there will be the never ending 'price pressures' but the two main issues, for us, are PSTN number portability and equipment cost and ease of set up and operation. In 'rummaging' through my memories of my personal involvement with VOIP and 'compression' I can still remember the first demonstration of voice telephony over a standard PSTN telephone line that had been 'boosted' to 2 mbps x 2mbps in Chicago in 1993 with the voice signals (4 concurrent conversations) sharing the same infrastructure as data. It worked very well and within two years similar 'boxes' were becoming avaialble in Australia via an enterprising technology importer. I can remember selling voice services over VPNs between a company's various offices in early 1996 very successfully then using the 'huge' bandwidth of 64 kbps and 120 kbps ISDN services. The quality of the service, mostly, was very good to excellent and the savings, in those days of Telstra/Optus only charges for inter-State calls, paid for the whole VPN ignoring any benefit from the data services component of the solution. Over the next few years the technology continued to improve and the cost of the 'boxes' required to make it work continued to fall until it was no longer some sort of technology 'magic' only affordable by large companies with lots of IT skills and IT budgets to match but was an increasingly common implementation across a wide range of commercial and government organisations. I think the various VoIP equipment providers have been saying that "This year will be the breakthrough year when VoIP will really take off" since 1995. I've heard those statements every year of my working life since that time - but not recently - but I can't remember just when I stopped hearing that statement. The reason is, of course, that VoIP has become the voice system of choice by almost every commercial organistion over the past 2 - 3 years and no decision maker who gives it even cursory thought would use 'standard' voice services. This is't just a 'price consideration' it's because VoIP offers features and flexibilities at very low hardware prices that not even the most expensive of 'standard' PABXs can provide. Today, of course, VoIP is also very commonly used by an increasing percentage of broad band users and, in Exetel's case, it's not uncommon for 40% of our daily broadband activations to also choose to use Exetel for their VoIP service (and as I don't believe Exetel customers are likely to only use Exetel's VoIP service that woud indicate that probably over 60% of broadband users who buy from smaller ISPs such as Exetel are now using VoIP ), as opposed to those people who chose to buy from Telstra/Optus/AAPT who remain wedded to the wire line rip off money. So as I was attempting to work out how we could raise our VOIP user ratio to 100% of our broadband users the two major 'barriers' narrowed down to people wanting to transfer their current PSTN number to their VoIP servce and reducing the cost of the "ATA" or whatever preferred VoIP connectivity device to a point where neither issue was a barrier. I have always understood that transferring a PSTN number to VoIP was possible but the processes were 'clunky', took time and were a support burden and also there was no, 'clunky' or not, process to transfer that number from VoIP back to PSTN. Other ISPs have solved those problems (or costed in the costs of the 'clunkiness') and Exetel will try and overcome the current difficulties in the not too distant future - so that particular 'barrier' will disappear. The cost of the 'ATA' remains an issue as Exetel isn't in a position to give the device away for 'free' a la Telstra, Optus etc on a "24 month contract" or some other contrivance. Fortunately VoIP chipsets and connectors are increasingly being built in to broad band modems so the second issue will also disappear over time. Naked ADSL has significantly increased the 'general' use of VoIP and, subject to it being technically feasible, I would think the take up of HSPA will further increase that take up. So my conclusion was that I could see that over 80% of all Exetel users would be using VoIP by mid 2009 and perhaps as high as 60% would be using Exetel's VOIP - even if we did nothing more than make the 'porting' of the PSTN number available. Pretty good result for effectively doing nothing. I didn't make much progress beyond that point in finding a way of increasing that theoretical percentage from 60% to close to 100% - not being in a position to give anything away to accomplish such a result. It's actually nice to see that VoIP has become as universally used as the die hard pioneers always said it was going to be - they, eventually, have been proven correct and all their reasoning was correct. Trackbacks
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Happy to be a guinea pig for number porting. The only reason I haven't gone "naked" is the wife wants to keep our existing PSTN number.
Comment (1)
You should take a look at what PennyTel/MyNetFone are offering; subsidised ATAs locked to their network when you buy a substantial amount of credit.
