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Review by shighfield 
Posted: 133 days ago
member for 158 days, 164 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 undisclosed location
 Contract price not specified.
 "Features Qualtiy Support Price"
 "Lack of "Package deal""
 "Great A+ VOIP, HIGHLY recomend this company!"
| |
I was a Vonage customer and had a lot of issues with call quality and fast busy signals when people tried to call me so gave up on the whole VOIP for a while.
Decided to try voip.ms a month ago as I liked their prices for a Toronto DID and the unlimited incoming feature. The call quality has been as clear as my Bell line was. There is No echo, no dropped calls, no one has said they could not get through to me, the features on their website make it so I didn't even need to build an Asterisk box.
I have used their "Live Support" twice, and both times the support person knew how to solve my problem (And even had settings for an old Grandstream VOIP phone I have that is not listed as a supported device). The BYOD aspect of the company is also great as I can make sure I'm using the device I want to, and when I travel the softphone works just great on my laptop!
I now have 5 DID's from voip.ms for various areas I do business in, and use their IVR to answer all lines and foward to either my bell line, cell phone, or normal phone.
Porting:
This was the fastest I have ever seen. I requested the port on their website, that day I recieved an email that everything looked good and the request had been sent off. Within 1 week (6 days to be exact) my bell canada number was activated at voip.ms.
The bad:
I don't really consider it a bad thing that there is no "Package Deals" but I figure I shoudl list it here, voip.ms is a pay as you go provider and for me that works out better then the flat rate companies as I use the service for when I work from home. Much of the year I work from outside the house, so I don't get my money's worth from a flat fee provider.
Lack of "local" calling could also be a down fall for some, I have a vbuzzer.com account I use for Toronto calling if my wife or kids are on the Bell line.
All in all I highly recomend voip.ms.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of voip.ms |
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Review by Darkev
UPDATED: 136 days ago
member for 344 days, 32 visits, last login: 34 days ago
Gatineau,QC
$12 per month (month by month)
 about 1 days
"BYOD, Ability to switch servers, CNAM, good audio quality"
"No unlimited outgoing call plan within Canada/US, charge for CNAM, bill in US funds only, CallFwd expensive"
"If the bad points are not a problem to you, then you'll be fine. My main priorities are BYOD, Quality, and Caller ID Name"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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13-JUL-2009:
Over the past month I have found the reliability much better. Call quality even on the value route has improved. There's been no loss of service over the month.
Recently new caller id filtering has been introduced.
The prices for Canadian customers has finally went down. I'm becoming more and more pleased with VoIP.ms. I hope that they continue to improve their system. An unlimited outgoing plan or at least a 3500 minute outgoing plan on the premium route would be excellent.
I've increased by rating of voip.ms due to the smart changes they've made to their system.
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01-JUN-2009:
The system seems to be up and running again today. Calls to Canada are now working.
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31-MAY-2009:
Calls to Canadian numbers are failing. There is a long wait, and then a re-order tone. Calls to places in the US are working as normal. Canadian calling has been out of service for about 2 hours, and is still not working at 11:17 PM eastern time.
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ORIGINAL POST:
I've tried several VoIP providers over the past 5 years. Vonage, Primus TBB, VoipYourLife, CallCentric, Acanac, and now voip.ms. Every one of these companies has flaws. It seems features one company has, the other one doesn't. There is no one company that has everything, which is unfortunate. With IP phones and cool digital cordless phones becoming more and more prevalent, it seems odd that any company would not allow BYOD. Voip.ms does allow BYOD and the call quality is great. I did contact support regarding a technical issue with voip.ms and did not find that the support person at the time knew too much about voip. However, I've contacted them recently and they were much better at answering my question even if a little slow at replying. I find email provides better support than the online "live" help that they offer. I signed up online and received my new number very quickly. I have not ported any numbers through voip.ms so I cannot rate how long it takes them to port.
What I like most about voip.ms is the call quality. Overall the quality of the incoming and outgoing calls is very good. In fact, it's almost impossible to detect whether I'm speaking on a regular POTS line or through VoIP. When I first joined Caller ID Name was not working very good, but over the past couple of months they did a great job at getting CNAM working properly. I'm disappointed that they charge for CNAM. I'm also disappointed that they don't offer an unlimited plan. My calling pattern is not extensive, but it's not comfortable using a phone to call long distance or local and having to worry about how much time you are on the line. I feel like I'm being nickeled and dimed to death when companies charge ongoing fees for this, that, and the other thing. I'd rather pay a higher monthly fee and not have to deal with it. Call Forwarding is another feature where you are billed per minute fees on both the incoming and outgoing traffic. Call Forwarding cannot be activated by dialing *72. You must go to the website to activate this feature.
