Liberty oriented VoIP service!

[error]

It's on.

I'm ready to accept new customers now. The price list looks pretty much like this:

US Toll Free numbers: $3.00/month, $0.025/minute, $10.00 port in
US Local numbers: $13.95/month, unlimited calls in the US, $18.00 port in (no wireless ports)

911 service is optional and costs $1.49/month. This is exactly the charge passed to me by the E911 network provider.

Numbers come with all the features you can think of including voicemail. In much of NH numbers take 2 or 3 days to get hold of, mainly due to lower VoIP demand in rural areas. I almost certainly won't be able to get you a vanity local number, unless you're extremely lucky.

Port in means transferring your existing land line or 800 number, instead of getting a new one. It takes as much as 3 weeks to port a local number, about 3 days to port a toll-free number. You'll have to sign a goddamned piece of paper to authorize the port.

VoIP adapters (New lower prices!):
Cisco/Linksys PAP2 $60 (2 physical line VoIP adapter, for existing home networks)
Cisco/Linksys RTP300 $110 $95 (2 physical line VoIP adapter, includes broadband router, 4-port Ethernet switch and QoS settings)
Cisco/Linksys WRTP54G $140 $110 (2 physical line VoIP adapter, includes broadband router, 802.11b/g wireless, 4-port Ethernet switch and QoS settings)

Please don't "bring your own" adapter unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing and will refrain from asking me for technical support for such an adapter.

Price list denominated in silver (XAG) will be available upon request.

(Original post follows)
Since I have wholesale accounts with a couple of VoIP providers, (and you wouldn't BELIEVE how much money Vonage is making!) I've been looking into actually putting together some kind of VoIP service with actual customers other than myself.

I know a few of you already use VoIP services and you're familiar with it.

Would some of you be interested in such a service?

Along those same lines, would some of you be interested in a private VoIP network which was completely separated from the regular telephone network? Like an office phone system, only the phones can be anywhere, and they can be secured from unwanted intrusion by W busybodies W who think they have a right to listen to your phone calls.

[Brock]

I would definitely be interested.

[error]

I would definitely be interested.

In which?

To anticipate a couple of questions:

I don't THINK I have the ability to port existing numbers, or at least I didn't the last time I looked. But I'll confirm this. I can definitely set up new phone numbers and 800 lines though.

I don't know exactly how much it's going to cost yet. And for one or two people it may not even be worth the effort. But for 10 or 15, it starts to make a lot more sense. And you don't have to pay for 911 service if you don't want 911 service.

A private telephone network would only be able to dial other lines within the network, though a gateway between the private network and the regular telephone network can be provided. Or a line can be on both the regular telephone system and the private network. Or you can keep the lines completely separate (that Linksys adapter box does support two separate phone lines, as well as distinctive ring service for each line).

You can't use an existing Vonage adapter box that you got from Best Buy or wherever, unless you can figure out how to unlock it. Linksys loads custom profiles into the boxes so they only work with one provider's network, and you need the factory-set password to unlock it and change the profile to work with another VoIP provider. But to the best of my knowledge, nobody's ever been able to convince Vonage or Linksys to give up the password.

I can source these boxes, without custom programming and without a password, at retail price (minus the silly mail-in rebate you might not get anyway). But that means I have to ship them here, manually program them myself, and then ship them to you. So there would be a delay in provisioning new service. While Linksys has a wholesaler's program which would let me use the same sorts of custom programming as the big boys, they want a business license number and a tax ID number, and I'm not quite ready or willing to go down that road.

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[toowm]

I got Viatalk for $10/month for a 2 year commitment.

[Brock]

I don't have a need for the closed network.

I've been meaning to use a Vonage box for this (just because using Vonage is too easy).

http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/193/42/

And just found this:

http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic6794.html


I haven't tried either method (or thought about it in a while).  Are these links out of date?

