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my BroadVoice experience

I've heard lots of bad things about BroadVoice but I am looking for incoming PSTN service so I thought I'd try them. They have "unlimited" incoming calls on all of their plans. Even though they are SIP only, they openly provide all of the configuration data.

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like the open, honest tone of Mr. Epstein's statements.)

I subscribed to the "BYOD (bring your own device) Lite" plan of DID service and 100 minutes of outgoing calls for $5.95 (plus taxes) per month. The BYOD plan eliminates a good chunk of the large connect and disconnect fees. (It's hard for me to figure out why anyone would get a device through BV.)

This was the first time I'd used SIP but the VoIP-info setup instructions

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me started quickly. I did get failures on both incoming and outgoing calls after they were configured and working. I'm still not sure what's happening. I haven't made any voice calls to other people with BroadVoice yet. (I'm planning on trying calls from each of the three services I now have in a somewhat controlled manner.)

I experimented a little with outgoing calls. I think I've determined that the outbound CallerID must be the account's. I tried changing the "fromuser" but then outgoing calls fail. Unfortunately calls also fail sometimes when I change it back.

Not being able to set the outgoing CallerID is a pain. It means I can't set my wife's calls to look like they're from her mobile number while mine appear to be from one of my numbers. Also, I haven't found a way to check the number of outgoing minutes used (which is so easy to do with Gafachi) so I'd have to keep track of them on my own. (That is surely something I could do with Asterisk but I don't know how yet.)

I'd rather use IAX2 for my calls, especially so that they could be handled by my colocated server or efficiently rerouted to another machine but the low fixed price for incoming calls is hard to beat. For outgoing calls I'll just use other services, perhaps with BV as a last resort, although if they permitted changing CallerID I'd be tempted to use their "unlimited business" plan for some projects. (I would still be reluctant due to the lack of encryption.)

--kyler

Reply to
Kyler Laird
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More testing...

I just received my TDM400P so I was testing it with two sets of POTS phones. I gave each set a different callerid value in zapata.conf. Suddenly I couldn't dial out on BroadVoice. Other services were fine.

I finally determined that it didn't like my usage of a toll-free (888) number in the callerid value. I could use area code "765" (my home) and "768" but not "788" or "888". I could, however, use "800". The failure was Got SIP response 604 "Does not exist anywhere" back from 147.135.8.129 This is especially strange because BroadVoice doesn't seem to allow setting the CallerID value for outgoing anyway. It's always the same as my incoming BroadVoice line's number. (The solution is to force a different callerid value for outgoing calls through BroadVoice - something I don't plan to use much if I can't set the CallerID data displayed.)

I also tried some testing of incoming calls today. I was quite happy to be able to handle two incoming calls simultaneously. This is exciting because I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it. It means that I can take a call on a phone and still let *my* system handle subsequent calls.

With all of the calls going through my system, I can do weird stuff like play incoming messages as they're being recorded and answer the call if I want (just like with old fashioned answering machines).

--kyler

Reply to
Kyler Laird

The Caller ID system is supposed to be secure, so they can't really let you set it. In theory, with a lot of complex paperwork, they could have a way for you to prove you own the other numbers and allow you to set from a subset, but as said, that's a lot of work.

There are insecure gateways that allow people to set caller id but after the publicity last month I presume most have closed.

Reply to
Brad Templeton

I'd like to think others would just dismiss disinformation like this, but in case someone reading this doesn't know...

Plenty of VoIP providers allow twiddling the CallerID. I use a couple of them. It's a very handy thing to have, especially when transitioning from a "standard" phone or continuing to use mobile telephones. There's no paperwork (and certainly no "complex paperwork") or "lot of work" involved.

Yes, but only because every time I try to donate $100 their system chokes.

--kyler

Reply to
Kyler Laird

Yes, as I noted, there are providers that let you do this. They have signed contracts saying they _won't_ let untrusted parties who haven't signed the contract set the caller-id to anything but numbers assigned to them. However, sometimes they don't enforce that.

There was a big set of press reports about this a month or two ago, how shocked everybody was that some providers were letting you set it.

Reply to
Brad Templeton

I recall the stink. It was pretty much akin to the stink most people make when you show then how their $300 front door can be opened with a paper clip and a small screw driver.

Anyone with the most common type of trunk line, a PRI, can set the CLID information. In fact, the trunk line would be pretty much worthless if you couldn't do that. One normally has only one trunk line for every 10-20 phones so it is pretty much a given that one has to reset the CLID from its default value on a per-call basis.

-wolfgang

Reply to
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht

The telco's switch is supposed to validate the CLID that the PBX provides and if it's outside the range assigned to the PBX, replace it with the main number. You will be astonished to learn that not all telcos get around to programming their switches to do that.

Reply to
John R. Levine

Yup. Now there are applications (and their number are growing) that want to depend on non-forged caller ID. For example, some voice mails will recognize you when you call in from your official number. Some calling cards will let you call in from a "registered" phone and make outgoing calls without having to enter the PIN number. I have some applications which use this as well. Highly useful.

And it works, by and large, even though some can fake it. The question is, what happens if people start routinely forging to do things like steal calling card time and access voice mail. Will people give up on the applications? Will the forgers end up punished and deterred? Will the telcos lock down their caller ID? Will Caller ID be upgraded to include auth bits to say whether it can be trusted?

Only time will tell.

Reply to
Brad Templeton

This is one of the first things I noticed when I started using VoIP. I was testing by calling my mobile phone (because it has CallerID). Eventually I set the CID of the VoIP call to my mobile phone's number because it's likely that's what I'll eventually want to do after I eliminate my home line. I was surprised that the phone didn't ring; the call went right to voicemail. It took a couple of tries before I caught what was happening.

That's a handy ability to have. I have J2 service and I'm thinking that when a message goes to it, I can send the message to both my phone's voicemail and my wife's without ringing the phones. Cool!

--kyler

Reply to
Kyler Laird

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