It's not the best voip company I've ever come across, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will improve their billing along with their features to fix these things up.
Followup comments:  
Fallinover
@communitare.de
| voip.ms review - no callerid block? You said they have no callerid block. In fact, they have the most flexible, in-depth processing of caller ids that I know of. If you want a particular caller id blocked, you can hang up on the incoming call from that caller id, require that an extension be entered, send it an out-of-service message, forward it anywhere, etc. | |
| | | MartinM
join:2008-07-21
Montreal, QC | .. We have had no Canada Failures on that date, not sure where you got that.
Also, *67 is a feature from your device, we've not had any broken features nor did we fix anything. | |
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Review by ckole
Posted: 139 days ago
member for 136 days, 12 visits, last login: 116 days ago
Chandler,Maricopa,AZ
Contract price not specified.
"Affordable, good quality, good tech support"
"online documentation could be better a general knowledge base would be great"
"Great for occaisonal voip users and potentially for full time use"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I think VOIP.ms is a great service. I am using just for international travel. If I wasn't using PowerPhone and home and under contract I would consider making the switch. Documentation could be better. Otherwise the clean interface is great and tech support very helpful. Best rates if you need occasional voip service while traveling abroad. I am using it on my iPhone with sipPhone ($6.99) I have yet to configure an ATA device but tech support sent me complete instructions to reprogram my Grandstream 286 box. Works fine with X-lite softphone and a few others. Keep up the great service and NEVER make your web site too flashy. You will attract the wrong kind of customers.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of voip.ms |
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Review by handreach
Posted: 181 days ago
member for 5 years, 1 visits, last login: 181 days ago
Burbank,Los Angeles,CA
Contract price not specified.
"cheap"
"unstable quality"
"not reliable"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
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(ratings below consensus)
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I've tried voip.ms for a month or so at the end of last year. I feel their quality is good enough so I transferred my AT&T number to them. But I am regretting now because the quality has been deteriorating and unstable during the last couple of months. There are good calls, but bad calls are as often. It happened to both local and international numbers.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of voip.ms |
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 Review by espaeth
UPDATED: 184 days ago
member for 8.6 years, 2038 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Minneapolis,Hennepin,MN
$1 per month
about 1 days
"1.05c/min termination to US, supports dynamic CID via SIP, many servers, 6 sec billing"
"All calls are proxied through their servers, Tollfree calls are not free, mixed call quality"
"Good, but not great."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Update 5/27/09: I've downgraded my rating for voip.ms to reflect my usage of their service now. A few months back I finally gave up on using them for termination -- DTMF issues on the value route pushed me to premium, and some quality issues on the premium route made me finally throw in the towel. While on the surface it looks like a good thing they offer servers all over the place, all those servers are just proxying the calls to PTSN gateways that live in yet another location; even if you have great connectivity to one of their servers, the connectivity to the upstream carrier may be problematic. In an effort to use up my balance, I recently experimented with using them for International termination because of their favorable pricing, but they appear to have dropped support for a UK prefix I call regularly so they're out for that. My last option for burning up my balance was to get a $0.99/mo PAYG DID from them -- that actually seems to work quite well, and should be an acceptable way to burn down the balance.
I should be up front that I'm rather picky when it comes to my VoIP providers. Voip.ms isn't bad, but they're not great either. Right now I get cheaper (1c/min flat) calls through grnVoIP and FlowRoute that hand off the RTP streams directly to the carriers, so they've taken over as my primary US48 termination options. So far with both of those providers I have had no DTMF issues, and call quality has been consistently great.
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Update 11/19/08: Things continue to be good overall with voip.ms, but in the last couple weeks the value route has become problematic. DTMF currently works on the premium US route, but not the value route. Not a huge deal since 1.25c/min is still dirt cheap. They're still my first choice for outbound US termination, and my connectivity to the New York server continues to be stable.
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I've only been a voip.ms customer for about 2 weeks now, so read this review with appropriate skepticism based on that.
I've been shopping for different termination providers since I started leaving ViaTalk in June. I've used CallCentric, VoiceStick, VTWhite, Les.Net, CallWithUs, and VoicePulse over the last several weeks in trying to find a "best fit" mix of services to use with my home Asterisk installation.