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I am a happy Exetel customer of for over 4 years and an Exetel Voip user for a few months now.
For me the good point about Voip is the cost saving (after installation), but since I and my wife are very light phone user, we save only about 33% of our previous calling costs. What are the downsides? 1) I needed a new Voip modem, with other features I had in my previous modem, about $200. With our low usage the modem would only have paid for itself in about 2 years. By that time new technology may make a newer mode desirable. 2) I once lost an ADSL modem in a thunderstorm. So I really should have a spare modem with Voip feature, or else I could be without phone for quite a few days. 3) John, you repeatedly stated there is no difference in voice quality, using it myself now I have to disagree. My relatives often say they have an annoying echo at the other end (and they sometimes call me back to get rid of it), also I would put the voice quality (apart from the echo) at about 80% on average. 4) My modem is specified to accept only the load of one phone (per outlet). This means we are forced to use a cordless to supply multiple phones in a two story house, cordless does not help the voice quality either. I paid extra for a modem with two phone outlets; I use one for the cordless and the other for a normal handset. Unfortunately I could until now not convince the modem to transfer an incoming call from one outlet to the other after I commenced to answer the call. 5) Lastly, my wife would have absolutely no chance to set-up Voip. With what’s available currently, only a technically literate person could set it up, but I am sure this will change over time. Knowing most of the above before I stared installing Voip, why did I still go ahead? Telstra has treated me once really badly, increasing my line rental by $5 out of the blue. I know there are many good people working at Telstra, but their management decisions in last few years are really lousy. John, thanks for your blog. Regards Heinz Comment (1)
I'm a long time VoIP user and have recently started using your service now that I have ADSL2+ and some constructive criticism (I will say quality is no problem and these things may not affect your uptake rate anyway) but I found that the system is behind what specialised VSP's are offering, granted that's their sole offer so they need to offer all the bells and whistles but it would be worth having a closer look at what some of the VSP's are offering in their back end systems, I understand that there are positives and negatives in added complexities and starting out simple is perhaps easier but the advanced call handling that a lot of the competitors offer are great value adds that don't add to the cost but add greatly to the functionality.
When setting up my hardware I also found that the documentation was poor, I ended up getting the required info by going through all the documentation for other models, searching the forums etc and finding the relevant settings for each change needed, some of the documented settings contradict each other in other devices so there was a little trial and error involved, this definitely needs improving if you want to encourage more users to use the service, no point them signing up and then giving up because it's too hard. At the moment I see VoIP as falling into two primary categories, those that want simple to set up and use services that save them money, and the geekier types that want to get more functionality out of their phone systems (while still saving money of course), at the moment the extra functionality isn't there at a systems level so is not as attractive to the geek, and the simplicity is not there to attract those that want to save money, I've seen a lot of people give up on VoIP because they can't get it running so the simplicity is needed All in one and preconfigured devices can help the new user into VoIP but there is still a large user base with existing hardware that are a bigger challenge. Perhaps a discounted preconfigured ATA offer to new users could help attract interest, hardware is available at quite low cost these days when buying volume, maybe passing these savings on is enough to sway some more users to give it a go Comments (4)
One other issue that i know of that has lost a couple of potential voip customers for exetel in Tas has been the lack of Tasmanian DID's and from a quick look around your forum that was an issue for users in other states to (from memory).
Users don't want 2 phones and they dont want there family and friends getting charged STD rates for the privilege of calling them. Also as Rick said the setup of different ATA devices can be a very confusing task, a friend (who also works in IT) and I spent an hour and a half + trying to get his all in one Router/ATA working after he had already given up the week before. There where no guides available for configuring his device on any voip providers site (that we could find) and using guides from the visp in question for configuring other ATA's we found contradictions between guides and ended up having to use the old trial and error method Point being, the best way to sell your voip services is going to be a pre-configured ready to go router/ata device (adsl username, password and voip account pre-configured and ready to roll - surly this would also result in less support calls for users configuring there devices? as well as the mum and dad users just plugging in a phone and seeing how well it works and deciding they like it rather then them not acknowledging the service because of the difficulty and cost involved in setting something up that they are not even sure they will use. Comment (1)
I think that ISPs can not compete with VSPs. I would think that an ISP could make money from VoIP by supplying a good ATA configured for a competative VSP like Pennytel or MyNetFone (australian branch), the continous income comes from being the ISP of choice (The ATA could be locked with the customer making needed adjustments via an 'exetel' account portal which would then set the ATA). I am exclusivly VoIP with Pennytel as the main and MNF as backup also with free US 1800 numbers via a free VSP. My (telstra educated) friends don't quite understand that with 22 plus countries in my local call area, I pay 8c per call, with a DialInDirect number in Melbourne (but it could be elsewhere). I pay $5 pm to Pennytel and $25 pa to VoXaLot.com (which does too much extra to mention now).
