[Freeswitch-users] UK SIP Trunk providers

[Alex Kinch]

I don't often post on this list (which is why I'm replying to the digest -
apologies if we've moved on since then), but I just wanted to comment on a
few things in this thread.

@Richard - when you talk about SIP trunks, it's probably best if you
clarify whether you're looking for a 'retail' solution e.g. something you
can use yourself in an office environment for a PBX, FS box, etc or resell
to clients that want to do the same) or wholesale - whereby you're going to
be aggregating traffic from multiple customers via SIP trunks, hosted PBX,
etc etc. There'll be a few differences both technically and commercially
between these two offerings - e.g. most wholesale providers will only
deliver inbound traffic to a SIP URI, and will more often than not expect
traffic to originate from one or more static IP addresses.

@Cal not sure what AQL ratecard you're looking at that charges 26ppm for UK
Mobile Orange, I'd hazard a guess you need to divide that by 10? Even when
you do that's still a little on the  expensive side for wholesale.

Wholesale providers charge minimums as they are, as the name suggests,
wholesale. They are high volume low margin operations, and often don't sell
'retail' services direct to the public - e.g. Magrathea, Simwood - and will
(last time I checked) require you to sign a declaration that you qualify to
be a wholesale customer.

Gamma, BT, Kingston etc obviously do have retail offerings but also have
separate wholesale divisions. Gamma and BT (and I'd imagine Kingston too)
will also provide you retail services that you can white label and sell on
to your customers under your own brand - no equipment required.

Companies like Gradwell, AQL (who jointly own  a third party called
Telephony Services, who you might have come across), SureVoip, SipGate are
(in my humblest opinion) retail providers. They may also have white label
offerings like the above.

Now... if after all that you fit into the wholesale customer category, you
might want to split your requirements into UK and international, and again
split inbound (numbering) from outbound. Why? Because as (I believe) Andrew
said, there's no one service that'll meet all your needs.
Example: Voxbone will happily provide you numbers in umpteen countries, but
you'll find that they're i) expensive for UK numbering (actually they're
expensive full stop, but that's just my personal opinion), ii) there is a
minimum spend, and iii) they won't help you much with your outbound
requirements (except for 999/112/911 etc traffic in a few countries).
Likewise, Magrathea and Simwood wouldn't be a bad choice for UK numbers,
but if you want numbering in the US, Australia, etc, they're probably not
going to be able to help.

As for BT IP Exchange, let's leave that discussion for another day, but
suffice to say it's not a regulated interconnect product  - so comparing a
provider who hosts their numbering on BT IPX with one that leverages TDM
connectivity to BT is like comparing apples to oranges both technically and
commercially.

I'm not going to tag on a plug for my company to this thread as it'd be bad
etiquette - but ping me a mail off-list if you want to chat further.