I have to admit what drew me in to Voip.ms is their 1.05c/min value termination pricing. What I've found now that I started using the service is a great termination offering that has been reliable for the last couple weeks and has produced consistently high audio quality on all outbound calls. I'm not sure what additional benefits the 1.25c/min premium US route brings -- I've had no issues with CID delivery and I can't imagine the call quality could be any better than my calls through the value route. Previously CallWithUs had been my choice for low cost termination, but with Voip.ms I've been seeing the big advantages that 6 second billing can have with my calling habits on a PAYG plan. Having quite a bit of experience in the US hosting market, I've also noticed that Voip.ms places their servers with respected hosting providers like Voxel, iWeb, and ThePlanet.
Over the last couple weeks I've had the opportunity of making just over 10 hours of calls through the service, and I couldn't be happier with the results. I put Voip.ms into my top position for TollFree outgoing last week when I started getting poor audio quality through VoicePulse, and the audio quality was perfect for several hours of being on a problem resolution conference bridge for work. The downside is tollfree calls are billed out at 0.25c/min -- it's not going to break the bank even on long calls, but it's still not free.
Overall, as a termination provider I would have no hesitation in recommending that you add Voip.ms to your outbound dialplan.
Followup comments:
Mango2
@shawcable.net | DTMF in Value Mode I was able to make DTMF work in Value Mode by setting the DTMF Mode to Info. Hope this helps someone! | |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN | Re: DTMF in Value Mode This was resolved a few days ago after a ticket was opened with support. | |
| MartinM
join:2008-07-21
Montreal, QC
| Information I would like to add that we're not "Just proxying" otherwise we would have servers all over the place. Each location is has been selected thoroughly in regard to the Tier-1 routes from one data center to another. For example, if you have a DID in UK1 and use the US3 Server, the DID is connected to our provider's pop in Los Angeles and then connected to the US3 Server for delivery to customer. Our uplinks with our carriers/providers is much stable than what can be achieved from a DSL or Cable Connection. That is the advantage of using a server close to your location.
The myth that the Direct Peering with the Carrier of the RTP will improve your quality is not true. While it could, in theory, reduce your latency if the carrier is closer to your location, in most cases it is not. The other reason the majority of VoIP providers will not re-invite their RTP Stream to you, is that it causes a lot of issues with users behind routers/nat. Nowadays, most users are behind nat.
I'm very sorry to hear that you have had issues with out service. I verified our ticket for today, I'm not sure if you are the users in question but our sys admin modified the route to USA for your account in hope perhaps this would resolve your issues. If it doesn't, there's probably some kind of issue in regard to compatibility with our equipment and yours. Let us know via our support system if this fixed your issue.
best regards,
Martin Mercier
VoIP.ms | |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
 ·voip.ms
·Vitelity VOIP
·Callcentric
·VoiceStick
·ViaTalk
 ·Comcast
 ·Embarq
| Re: Information said by MartinM :The myth that the Direct Peering with the Carrier of the RTP will improve your quality is not true. I have a pile of anecdotal evidence to suggest otherwise, both on my side and remote parties of the calls I participate in.
said by MartinM :While it could, in theory, reduce your latency if the carrier is closer to your location, in most cases it is not. The real payoff isn't in the latency reduction, it's in getting more crap out of the middle of the voice transport path. Working with companies that broker connections directly to media gateways eliminates a lot of the risk of having servers running multiple processes mangling the call quality. Servers proxying the media stream have the potential to become overwhelmed and have momentary hits on managing the packet-to-packet bridging of individual RTP streams, while a properly designed carrier network will have gateways that cannot be overrun as the SBCs will run out of slots to assign calls before network capacity is saturated. The media gateways being network "appliance" hardware also has the added benefit of not allowing a botched cron job impact call quality; the purpose of the platform is focused and protected.
said by MartinM :The other reason the majority of VoIP providers will not re-invite their RTP Stream to you, is that it causes a lot of issues with users behind routers/nat. Nowadays, most users are behind nat. For providers catering specifically to residential end users, I completely agree this is a necessary evil based on the realities of end-user connectivity through NAT. That said, I asked before signing up if direct RTP would be supported: »Re: [Other] VOIP.MS Then it turned out when I opened a ticket to ask for that to be setup on my account it was not available as an option. Fair enough.
