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 Review by kenn10 
UPDATED: 28 days ago
member for 5.2 years, 1977 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Kennesaw,Cobb,GA
 Contract price not specified.
 "Pay as you go. Now with inbound caller-ID. Reliable service. Excellent customer support."
 "No E911. Newly added failover service is expensive."
 "Good, solid provider with a stable, reliable network."
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I've ported my most important numbers to Voicepulse Connect because I know they are rock stable and reliable. I use them as my primary carrier but am forced to have another carrier to handle my potential 911 calls.
I've noted that Voicepulse Connect is experimenting with inbound calling name ID and I hope they roll it out in a fully baked form soon. They really need to work on an E911 solution as well.
I've had very few outages and only occasional routing issues. Their customer support is still the best in the business. You get a person on the phone when you call (but limited hours of operation) and you get a reasonably fast response to tickets you submit electronically.
I recommend them as a top tier provider for IP PBX systems.
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Review by dipswich
UPDATED: 119 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 1668 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Raleigh,Wake,NC
$12 per month
"Good reliability, great customer service"
"Not plug&play VoIP, no E911"
"Create your own telephone company"
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VoicePulse Connect provides termination and origination for "do it yourself" VoIP. It is compatible with SIP and IAX2 devices, and as such lets you create your own calling features and scale you telephone services with your needs and schedule without paying telco prices. VP Connect is geared toward someone who's willing to "own" their telephone service, and it does require some upfront configuration to get it going. Configuring an adapter isn't too great a task, but I'd say it isn't for the plug&play user who wants to plug in a telephone cord and never think about their service again.
I've been with VoicePulse Connect (»connect.voicepulse.com) for 3 years now. Overall, I've been very happy with this service. In three years, I've only noted a few instances of downtime. And, overall, I've experienced good quality service. The caveat is that I'm a light user, so I'm not stress-testing them.
The one element of the service that I don't like is having to fax back a new agreement every time for account changes, such as credit card updates. It's obnoxious, but I guess necessary for their business security. I'd like to see a history develop between the customer and the company to get this step removed from established accounts.
Getting straight to the ratings--
The web site is very good about providing setup instructions, rates, and FAQs. A top rating.
Understanding up front that there is setup involved, detailed instructions on the website, direct support in popular packages (read Trixbox/Asterisk@Home), and both SIP and IAX2 support, VoicePulse Connect is easy to setup. A top rating.
I took a notch off for call quality, as there is the occasional echo or packet loss dropout. I can't squarely put it on VoicePulse, but it's part of telephony over the Internet. Nonetheless, since it doesn't matter where the problem lies, the quality falls below a T1 circuit.
Similarly, I took a notch off for reliability as well. I don't think any real-time application dependant on the Internet could get a true "5." (Update 10/22/07: I'd give a 4.5 (if offered). For quite some time, I've not experienced any outages. If it keeps up like this, I will likely round up to 5 for the official rating.) (Update 12/29/2007: I'm sticking with a 4. I've been noticing some periods where registration fails every once in a while, sometimes causing incoming calls to not arrive. Dangerously close to swinging the pendulum the other way!)
Tech support goes above and beyond. They follow up tickets with a phone call. If there was a "6" on the scale, I'd give it to them.
As for value, I give 4 of 5 for a couple of reasons. First, the incoming number price at $11/mo. is more than some other other providers. Also, the minimum payment is more than some competitors. The USA outbound price is very competitive although it varies by destination.
Update 12/29/2007: International rates went from crap to beautiful. I'm not international-heavy so it doesn't affect me, but this is a very positive development.
Update 8/4/2008: Still very satisfied. I was able to move to their updated SIP platform without any real problems. I did have an issue setting my outgoing caller ID, and tech support knew the workaround (with my old-but-stable version of Asterisk) within seconds.
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Review by cbrain
UPDATED: 238 days ago
member for 8.5 years, 3322 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Silver Spring,Montgomery,MD
$1 per month (month by month)
 about 1 days
"No fixed cost, 4 channels, Asterisk/BYOD, quality, reliability, backup & support, free 800 out ,fax"
"Inbound, additional DID & channel cost is too high."
"Great service! Everyone could use as a backup."
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-------update-4-08-2008---------------------
VP Connect is working well. No problems since signup. VP should be on everyone's short list of VoIP providers.
----------August-2007 ------------------------
I've been testing Voicepulse Connect for outbound calls a little over 2 months now and am favorably impressed. Signup was easy and I immediately received 2 emails. I recall the site says something like they will call within 48 hours to confirm the account but you can call them for a rush. When they didn't call for 5 days, I read the email which asked me to call to confirm. Support answered quickly and my account activated while on the phone. My Trixbox version of Asterisk included a VP setup program. It didn't work. I downloaded the new version from the VP site and it did a complete setup including outbound routes, backup route to 2nd VP server and a security certificate on my server. I think this is a great feature and the only other provider I remember using a certificate is FWD. Everything is working well. I can access the VP web site from within Trixbox. Call quality is great, all functions respond quickly and billing is as expected. Outbound toll free calls are really free, without restrictions and the same quality as other calls. Fax has worked 100% so far.
