SIP Trunks

D

deweyzeph

Honorary Master
Joined
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Guys, I'm looking for a local SIP trunk with 2 channels, but I have the following requirements:

1) I want to be able to sign up online for the service. I DO NOT want to speak to anyone, or have to call anyone or fill in any forms and sign and fax them off, etc, etc.

2) I want immediate activation. I DO NOT want to wait 3 - 5 business days.

3) I refuse to pay "setup" fees. These are absolute bull****.

4) I want to be able to pay with my credit card. I refuse to sign debit orders.

5) I want a geographic number linked to the SIP trunk.

Can anyone suggest anyone who fits the bill? Why is this so difficult to achieve in South Africa? All of these requirements are standard with overseas VOIP providers. It seems like local VOIP providers just want to rip us off and make things as difficult as possible.
 
suppose you want to pay 99c for it annually too?
And yes, plenty regulatory red-tape in that arena.
 
Grimis said:
suppose you want to pay 99c for it annually too?
And yes, plenty regulatory red-tape in that arena.
Click to expand...

No, I just want to pay for what I use. I don't see why you should have to pay setup fees for something that should be completely automated. Some local VOIP companies want to charge R1500 or more just in setup fees alone for a sip trunk. It's not my problem if their systems aren't automated and they have to actually get someone to physically create the SIP trunks.

There are amazing VOIP providers overseas who have amazing control panels where you can sign up for sip trunks online, add or remove channels, add or remove DIDs, etc. All without ever having to deal with anyone. Everything is 100% online and automated. I have already tried them, however the latency is awful so I would prefer to go local, I just can't find anyone in South Africa who even comes close though.
 
deweyzeph said:
No, I just want to pay for what I use. I don't see why you should have to pay setup fees for something that should be completely automated. Some local VOIP companies want to charge R1500 or more just in setup fees alone for a sip trunk. It's not my problem if their systems aren't automated and they have to actually get someone to physically create the SIP trunks.

There are amazing VOIP providers overseas who have amazing control panels where you can sign up for sip trunks online, add or remove channels, add or remove DIDs, etc. All without ever having to deal with anyone. Everything is 100% online and automated. I have already tried them, however the latency is awful so I would prefer to go local, I just can't find anyone in South Africa who even comes close though.
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RICA kinda forces you to have to provide details here.
 
koeksGHT said:
RICA kinda forces you to have to provide details here.
Click to expand...

I don't mind Rica-ing, but I don't think that's the issue anyway. There are lots of ways to automate the RICA process. Afrihost, for example, have a great way of handling the RICA process when you sign up for an ADSL account. That's all fine, and I'm happy to RICA. It just seems like no VOIP providers in SA have put much thought at all into the automation of the sales channels, online signups, or their control panels and then wrapped it all up in a nice slick package.

It would be great if Afrihost did VOIP, cos their online sales channels and automation of product delivery are great.
 
deweyzeph said:
I don't mind Rica-ing, but I don't think that's the issue anyway. There are lots of ways to automate the RICA process. Afrihost, for example, have a great way of handling the RICA process when you sign up for an ADSL account. That's all fine, and I'm happy to RICA. It just seems like no VOIP providers in SA have put much thought at all into the automation of the sales channels, online signups, or their control panels and then wrapped it all up in a nice slick package.

It would be great if Afrihost did VOIP, cos their online sales channels and automation of product delivery are great.
Click to expand...

Our VOIP will be up soon so I will try automate as much as I can. 35c local Telkom and 60c to cell networks per minute.
 
Hi deweyzeph, did you manage to sort our your requirement? I am also looking at setting up VOIP at home. I agree, what is the R2000 setup costs for, as everything is automated.
 
deweyzeph said:
Guys, I'm looking for a local SIP trunk with 2 channels, but I have the following requirements:

1) I want to be able to sign up online for the service. I DO NOT want to speak to anyone, or have to call anyone or fill in any forms and sign and fax them off, etc, etc.

2) I want immediate activation. I DO NOT want to wait 3 - 5 business days.

3) I refuse to pay "setup" fees. These are absolute bull****.

4) I want to be able to pay with my credit card. I refuse to sign debit orders.

5) I want a geographic number linked to the SIP trunk.

Can anyone suggest anyone who fits the bill? Why is this so difficult to achieve in South Africa? All of these requirements are standard with overseas VOIP providers. It seems like local VOIP providers just want to rip us off and make things as difficult as possible.
Click to expand...

We have created exactly what you asked, we call it www.freshphone.co.za, except the Geographic Number assignment. We provide one free 087 number and we will allow the porting of a geographic number to your account for a once off fee.