My biggest gripe was that call quality was too inconsistent. The value route started out being absolutely perfect, then it was plagued with DTMF issues so I switched to the premium US route, but eventually call quality became too variable there to be trusted as well. Maybe if I had spent more time bouncing between servers I could have worked out better quality, but since I already had other carriers in my dialplan delivering rock solid consistent calls for (at the time) slightly higher pricing, it just made sense to use them instead. Now that those providers are offering 1c flat-rate the choice for me is even more straight forward.
said by MartinM : I'm not sure if you are the users in question but our sys admin modified the route to USA for your account in hope perhaps this would resolve your issues. That wasn't me. I'm using other providers for US term. I did open a ticket a few days back about not being able to hit UK NTS prefixes (+44 08*), and got a response back that you've disabled them due to fraud. Fair enough, I've lined up other providers to meet those needs.
At this point I've got my PAYG DID with Voip.ms, and I've been happy with the quality on that. | |
| | | MartinM
join:2008-07-21
Montreal, QC
| Re: Information I can ensure you we do not run "proxies" with 'butched up cron jobs'. Seems that your issues were probably due to some sort of incompatibility with your equipment or you had network issues between you and the server you were connecting. Thank you for your feedback. | |
| KnowItAll
join:2009-01-22
Los Angeles, CA
| voip ms I'm satisfied with VoIP.ms--although I don't make international calls--we use for our Business VoIP and our calls are U.S. and Canada. I love that there are countless configuration options that I can mess around with and I also like the diagnostics on their website--you can view your extensions, if they are registered, the IP, etc. what IP they come from, and when the next registration is expected. The price is right and I've had no issues with customer support, either. | |
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Review by rickgrob
UPDATED: 207 days ago
member for 241 days, 8 visits, last login: 198 days ago
Plano,Collin,TX
$17 per month
about 4 days
"Call quality has been excellent so far. Flexible pricing model. Interesting features (sub accounts)"
"Support is spotty, and porting is horrible"
"Frankly I am mixed... it could be great, but the support failure reduces it's value."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Update: May 5th, 2009
Sorry to say the situation with the porting still hasn't been resolved. Voip.ms has however refunded the porting fee in response to the delay. While I am pleased they have taken this step, I am still disappointed that the port still seems firmly stuck in limbo. At this point I think I will just cancel the port.
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I have been using Voip.ms for one month as of this writing. Here are my impressions.
The Good:
The big highlight has been the call quality and the reliability. Calls have good volume and are quite clear (I use "premium" routing). Also, while one month is not long enough for rating reliability, so far nothing to complain about. Call set up times are fast (compared to Viatalk). I also think the pricing model is very interesting, it is essentially a wholesale model where you pay as you go for everything, but that the price is quite low. My first full month of service was probably around $33, but if you take out the long distance that would have been normally charged (we call international frequently) it is around $17. Also remember that does not have any other fees applied. Another interesting and good point is the ability to set up multiple devices and have them tied to the same DID.
The Bad:
Really this would be a very positive review if it were not that the support wasn't so bad. So far my reasons to contact support have been:
- Help with ATA setup: Got the right answer from them, but it took 3-4 days to get that answer. Also, since they seem to know how to set it up (wasn't an uncommon ATA) why not put it on the website like Callcentric (who does an excellent job at that).
- Request to look at and possibly refund a call that I think wasn't correct: No response at all. If the answer was no, I wouldn't like it, but it would be an answer.
- Request for status on Porting: This has been the worst of the worst. First I was just trying to get confirmation that they received my fax. Took a couple of days but got a response that it hadn't come through. Fine, I will send it again. I request confirmation on the second sending. No response. Eventually I get a note saying their porting portal will be running that day and to look there. Over 2-3 weeks the web site would say that it would be working that day. Never was working, just a status page. Now there is a page, but when you click "details" it says they are still working on it and it will be a few hours. It has been saying that for days.
So essentially, they haven't met a deadline yet. And these are their own deadlines, not the times I desire. Purely unacceptable way to run a business.
Verdict:
There you have it, a wonderful quality service as long as you do not need support for any reason whatsoever. Do not choose them if you need to port a number.
Followup comments: MartinM
join:2008-07-21
Montreal, QC
| Porting Delay Really sorry to hear for the delay on the port, however the delay is caused by the losing carrier, not us. Contact me via PM and I'll take a look at where it currently is.
Regarding tech support, we've worked on our support and most delays have been fixed.
Regarding configuration samples, we're working on it. Thanks for your feedback. | |
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 Review by sream
UPDATED: 262 days ago
member for 7.2 years, 512 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Portage,Kalamazoo,MI
Contract price not specified.
about 1 days
"Quick signup. payment. Up and running in and out in under 10 minutes. Top call quality."
"On site documentation in regards to sub accounts etc need to be finished and published on site."