Cheers,
Alex







On 29 October 2013 12:35, <freeswitch-users-request at lists.freeswitch.org>wrote:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Cal Leeming [Simplicity Media Ltd]" <
> cal.leeming at simplicitymedialtd.co.uk>
> To: FreeSWITCH Users Help <freeswitch-users at lists.freeswitch.org>
> Cc:
> Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 12:34:52 +0000
> Subject: Re: [Freeswitch-users] UK SIP Trunk providers
> I would advise against AQL for wholesale services, they are just another
> reseller aggregate but with *significantly* higher rates (26p/min to UK
> orange, what?!)
>
> Their technical sales team are also difficult to work with, the majority
> of people I spoke to there clearly did not understand the product they were
> selling.
>
> Avoid.
>
> Cal
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Ben Langfeld <ben at langfeld.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Just curious where you guys see AQL fitting in that categorisation? I've
>> used them in the past and they seem good. I also thought they were one of
>> the bigger providers in the UK, but since no-one has mentioned them...
>>
>>
>> On 29 October 2013 07:39, Andrew Cassidy <andrew at cassidywebservices.co.uk
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> I think the point to be made here is that your choice should be
>>> determined by your requirements and budget. As we know neither of those, we
>>> can't give you specific recommendations.
>>>
>>> The majority of people I encounter use 'consumer' grade services, with
>>> or without their own equipment as necessary. That said these are largely
>>> small businesses.
>>>
>>> In all seriousness there's always a best tool for the job and no one
>>> service that'll meet all needs.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 29 October 2013 08:42, Cal Leeming [Simplicity Media Ltd] <
>>> cal.leeming at simplicitymedialtd.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Let's be clear on definitions here;
>>>>
>>>> BT, Kingston - Top of the food chain, only financially viable for those
>>>> with lots of cash and traffic
>>>> Magrathea, Simwood, Gamma  - Designed for wholesale, scalable to many
>>>> millions of minutes per month.
>>>> SipGate, SureVoip, Gradwell, GBC - These providers are designed for
>>>> consumers, only necessary if you are not running your own equipment
>>>> NumberGroup, Sol4 - they are essentially a reseller aggregate, or to be
>>>> more blunt, an unnecessary middleman
>>>>
>>>> If someone is running their own switch, why would you want to go with a
>>>> consumer grade service which not only limits your CLI capabilities, but
>>>> also increases complexity, affects latency and inflates call rates.
>>>> Likewise, why would you go through a middleman when you could just go
>>>> direct to the supplier with no minimum spend on outbound traffic? Though
>>>> typically inbound does require a small min spend of around £50/month (which
>>>> is tiny in comparison with VoxBone who charge a min spend of around
>>>> £600/month [needs clarification]), which is really the only valid reason
>>>> (that I can think of right now) to go with any of these reseller aggregates.
>>>>
>>>> Cal
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 8:05 AM, Andrew Cassidy <
>>>> andrew at cassidywebservices.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Magrathea are pretty much the industry standard for volume.
>>>>>
>>>>> Depending on your requirements, there are many others such as SipGate
>>>>> and Gradwell. There are also people from at least 3 UK trunk providers in
>>>>> this list, including SureVoip, NumberGroup and PowerTel.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 29 October 2013 00:29, Cal Leeming [Simplicity Media Ltd] <
>>>>> cal.leeming at simplicitymedialtd.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Richard,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This topic was discussed a few months back, you can read the thread
>>>>>> here;
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://markmail.org/message/xdjhmpkzd7txndji#query:+page:1+mid:ncuirf776l5hjovc+state:results
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://freeswitch-users.2379917.n2.nabble.com/DID-providers-any-thoughts-jan-2013-tt7586851.html#none
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Since my last post, our chosen UK providers are Magrathea and Simwood.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This inter-op was over a period of 6 months but based on low traffic
>>>>>> (<=500 calls a month), so others with higher throughput may wish to
>>>>>> chime in.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Magrathea - Over a period of one month, I've not had a single
>>>>>> problematic call, routing/quality is always good, and they seem to
>>>>>> have almost every dialing code possible for DIDs. I have not dealt
>>>>>> with their technical staff yet, but their sales people were friendly
>>>>>> and knowledgeable.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Simwood - Over a period of two months, I had 2 call routing issues to
>>>>>> international destinations and they are missing at least one number
>>>>>> range (Bournemouth). However it's worth noting that Simwood were very
>>>>>> quick to help, they identified the routing problem within 5 minutes of
>>>>>> me reporting it, and despite being a low profit customer they treated
>>>>>> us as a high priority. I've also spoken to numerous staff there, they
>>>>>> always come across as friendly and, more importantly, competent. I
>>>>>> would have no problem recommending Simwood to others.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For international routing - I'm still in the process of reviewing
>>>>>> TelServ and Flowroute, I'd like to use Voxbone but their min spend is
>>>>>> too high for us.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I cannot choose between Sim/Mag, they are both extremely good
>>>>>> companies - use both (redundancy is a good thing anyway!)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cal
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 10:34 PM, Richard Mace <
>>>>>> richard.mace at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> > Hi,
>>>>>> > Can anyone recommend any SIP trunk providers, ideally based in the
>>>>>> UK?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Thanks
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Richard
>>>>>> >
>>>>>>
>>>>>
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