In summary for $85 pa I have 2 phone lines, 5 incomming external lines, 3 DIDs (2 free from MNF as a special offer to whirlpooleans), with any missed calls being emailed to me, caller ID set to my liking (a line I own not the line I'm using, and different when calling mobiles), and so much more. Only the specialist service orientated VSPs do this... Comment (1)
Assuming that the voice quality is fine (and this is my experience with Exetel VoIP over my ADSL1 1500/256 service), for me the two differentiators of the perfect VoIP service would be:
1. (As already mentioned) portability of PSTN number to VoIP DID 2. linking the VoIP DID to your address to allow 000 calls. ( this and white pages listing is currently available from Engin) The number one draw back with VoIP is the 'Wife/Family' factor. It is perfectly good enough for me to put up with glitches in the systems (network, router/ATA or handset issues) but the rest of the family expects that the phone will always work like it has for the last 20 years of PSTN calls. Comment (1)
One more thing that might help Exetel sell even more VoIP services is to update the external web site VoIP page.
It does not mention the new DIDs available in Newcastle, Wollongong, Penrith or Geelong. Only current Exetel customers can see that IF they go into the 'Order VoIP Services' page inside the members facilities area. There is no obvious mention of the fact that the first DID is 'free', there is no monthly fee and the only cost is the phone calls themselves. Also it still talks about separate billing cycles taking place on the 16th. Comment (1)
As a long time user of Exetel's VOIP, I have found the quality to be about 95% of a PSTN call.
The only time I had a problem with quality/echo turned out to be hardware related, but I found the exetel support staff to be extremely helpful in sorting it out. The only thing I am missing is a local DID (as ADSL1 is all that is available here & not likely to change), perhaps Exetel could look at providing more local DID's. Comment (1)
And maybe get rid of that $200 (approx? I forgot) deposit while you're at it. (Some goes for your mobile service).
Who wants to pay $200 + equipment costs upfront on a $5 per month service. Additionally you can give free ATAs on ridiciously long contracts. There are electronics suppliers in Hong Kong and China selling them for about $30 each when purchased in sufficient quantities. Comments (5)
Yep, I decided to ask someone (the Hong Kong-ese are generally quite good at acting not pissed when you ask heaps of questions and end up not buying (they call it customer service)), so I DID keep my questions direct and minimal.
http://i36.tinypic.com/16bdj4n.png Screenshot of my conversation. So that turns out to be $23.10 USD per unit shipped. One VoIP customer seems well worth spending about $27 AUD on. I bet they'll go lower if you ask in Chinese (since it's online, Google Translator will do fine). Comments (5)
Last time john mentioned voip on his blog this was mentioned and the reason was that large voip bills could be ran up by scammers etc, signing up for a month then vanishing, with ADSL customers they have all there details already, however I am sure this could be handled with a pre-paid voip service option for non adsl subscribers.
Comment (1)
there are some extra costs involved and it is not so straightforward as that, there are issues of compliance, C-Tick etc for goods to be sold in Australia, that said if done correctly then Exetel could source their own VoIP adapters at a similar wholesale cost and given their previous business models I would guess that they would pass the savings on with just a minimal handling fee added, not sure if that's something they would consider though
Comments (4)
We will need to change carriers to do that which is someting we are reluctant to do.
However if we used two carriers we could make more local DIDs avaialble. Comments (7)
We do need to source a low cost ATA that provides ALL of the required fuctionality.