"Great price, great features, great quality."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
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Reliability:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Last week I signed up, paid, ordered 3 did's (2 local, 1 tf), and was making/receiving calls in ten minutes. My 2 local did's are rural so I'm not expecting that order to be finished too quickly. I am gradually moving from Link2Voip because while it is a terrific VoIP provider it is simply behind in terms of features.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of voip.ms |
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 Review by bthornhill
UPDATED: 279 days ago
member for 5.5 years, 1240 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Tottenham,ON
$15 per month
about 1 days
"Pay-As-you-Go, BYOD, Good DID selection"
"Voicemail is cumbersome"
"Excellent Value versus landline"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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After five years with a VOIP provider which uses an analogue terminal adaptor, I decided I wanted to move up to a pure VOIP solution. voip.ms was shockingly easy to join and start calling within minutes. (I had one hiccup because I enrolled with the service while travelling, and their automated process noticed my IP was a different country than my home address and required manual validation).
I was relatively new to VOIP, so a lot of the configuration was new to me and it took a little fiddling to learn how to configure my IP phones, but through a combination of google and livechat tech support, I was up and running within the evening.
Now, I only pay for what I use, and any free phone in the house can make/receive calls regardless of whether or not another one is in use.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of voip.ms |
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Review by Uberhare
UPDATED: 285 days ago
member for 285 days, 2 visits, last login: 272 days ago
undisclosed location
$10 per month
about 1 days
"Good tech support, even on a weekend they were able to help me out."
"Charges are in USD from a Canadian (Montreal) based company."
"Good service for the price"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Good availability of DID's. I was up and running in 24 hours, despite issues with my router setup. voip.ms was very quick with email for technical support even on a Sunday afternoon. Sound quality is good even on their "value" setting.
Outgoing calls were up and running within minutes, incoming took a bit technical support and was working in less than 24 hours.
$8.95/month for unlimited incoming on your DID. Outgoing from $0.0048/min.
I purchased my own voip router, no equipment supplied. (Only cost $72 from a local computer store.)
So far appears to be good value.
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Review by vonnaone
UPDATED: 294 days ago
member for 1.9 years, 698 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Burlington,ON
$6 per month
"Great call quality, Competitive PAYG rates, Canadian DIDs, LNP and e911, Well featured web portal"
"Feature list not as mature as other providers, Support response time"
"Great quality calls, Features being actively added, Competitve Rates"
| Web-site:
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(ratings match consensus)
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Located in Canada, I was looking to port my number to a reliable provider. I tested both voip.ms and Callcentric. In the end I choose voip.ms because my call quality was much better (and passed the wife acceptance factor). With voip.ms I am connected to the Montreal server and my pings are less than 18ms. For Callcentric, my pings were more than double that and it seemed to be affecting the quality of the calls.
I am on their PAYG plan. The rates are reasonable and they are billed in 6 second increments. One of the factors in choosing a provider were the rates to the Northwest Territories as we have relatives there. So far I have only tested their premium routes but I am happy with the rates on this and the quality.
I ported my phone number from Bell which took about 6 weeks. It was ported on a Friday and I wasn't notified by voip.ms when it was going through. As a result I was without a phone for the weekend but everything was cleared up and working on Monday. Their port process could use some improvement.
Some have mentioned the cost of their DIDs and e911 but to me it is reasonable. I pay 1.49 for my DID and 1.50 for e911. For $3 a month plus usage, I think it is a great deal.
They are still actively working on new features which I think is a great sign for a company's health. They are spending money in continuous improvement which shows that they are not intending on skimming the profits for as long as they can and then folding up. As others have mentioned, their website is not as nice as Callcentric's but I find it easy to navigate and use.
About support...Most times I have been on the live chat they have had to get back to me. Response time is a business day, which is what they advertise. I haven't actually called an talked to anyone so I can't comment on their live support.
Overall, this is my first real voip provider and I've been happy with the experience. They seem to have a winning formula and I hope they continue to grow add features.
I've been really happy with my choice.
Update 2-6-09
The quality and consistency of my calls continues to be excellent, even when using the value route. I know others have had some problems but I have not experienced any issues caused by voip.ms. At one point I did have some problems when my pppoe ip address changed and my firewall did not flush out the states, but reconfiguring my network seemed to sort that out. I am connected to the Toronto server and my pings are about 12 ms. I haven't experienced any issues with echo and the person on the other end of the phone thinks I'm on a landline.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of voip.ms |
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(13)
I agree with this review.