[WXC/VFX] WorldxChange VFX VoIP service

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Ultimate Geek

#47702 5-Oct-2006 21:09

it should be in telecoms interest to upgrade to voip.. if what I assume is correct and telecom's line cards are PCM over ATM backhaul they could alleviate congestion by having voice be compressed and on top of IP instead of raw PCM?? Alcatel sell line cards that concentrate voice lines into voip are they using this type of line card already or is it all just PCM over ATM?

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GEOMAX

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Ultimate Geek

#47733 6-Oct-2006 09:35

Telecom's prime stratagy is to protect its revenue streams. As long as it does not offer a Voip product for mass consumers it will hinder others efforts by artificially seting low upload speeds.(note this 128k is not a technical limitation). The general public in NZ is as fussy as a FAX machine and will stick with their existing toll process until it is top quality. (Telecom are banking on this.) Meantime we all suffer except for a few like Sbiddle (above) with access to upload capabilities greater than 128k

richms

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#47798 7-Oct-2006 01:30

I actually have a hard time understanting people when its on g729, so try to use 711 as much as I can, now we are on 512 up its perfectly usable.

And as for linksyses routers... well even the linux based ones still flake out too often. Linksyses support is useless, giving my mate the run-around on why upnp wouldnt work on their product, offering work arounds like putting a computer in the DMZ or manually fowarding ports. I will never buy another linksys router product, unless its one that I am going to be putting an open source distro on thats actually got a support forum of people with a clue.

Richard rich.ms

GEOMAX

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Ultimate Geek

#47837 7-Oct-2006 17:24

I think you have confirmed my view...bandwith equals quality. Not sure if you can post URLs but here is a chart showing codec bandwith usage. http://compare.ozvoip.com/codecs.php .With 128 maximun upload as most have in NZ (and this is maximum on a good day ) World exchange have made a realistic choice...
Are you with World Exchange or do you know if you can change your codec if you have a plan with a higher upload speed?

amigo

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Master Geek

#48673 14-Oct-2006 23:42

If your thinking about trying this (free until April) service, I would seriously recommend that you ask about their locking conditions with your hardware.

I was able to exchange my problematic Netcomm V300 voip router for a Linksys one. So I thought I'd give WorldXChange VFX a try to see how the service compared to iTalk (which I now have working OK on the Linksys).

Their customer service is very good. Quick email responses. I've phoned them a few times and got through immediately or within 3 mins on hold. Possibly because they are new and don't have many customers to deal with, but they were much nicer than waiting 30+mins on hold with iTalk before they cut you off, telling you their call centre is now closed (45mins before they are supposed to close!).

Their intial instructions to get configured didn't work. I rung back today and the guy gave me a different provisioning URL to use as the one I was told to use was old or wrong. The new one didn't work either. I could be that the account wasn't fully activated, but he couldn't confirm that until Monday.

I mentioned that on Line 2 (the unit has two independant phone ports) I had another service setup (iTalk) and asked whether that was causing the problem. He said... "Oh..." then explained that when they auto-configure the voice settings they flash the device with a firweware upgrade and lock it down so you can no longer access the Voice settings in the device! He said that he'd get back to me on Monday, and see if they can customise a profile config that will still allow me access to my second line settings.

I going to question them further about the matter when they get back to me... If they lockdown the settings, can they be unlocked later (by myself) by performing a hardware reset or firmware upgrade. I know that overseas Linksys products locked down by Vonage are problematic when the owners want to use another provider, Linksys says contact Vonage, while Vonage usually refuse to unlock the product and say contact Linksys, and the hacks/passwords that go around the net don't aways work.

I am not even going to accept them verbally saying that they will happily unlock the device if you choose to leave their service. I don't want my hardware to be held to ransom, or be rendered useless if the company goes bust!

If anyone has a Linksys device running with VFX could you please have a go at restoring the unit to it's unlocked state? It would be useful to know if this can be done without hassle.

I'll let you know how my enquiry goes and if I can get them to provide the service 'unlocked'.

coffeebaron

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#49468 24-Oct-2006 13:39

I have the same hassles, a locked (hijacked) voice adaptor. They have locked me out of my own voice adaptor - Linksys PAP2T, that I paid for! Are still trying to get this unlocked, but no success yet. Won't be recommending VFX anytime soon, unless they become a bit more open with their setup. At least with iTalk, there is much more flexibility in how you can DIY the configuration.

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#49498 24-Oct-2006 15:11

Will reflashing the firmware solve the problem?

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coffeebaron

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#49547 24-Oct-2006 20:50

You can factory reset no problem, but then of course your VOIP service is gone. Re-provision and its locked again ARRRG!

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grant_k

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#49555 24-Oct-2006 21:39

coffeebaron: Re-provision and its locked again ARRRG!

You can disable Provisioning in the PAP2T as follows... Go to Provisioning Page: Enable: NO

Is it possible for you to then try playing with all the settings until you find something that works with VFX?

I would be interested to know how it goes as I also have a PAP2T and am not totally happy with iTalk.