See the article on MYBB here http://businesstech.co.za/news/industry-news/134945/fresh-phone-disrupting-the-home-phone-market/

Let us know what you think.
 
georgegolding said:
We have created exactly what you asked, we call it www.freshphone.co.za, except the Geographic Number assignment. We provide one free 087 number and we will allow the porting of a geographic number to your account for a once off fee.

See the article on MYBB here http://businesstech.co.za/news/industry-news/134945/fresh-phone-disrupting-the-home-phone-market/

Let us know what you think.
Click to expand...

Nice site, but you guys have a huge security problem with your website. How can you expect people to sign up when you have no SSL enabled on your website?
 
deweyzeph said:
Nice site, but you guys have a huge security problem with your website. How can you expect people to sign up when you have no SSL enabled on your website?
Click to expand...

Actually, I see your signup form is ssl-enabled but it's embedded in an iframe in the non-secure part of your site. You guys should consider making everything ssl-enabled to give people more piece of mind.
 
georgegolding said:
We have created exactly what you asked, we call it www.freshphone.co.za, except the Geographic Number assignment. We provide one free 087 number and we will allow the porting of a geographic number to your account for a once off fee.

See the article on MYBB here http://businesstech.co.za/news/industry-news/134945/fresh-phone-disrupting-the-home-phone-market/

Let us know what you think.
Click to expand...

So I signed up yesterday and I am very impressed! This is almost exactly what I was looking for. The call quality is excellent, much better than any other VOIP provider I've tried. The sign up process was seamless, and your control panel is great. Thanks a lot for letting me know about this. The only thing I'm missing now is a geographic number. Do you guys have any plans to add the ability to add geographic DID's (not ported from Telkom) in the future?
 
deweyzeph said:
Actually, I see your signup form is ssl-enabled but it's embedded in an iframe in the non-secure part of your site. You guys should consider making everything ssl-enabled to give people more piece of mind.
Click to expand...

Hi - thanks for the feedback. We take security seriously, the only reason we placed the ssl form in the iframe was for the UI experience. We will find a way to make it clearer that the page is SSL enabled.
 
deweyzeph said:
So I signed up yesterday and I am very impressed! This is almost exactly what I was looking for. The call quality is excellent, much better than any other VOIP provider I've tried. The sign up process was seamless, and your control panel is great. Thanks a lot for letting me know about this. The only thing I'm missing now is a geographic number. Do you guys have any plans to add the ability to add geographic DID's (not ported from Telkom) in the future?
Click to expand...

Hi - fantastic, we are glad you like the service. Your post was one of the reasons we opted to launch our residential product. On geographic number assignment, we have discussed it and we are going to implement it for a once fee, for a trial period. If the process is manageable and is not abused by users, we will retain the option. Once live I will post a comment here Again glad to have you on-board.
 
georgegolding said:
Hi - fantastic, we are glad you like the service. Your post was one of the reasons we opted to launch our residential product. On geographic number assignment, we have discussed it and we are going to implement it for a once fee, for a trial period. If the process is manageable and is not abused by users, we will retain the option. Once live I will post a comment here Again glad to have you on-board.
Click to expand...

Excellent, glad to hear it. I'm still astounded by the quality of your SIP trunk. I forgot to add that the RICA process was painless and the credit card topups worked well too. All round a great product.
 
georgegolding said:
We have created exactly what you asked, we call it www.freshphone.co.za, except the Geographic Number assignment. We provide one free 087 number and we will allow the porting of a geographic number to your account for a once off fee.

See the article on MYBB here http://businesstech.co.za/news/industry-news/134945/fresh-phone-disrupting-the-home-phone-market/

Let us know what you think.
Click to expand...

This sounds great.

Are we able to access this freshphone 087 number from overseas? I'm keen to have it up and running from New Zealand. Will this be possible?

I am currently with telfree and I have been using my current 087 number in new Zealand for years, its worked really well for us but the company has now apparently gone into receivership, so I'm looking for a new solution.

Cheers
 
deweyzeph said:
It's a SIP account, you can use it over any internet connection.
Click to expand...

sorry to jump in here - but i haven't touched SIP for a while.

Will it be possible to setup a asterisk/ similar service in the office, to allow internal calls, and then connect a few sip accounts "trunks" to Fresh for outbound lines?
 
Neo_X said:
sorry to jump in here - but i haven't touched SIP for a while.

Will it be possible to setup a asterisk/ similar service in the office, to allow internal calls, and then connect a few sip accounts "trunks" to Fresh for outbound lines?
Click to expand...

I don't have any affiliation with Freshphone, but yes you could definitely do this. They just give you a standard sip trunk which you can either connect to from a VOIP handset or a softphone. Technically there's no reason you couldn't hook it up into a PABX system. However it might violate their terms and conditions.
 
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