[error]

The first set of directions I've seen before and been informed that the process is hit-or-miss, that older boxes will accept it but newer ones won't. And it apparently doesn't work if the box has EVER been active on Vonage. I haven't been willing to shell out $56 for a potential doorstop.

The second link never "worked." (Did you read it?) It just confirmed that there's a unique password assigned to each box.

[Brock]

Eh...yeah.  Well, I didn't quite make it through page three...

Again, reading the directions is far too easy.

So, anyway, you were saying you could do this with 10 people?

[KBCraig]

I can see it as a great backup, not primary, private system. Going beyond Porc 411, this would be "Porc secure comm".

I don't think I can do it now, but I'd like to see it happen.

Kevin

[slim]

I like this idea I would like to know the prices for the hardware and the monthly costs.

[error]

The telephone adapter box is going to be somewhere between $55-$60, which is about the same price as you're charged at retail outlets for the same box. (I left two bad pictures of mine above.)

The big boys do mail-in rebates where if you stay with the service for a couple of months you get a check back for that amount. Unfortunately, I can't do that for obvious reasons, but I can undercut their monthly price.

I'm currently working out some technical details for secured lines, and it may require a different adapter box and/or software installed on your computer (to support encryption). I'll post more details on this as I get them worked out.

Right now I'm looking at having two calling plans. One is unlimited calling in the U.S. for somewhere between $13-$15 a month. The other, for people who don't talk on the phone a lot, is a usage-based charge of around 2.0-2.5 cents a minute. That is, if you only talk for 200 minutes in the whole month, you would only pay $4.50 that month. 800 numbers would be a flat 2.5 cents a minute.

International calling will be available, but I haven't gotten pricing worked out for it yet.

I checked and while I CAN port in existing numbers, I can't put a ported number on the unlimited plan, only the per-minute plan. When this changes, I'll let you know.

In addition, there are NO federal taxes, NO state taxes, NO local taxes, NO tacked-on $6.50 access charges, NO other stupid surcharges, NO Universal Service Fund wealth redistribution fee. (My wholesaler said that the FCC is requiring it, but they haven't figured out how to bill me for it yet. I don't plan to pass this on to you, the customer.)

[slim]

Wow the prices are very reasonable I am interested.

[error]

That makes three. Anyone else?

It's going to be about a month before I can turn up the first numbers and ship the first boxes to people, and perhaps two months before I have all the nice Web based management stuff up and running.

In maybe two weeks, I want to start testing things, and I'll set up some kind of discount for people who want to get in early and help test stuff.

[Russell Kanning]

We might want a line for the Keene Free Press and then we could move over our current line.

[MaineShark]

Denise and I and looking to go VOIP, and we will probably be needing for two lines, at least.  Maybe three.

We'd certainly like something secure and liberty-oriented, if we can get it.

And, just to verify, is the plan you mention something that applies only within your network, or could I call out to someone else's landline?

Joe

[error]

Denise and I and looking to go VOIP, and we will probably be needing for two lines, at least.  Maybe three.

We'd certainly like something secure and liberty-oriented, if we can get it.

And, just to verify, is the plan you mention something that applies only within your network, or could I call out to someone else's landline?

Three lines? That's quite a bit. One of those isn't a fax, is it? Faxing over VoIP is hit-and-miss, as I understand it, mostly miss. Though this may have changed recently. Some research and testing is in order here, but I have no fax machine, and I want to get the core service up and running first.

The whole POINT is that you can call out to others' landlines, or in fact, anywhere in the world, and receive calls from same. But only on-net calls (between subscribers of the same service) can be secured from end-to-end. Calls delivered to and from the telephone network can only be secured on the Internet portion of the call; the landline portion would be unencrypted like any other call.

Right now I'm researching ways to actually implement the encryption, since no IP phones nor VoIP adapter boxes actually support this. There may end up being extra hardware involved, or I may have to put together helper software to install on your computer, to implement the encryption. (Or the bright idea I came up with last night, to install the encryption stuff on your existing or a new Wi-Fi router in your house. This might not be feasible for many people, though.)