I should have started using VoicePulse years ago.
*MOnOwall is a major reason for my success with VoIP. If you don't love your router, try it. »m0n0.ch/wall/
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Review by liquidman
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 5 years, 14 visits, last login: 275 days ago
Boynton Beach,Palm Beach,FL
 Business customer
$25 per month
about 1 days
"PBX friendly, low calling fees, good call quality"
"Tech support not 24/7, often long hold times"
"Service is reliable and PBX friendly, service is very economical"
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As relatively new business, lowering operating costs is essential to stay in business. I cancelled two POTs lines through bell south and replaced them with 1, four channel line through Voicepulse Connect and connect it to a free Windows based PBX called 3CX. this really helps lower our monthly phone costs, and the VOIP PBX gives greater flexibility to transfer our calls to our a cell phones or to other extensions which we previously could not do because a standard PBX was out of our price range. I will continue to use Voicepulse in the future for all my PBX needs as well as use it for my clients when deploying VOIP PBX's in their offices.
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 Review by roamer1
Posted: 1.7 years ago
member for 7.6 years, 2772 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Atlanta,Fulton,GA
Contract price not specified.
about 1 days
"Asterisk-friendly by design; good reliabilty and support"
"Inbound service expensive and limited"
"Great for outbound, less so for inbound"
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VoicePulse Connect (not to be confused with VoicePulse's regular service) is VoicePulse's service aimed at the Asterisk community and small business IP-PBX users, and is arguably the first service specifically aimed at that market. Needless to say, between that and VoicePulse's strong support of Asterisk, the quality of the service is top-notch; support is great for the most part, as is reliability.
VoicePulse Connect used to be very expensive across the board; they now offer tiered outbound domestic rates that are some of the lowest around. International rates aren't the greatest, but that's made up for by the fact they often can complete calls when others can't. Their inbound service, OTOH, hasn't changed very much, and is by far the weakest part of their service -- it's still unreasonably expensive and limited (they don't offer a pay-by-the-number/minute option, only "unlimited" local numbers, and concurrent calls on those "unlimited" numbers are limited), toll-free service rates are some of the highest around, and local number availability is uneven at best (good in the East Coast states, most of the South, Michigan, and California but very weak elsewhere.)
For reliable outbound they're a very good choice, but I'd recommend going elsewhere for inbound, if only because of their high prices and service limitations.
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Review by bodosom
Posted: 1.8 years ago
member for 4.7 years, 585 visits, last login: 63 days ago
Middleport,Niagara,NY
Contract price not specified.
about 1 days
"Good prices, LCR support, low latency"
"billing is ambiguous"
"My preferred provider"
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VPc ran a half-price promo so I signed up. They require a faxed agreement plus a phone call so startup isn't instantaneous but if you sign up during support hours it's fairly fast. Certain changes also require a new agreement. VPc doesn't have a flat rate so you might want to use Asterisk which can use their call pricing system for least-cost-routing if you have an alternate provider (I use voipjet). Their international rates are poor which motivates having at least one other provider. Although they bill in six second increments they round all calls up to the nearest penny. I really like the latency and call quality. My experience with their support has been limited but excellent.
I don't use their DID service. I continue to use Broadvoice.
If you stop using their service it's not clear that you get your unused balance back.
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Review by RonV
Posted: 2.2 years ago
member for 4.9 years, 93 visits, last login: 100 days ago
Hoffman Estates,Cook,IL
$11 per month
"Pay only on outbound toll calls, IAX termination for Asterisk, 4 channels, Flexrate API, redundant gateways"
"Can't easily identify rate centers, $20 per channel above 4"
"Great service, options, and pricing"
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Activated the day I ordered the service. Was able to make outbound calls with my Asterisk PBX within minutes of the activation thanks to their sample configuration files preconfigured with my security information. They have really thought the configuration process though. Only one item during activation required that I call their 800 number. This was to provide access to my account via their web site after I faxed the agreement to them.
They support both CODECS I am using for my PBX G.711 uLaw and GSM. They also support many others iLBC, G.729, G.77 aLaw. They also support trunking with IAX protocol to lower the overhead of packet headers with multiple call in the same data stream.