Cheers,
Grant.

hads

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#49556 24-Oct-2006 21:43

You could always sniff the traffic whilst you do the provisioning, reset the device, find the settings in the dump, and then add them to the device manually.

hads

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coffeebaron

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#49559 24-Oct-2006 21:45

Nice idea, but getting any info out of VFX on how to manually provision their service is like getting blood out of a stone. They seem rather secretive about their setup. So the only way is for them to provision, then you're stuck.

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coffeebaron

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#49560 24-Oct-2006 21:47

I have the provisioning file, but its encrypted :(

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maverick

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WorldxChange

#49942 27-Oct-2006 08:17

Hi Ladies and Gents,
Thought I would just drop in and add some comments, I'm the Ops Manager for WorldxChange and am responsible for the MyVFX service, so I can probably shed a bit of light on some of the concerns and issues raised here.

Firstly let me say that any one is entitled to their opinions and I fully respect people thoughts and comments on our service.

I would just like to give you some background on the company and the service, first the easy ones we have been around for about 10 years so won’t be going out of business anytime soon J, Our customer Care department has been listed in the top 2 or 3 Telecom Call Centers awards for the last few years actually winning it this year (hence the great response times).

Now the more detailed stuff. It appears the major concerns here are why we lock down the config’s to the boxes and why we use the Linksys range of products. Well here goes the attempt at explaining why…The SIP standard itself is made up of over 45 RFC’s and 140+ Internet drafts what this basically means is a heck of a lot of different interpretations and implementations of how your SIP device can be deployed.

This cause’s a huge concern to people that wish to deploy VOIP services, most people can setup a SIP device and make a VOIP call that’s the easy part but to get all services to work correctly as well as make sure the billing for such services are all so correct is another story ask my Billing Guy J.

The biggest concern here is why we lock the configs …well the simple truth is so that the MyVFX service will work correctly for all our services, all Call Forwarding options, DND, Voicemail, Anonymous Call Rejection, 3 way Calling, Unified Mesaaging as well as SIP Fail over timers etc, we have fine tuned the configurations so that most calls will not experience PDD when dialing numbers, the Ring Tones and Dial tones sound the same as what you normally hear on a standard PSTN line, we have made sure that the SIP timers on the boxes are adjusted so that Call Failovers for invites do not effect customer perception, If we allow access to the configs what people think may be a minor change on their box may in fact cause issues to services that are already deployed or going to be deployed we do not want to deploy services that do not work. Now this leads into the second issue why Linksys ? this has got to do with the SIP Stack used by the devices, we have tested a range of products and at this point Linksys uses the same SIP stack across it’s range of products IAD’s IP Phones etc this means that all interoperability across multiple devices all work the same way across our network, at this point there is not another product supplier that can do that and supply the range of products Linksys can, we are looking to support other devices down the road and I have a number in our test lab , these other devices have a number of issues which may be cheaper but do not give the kind of quality we rare looking for in our Hardware / Software solutions. I believe you will find our service using the recommended hardware and configs far superior to anything out there right now, the services that we offer now and the new services that we will be offering in the future is by far a better option than any other feel free to compare and I welcome feedback on the comparisions.

Let me also say the MyVFX has been designed to bring the power of VOIP to the masses in New Zealand so a majority of New Zealanders can enjoy the new services and enhancements VOIP can bring and that is our prime focus at this point, Generally the people here on this forum are more technically savvy and have the luxury of having an understanding of how VOIP works and may be looking for more flexibility, however there are still a number of issues that you are not aware of on how VOIP is deployed in larger networks as this service is just one part of our entire VOIP network and strategy and SIP interop through the complete Network is a major challenge. However saying this we will be looking to support a more flexible service offering at a later stage that does not run on the MYVFX service, it will allow people like yourselves to connect your own devices as a straight SIP connection so you run your device how you want , we have some network equipment that will allow us to support different devices but have some control over type of SIP messages supported, imagine what happens when some one mis-configures their box sends the wrong CLI, only sends 3 or 4 digit extension numbers when CLI is masked no number is sent, do you send a SIP refer , SIP Notify or Re Invite for Call hold or Call transfer who takes responsibility for this ? will you as a customer take responsibility for any misconfigurations on your devices if the call is held up for 3 hours because the call did not release correctly as the SIP bye was not interpreted correctly or when you transferred the call you sent a SIP 302 instead of a SIP refer ?, these are all issues we have to take into account when we want to support different device types using different SIP stacks.. In the words of the SipderMan Movie “with Great Power comes Great Responsibility “ J.

I have just gone over a couple of items here and just covered some basic questions there is actually quite a few more reasons to our methodology as well but that will turn this thread into a novel, I hope I have given a bit of an insight on our thoughts as to how and why we are deploying this way, I am happy to discuss further with anyone that would like to know more and is not convinced by my reply here.

Regards
Phillip Moore
Operations Manager
WorldxChange Communications

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Geekzone

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#49943 27-Oct-2006 08:25

Welcome to Geekzone, and thanks for the explanation. I believe everyone in this thread will understand a bit more of your business, services and potential. Good post!

sbiddle

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#49945 27-Oct-2006 09:18

Can you tell me what area codes are now actually avalable for the service and secondly a rough timeframe for being able to use our own devices (primarily Asterisk) with the service?

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