In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Well, here is my last bill from Voipfone:
Renewal of UK Geographic Number 012527xxxxx £3.000
Renewal of UK Geographic Number 012527xxxxx £3.000
Renewal of UK Geographic Number 012527xxxxx £3.000
Renewal of UK Geographic Number 012527xxxxx £3.000
Renewal of UK Geographic Number 012527xxxxx £3.000
Renewal of 2 Virtual PBX Call Group £2.000
Renewal of 7 Virtual PBX Extensions £7.000
VAT @ 20% £4.80
Total £28.80
It is only recently that Voipfone increased their geographical number price from £2. You do get a free number but it is an 056 variety. All my devices have an extension number. All calls to a number, POTS style or extension number, registered with Voipfone are free.

I have a softphone phone on my mobile so that in addition to its usual 07 number it is also reachable through an 01252 number.

Voipfone allows you to have free calls to all of their subscribers. You might be unaware that they use Voipfone and therefore dial their advertised number but the call will be free.

They do have call plans but it is not economical for me to use any of them.

I have no idea what other hosted VoIP providers would charge for an equivalent service but I feel I am getting value for money with my setup. Now if another provider was cheaper, I would have to factor in the porting out charges from Voipfone and of course embark on a learning curve for their control panel, if indeed you get one.

My registrations are used via the ATA within the Vigor router, a Gigaset N510 IP PRO (with three wireless devices), a softphone (in the mobile) and two snom D375's. The use of any one device still leaves the other devices able to receive and make calls.

I accept that what I have is most likely OTT for most users of VoIP but there you go.

Are you badly affected with the latest reported outage / DoS attack?

Do you think the attacks have made you consider moving away from a fully hosted solution or away from Voipfone?

Re: The questions:
Are you badly affected with the latest reported outage / DoS attack?

Do you think the attacks have made you consider moving away from a fully hosted solution or away from Voipfone?

Well it has been a major inconvenience, that is for sure, bur there is resilience in the configuration that when these events like this do happen, an auto divert kicks in and another non VoIP number rings. I don't think you have fully grasped the effort that would be involved to jump ship and use another hosted service. In any event, there would be no guarantees that whoever was chosen would not suffer the same fate.

Recently TESCO customers were unable to use many of their web based services, but I don't see any signs of a mass stampede to use other grocer stores or web based facilities; short of them ceasing trading, that wasn't going to happen.

But there is a wider issue here in so much as all voice calls placed in the future will be over VoIP. Security has to be seriously ramped up so that Denial of Service attacks cannot succeed.

Hardly a day goes by when some part of the internet has been mischievously been brought to its knees. It seems that the internet isn't as solid and reliable as it should be. Anyone got a plan to put that right I ask?

How complex is your setup - number of extensions, hunt/ring groups any IVR etc?

Would you consider bringing it back 'in-house' and hosting your own resilient asterisk based box? You can engineer in as much resilience as as you wish and add as much functionality (quite possibly more actually) as you can with a hosted solution, for a moderate amount of effort and cost up front.

You then have there freedom to chose multiple SIP trunk providers, with DDI etc ranges to your hearts content.

Edited by Pheasant (Tue 26-Oct-21 15:34:00)

Well now let me see.

Basically:
Numbers DDI 31
Extensions 34
Groups 9
IVR 6 Professional Sound Recording applied. DDI option on.
Cloud Recording
Call Queuing
Voice Mails
Business Hours Groups 7
Geographical Sites 6
Softphones 3

Devices in Use:
Snom D375 Extensively Customized. Some with expansion units.
N510 IP PRO
DrayTek ATA within Router
Algo 8180 Broadcast and Extension Bell Facility

Features:
BLF
PSTN Failover
Call Diverts
Night Service
Gateways to other recovery operators
Direct connection to the Police
Dual ISPs for continuity of service

I don't intend to fix something that isn't broken. The upheaval to switch to another hosted provider or an in-house solution would be massive for a 365/24/7 organisation.

None of that seems particularly onerous. You aren’t or shouldn’t ever be locked into one service provider. Be that email, hosting, voice or whatever. You may think you are particularly unique but the reality this is bread and butter stuff.

Anyhow. Good luck with Voipfone. Let’s hope the Russians leave them be at some point.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

None of that seems particularly onerous. You aren’t or shouldn’t ever be locked into one service provider. Be that email, hosting, voice or whatever. You may think you are particularly unique but the reality this is bread and butter stuff.

Anyhow. Good luck with Voipfone. Let’s hope the Russians leave them be at some point.

A previous hosted provider we were with ceased trading and I therefore know the pain of migrating to someone else, at least there were no porting fees payable in that case. Every device in use required to be reconfigured with new credentials and there was a learning curve for their control panel. It all takes a lot of time to ensure everything is working as thought.

There is nothing ultra special about Voipfone although there are features they have which are not found with other providers. We are certainly not locked in with them and could jump ship at any time if there was a need.

Luck doesn't come into the equation when using Voipfone. Disrupting business processes can, and does happen and is rife. It has become the norm for today. Where you have state funded hackers, then for a UK business to be ahead of the game is a major headache.

I guess you feel that your chosen providers for services are the bees knees surrounded with a strong firewall. We shall see if that is indeed the case.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

None of that seems particularly onerous. You aren’t or shouldn’t ever be locked into one service provider. Be that email, hosting, voice or whatever. You may think you are particularly unique but the reality this is bread and butter stuff.

Anyhow. Good luck with Voipfone. Let’s hope the Russians leave them be at some point.

A previous hosted provider we were with ceased trading and I therefore know the pain of migrating to someone else, at least there were no porting fees payable in that case. Every device in use required to be reconfigured with new credentials and there was a learning curve for their control panel. It all takes a lot of time to ensure everything is working as thought.

There is nothing ultra special about Voipfone although there are features they have which are not found with other providers. We are certainly not locked in with them and could jump ship at any time if there was a need.

Luck doesn't come into the equation when using Voipfone. Disrupting business processes can, and does happen and is rife. It has become the norm for today. Where you have state funded hackers, then for a UK business to be ahead of the game is a major headache.

I guess you feel that your chosen providers for services are the bees knees surrounded with a strong firewall. We shall see if that is indeed the case.

You certainly haven’t had much ‘luck’ with hosted VoIP solutions. My suggestion was to consider doing this another way, effectively not putting all your eggs in one basket so to speak, and having more control over supplier resilience.

I do hope Voipfone get back up and operating correctly soon.

All the best