If anyone can nominate a product and its maker that would be very helpful. Comments (7)
Please let me know the manufacturer/product number and a contact email.
Comments (7)
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/100690939/Linksys_Pap2_Na_VOIP_Phone_Adapter.html
That's the company I talked to. It's exactly the same model as the one I am using at home right now (I got mine off eBay for AUD$34). It has all the features needed, except maybe PSTN fallback. Indeed, it doesn't have a C-Tick, but the PAP2 doesn't connect to the PSTN, so it shouldn't need one. The only additional cost you need to consider is the human resources used in configuring them (putting a URL in the provisioning field, the file at that URL can be automatically generated), and import taxes. Comments (5)
My experiences with VoIP as an agent
1 - Using external ATAs tends to be a bit of a nightmare if the modem doesn't want to play nice with it, so I no longer sell or support these, and have a stack of them on Oztion from failed attempts in 07. I've even replaced, at my own cost, some modem & ATA setups with all-in-ones to keep the customer happy, reselling the modems to non-voip customers on tight budgets. 2 - Early Billion ADSL VoIP modems had issues that were never resolved, so I have replaced them at largely my own cost to the four customers affected. (7402 series after some months became incompatible with Exetel or MyNetFone, They work with Sipme, but Sipme is too unreliable to recommend as a VSP.) 3 - VoIP simply will not work properly if you have multiple kids using the 'net at the same time on ADSL1 - especially if they're posting YouTube videos endlessly; lost one customer that way. (QoS is good, but can't work miracles.) 4 - All in one VoIP Modems are the way to go in almost all cases, with PSTN passthrough. Far less hassle. 5 - All VoIP ATAs are significantly more susceptible to lightning damage than a typical phone or fax machine, often dying in un-obvious ways such as the VoIP refusing to register because the system things the PSTN is in use. Surge supressors on the PSTN and ADSL line (if they're different lines) helps in 80% of cases. Having no PCs attached to the LAN sockets also helps greatly as there's no path to ground through the ethernet cable then. 6 - Installing a VoIP modem for a client on site usually takes about 30-45 mins. 7 - Doing a remote install can take at least 90 minutes with many calls back as the client tries to work out which wire goes where because they have to work out that 1 = handset, Line = phone on filter, ADSL = modem on filter, and the filter has to go in the wall socket, or the extension cord they've got running from another room with the wrong size plug, etc. 8 - Modems that allow remote administration save a lot of time in setting up VoIP. My wholesale provider, CorMain, happily pre-programs the ADSL un/pass before sending to the client but VoIP details aren't available until the ADSL is connected, so pre-programming of VoIP isn't currently an option. The client has to log into the Modem and click COnfiguration - System - Remote Access, although it is possible to permanently open a door into the modem if needed using port forwarding. It also pays to tell the client that the modem is pre-programmed in no uncertain terms lest they try to program it themselves once it arrives.) 9 - PCHelpWare (the vista-compatible upgrade to VNC SC) is very useful - once you tell the client how to type an address in an address bar. (See http://auzzie.net/files/Cool%20Country%20Remote%20Assistance.exe for an example, and http://www.uvnc.com/pchelpware/ to build your own - takes about an hour by the time you set up your own repeater, customise the bitmaps, etc.) 10 - On rare occasions a client might somehow do the wrong thing, end up using Telstra while they think they're using VoIP and get a $500+ phone bill for IDD. Be careful to explain clearly about the different dialtones, and what the Line, 1 and 2 lights on the modem mean - ie put the fear of god in them! 11 - Echo is a fact of life with VoIP. Mostly it can be cancelled out using the modem's volume settings & the handset's volume settings, but in some cases it's not possible to kill completely. The increased latency in calls to mobiles (traversing multiple network types) can be more problematic. 12 - Some handsets, especially Panasonic ones with VE (Voice Enhancer) on them, can have strange local echo problems on some ATAs - that is the client hears their own voice coming back to them in real time as they speak. Curiously, this problem is easily rectified by fitting another ADSL filter to the handset itself, even though the handset is not actually being used on the PSTN at the time. 13 - Don't even think of VoIP if you have a 256K connection. It will seem to work at first, but dies in almost all cases after a few minutes. 