I did find that some of the rate centers I call comes in above some of the fixed rate VIOP termination vendors including the Chicago area. For example if I call across the street the rate center cost per minute came in at 1.9 center a minute where my other VOIP termination comes in at 1.1. But my least cost configuration will always route local calls out the Telco channel. The FlexRate program they have allows me to select the termination based on cost so this doesn't become an issue. Some of my calls go out for as little as .5 cents a minute. Toll Free outbound is also free.
On the negative side I did find that they don’t directly publish rate center info on their site. You have to use the FlexRate API to retrieve the cost center info. But it’s better for the software to make the decision vs. hard coding rates into a rate table I guess.
Keeping the account active is as simple as setting up auto-refilling of your account. You start with $50 dollars in your account and when it drops they will auto-refill to bring it back to $50. Not bad for a pre-paid service.
If you use Asterisk and need multiple inbound/outbound calls they can't be beat. I did find adding another channel above 4 costs $20 dollars per additional channel. If I needed more I would look for another vendor to offset this cost. Also if you want a phone number assigned to your account for inbound calls that would add $11 dollars per month per call.
Below is my "Business Case" for the PBX and choosing VoicePulse:
With a family of seven and two of my kids being teenagers my phone bill was going though the roof. With two lines from a local Telco and a VOIP provider my average monthly phone bill was approaching 250 dollars. When I did the math the taxes alone on these services were over 15% of bill.
Since I knew a bit about telephony, I do call center work for a living; I decided to build an Asterisk PBX with these goals in mind:
· Inbound calls on local Telco with hunting to a local number when busy using existing main number
· Least cost routing of local calls, locals call out Telco the rest out though VOIP based on cost of connection without having to select a line or telset for call type
· Carrier diversity for VOIP
· Support up to 4 concurrent calls at one time
VoicePulse connect was the key to making my cost saving work for this project. In the end I was able to build a PBX that:
· Reduced my local Telco connection to one line using their budget plan
· Added call forward busy to a local number provided by VoicePulse
· VoicePulse provides up to 4 concurrent inbound/outbound calls
· VoicePulse rate lookup API makes it easy to determine if I am to use the flat rate vendor vs. VoicePulse
With the above met my monthly costs for Telco services have dropped to about 60 dollars a month. That is over 70% savings or about 2,000 dollars a year! VoicePulse was the only vendor out there that had the native IAX service and the API for variable cost based routing. They are the best in my book for both service and cost savings.
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Review by webdogpro3
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 4.1 years, 30 visits, last login: 1.9 years ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
Business customer
$22 per month (month by month)
about 1 days
"Excelent for Trixbox and custom solutions"
"None..."
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I have 2 numbers one for my business and one for my home line and routed to a Trixbox server.
I have all the features of many large businesses by using the pbx yet i dont need diferent phones for my home line.
The install is super easy using the new API..
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 Review by rpeAMP
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 8 years, 2351 visits, last login: 5 days ago
San Antonio,Bexar,TX
Business customer
$50 per month
about 1 days
"Inexpensive compared to telco, great customer service, 4 simultaneous channels, quick start-up time"
"No invoices or any documentation for prepaid credit purchases"
"VP Connect is a great VoIP offering and has been inexpensive, stable, and scalable."
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VP Connect is great. For several months, I have had rock-solid service around-the-clock. I was at first wary of going with just one VoIP provider for my business PBX, but these past few months have made me much more comfortable with that initial fear.
Recently, I had a problem where all calls would fail with "all circuits busy" messages. I made a few calls to VP support, and within an hour, everything was working again. What surprised me more than anything was how personable and knowledgable their staff was, as well as their dedication to following up. They e-mailed me and called me to tell me that they had fixed the issue and to ask me if I had any further problems.
It took me an hour or so to research them when I first signed up, but the actual process of signing up was painless. I had to fill out a form and fax it and either call them to confirm or wait for them to call me within the next few days. I called them just a few minutes after I faxed the form, and they already had it confirmed and on file. Easy as could be.
If you're looking for IAX2/SIP termination/origination for use with PBX systems such as Asterisk, VP Connect should be the first provider you look at.
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Review by acrowl
Posted: 2.7 years ago
member for 7.3 years, 657 visits, last login: 6 days ago
Alexandria,Campbell,KY
$14 per month
"CID W/ Name for incoming calls"
"Took a while to ship"
"Great value with ALL telco features and More"
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The only reason I took the time to review this carrier is because how happy I am to date with them. I was fortunate enough to have local access numbers in my community. I decided to not port my old home number so I could have a fresh start with the telemarketers.
The box arrived almost three weeks after the order was placed. They did hit my credit card the day that the order was placed rather than wait till the order shipped. The delay was due to them running out of interface boxes (after 3 calls received the truth). Set up was very simple. I have it running through my house via old telecom wiring. Have a small issue with one o my current Nortel phones. But it seems to be with the phone not the interface box.
I will update my review after I have used the service for a few months.
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