14 - A little off topic: A SoftPhone will work well on NextG, and VoIP ATAs that do 3G (such as the Draytek 2910V) also work well with NextG 15 - With some ATAs that do PSTN passthrough, you can have issues with line voltages triggering the unit to drop a PSTN call once a handset is picked up. This is usually fixed by lowering the offhook voltage setting to about 2, but can be a bit of a mystery. Adding filters to the handsets themselves can also help even though it's counter-intuitive. 16 - Clients may accidentally plug the custom RJ12 power cord for their cordless handset into a LAN socket causing interesting results! (Modem doesn't die, but the associated LAN light becomes a permanent disco flasher for the rest of it's life.) To conclude, VoIP is great and I try to sell it wherever possible. Since I can sell the modems for $105 (824RLWs) and that's only $20 dearer than the cheapest ADSL modem with Wireless, I usually manage to convince the customers that it's a worthwhile small extra amount to pay. I don't typically charge for the installation unless it has special requirements, as I have faith that I'll make back most of that cost in commissions over the next year or two. I enjoy saving customers money without sacrificing usefulness, so for me VoIP is an enjoyable thing to install despite it's occasional problems. I hope this info helps you out Cheers, Mike. Comments (2)
Oops - forgot to add that DIDs are great, but often confusing for regional customers. One VoIP customer I have is convinced that her phone must somehow be illegal since it shows up as a Sydney number! (Not a big deal, but it is a support cost none-the-less by they time you've had three phone calls asking for confirmation that she's not doing anything wrong )
I think when I inquired at MNF or one of the other VoIP providers, that the problem with getting regional DIDs is that they have to order them in blocks of 100 - not practical for small towns where I am in Guyra / Armidale, etc. Comments (2)
Thank you very much for taking the time to share that information.
It's very much appreciated. Comments (7)
all electronic goods sold in Australia require C-Tick, not connecting to PSTN can get around A-Tick requirement (there is some debate about this at the moment) but not C-Tick, getting C-Tick isn't too difficult though
There are a lot of these grey market PAP2's around, not sure where they are sourcing them from as heaps of different suppliers have them Comments (4)
My one has a FCC certification notice on it, no idea if it's real or not.
ACMAs website states that there is no fee for applying for the tick, so nothing to lose. The PAP2 doesn't connect to the PSTN line and doesn't perform any electromagnetic communications, so it should be easy to get approval for. I forgot to ask that guy on the live chat, but they should ship with (new) Chinese/Australian (they're basically exactly the same, the prongs are 1 or 2mm different, but will definitely fit) power adapters. They also basically let the customer just plug in and start using it right away once you configure the provisioning on it, and yous can change the configuration remotely should the need arise. Comments (5)
The C-Tick number is easy to get, the device still needs to pass the required tests to comply, CE approval is an acceptable test to comply, in the case of the PAP2 they are available through official channels in Australia so obviously have already passed the required tests so it is partly formality.
The AC adapter will also need C-Tick compliance, standard Chinese plugs are available in the same pin configuration without approvals, approved adapters generally carry an approval number starting with N or Q and five or so digits of the approval number, these approvals are normally held by the manufacturer of the AC adapter though and not specific to each device or wholesaler. The current argument for devices like the PAP2 is that because they don't connect directly to the PSTN network is that A-Tick is not required, the AMCA though argue that because you could call a regular PSTN service from your PAP2 that there is then a connection to the PSTN network and compliance is required, a few suppliers have been pulled up on this already but the application of this requirement has been a bit hit and miss so far, some seemed to have copped the wrath of the AMCA and others have gone unnoticed, perhaps they just haven't got round to the others yet. The majority of these PAP2's coming out of HK seem to be the old model which was discontinued quite a while ago rather than the newer PAP2T, not sure where they have been sourcing so many of the deleted model from but it has been going on for a while Comments (4)
The moment Exetel (or MyNetFone) can grab my existing landline number, is the moment I drop my landline. Very happy with VoIP but I gotta have that old number.
Comment (1)
We expect to have that in place before the end of 2008.
Comments (7)
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