@JaredBusch said in Exploring VitalPBX:

@Romo said in Exploring VitalPBX:

@rcuadra Is there a time frame of when the endpoint manager will be working with PJSIP extensions?

It would even be better if they quit using SIP as the default on port 5060. Asterisk gave up CHAN_SIP years ago.

RIP chan_sip

I would verify with your CenturyLink rep that you are actually buying SIP services on CenturyLink's network. I would be very surprised if that was indeed the case, as most of CTL's network is TDM. You are probably buying off of Level 3's SIP network, but dealing with CenturyLink's customer service. In that circumstance, the amount of finger pointing would be much much worse than buying Internet from one place and SIP services from another - at least in that case, the finger pointing is visible to you and you can make judgement calls. When the finger pointing is hidden from you, you just end up with issues that you can't solve and can't get any support on.

Also if you do decide to go the route of us (yay!) or voip.ms, or whomever, you can easily track the call quality of the internet with voipspear.com (we offer this for free - but voipspear.com is excellent and cheap). This pinpoints the problems immediately... no finger pointing and no BS.

The only other piece of advice I can offer is that there are federal rules that require telecom companies to provide customer's the ability to port their numbers away in the case of them going out of business in order to prevent an outage. The FCC does not want subscribers loosing access to 911 because a carrier had hid their losses until the last minute (we have to disclose financials to the FCC quarterly). Most companies (us included) have built-in contingency plans that provide for serious financial distress by being sold to or merged with a competitor. This is true of any registered carrier (voip.ms, us, flowroute, etc etc). So the worse case scenario is a stressful port - just make sure you go with someone reputable.

@JaredBusch said in When does a port-in number show up in the Skyetel portal:

@Skyetel said in When does a port-in number show up in the Skyetel portal:

For future reference, you can actually ask our LNP team to route the phone numbers to a particular endpoint group in the Port Notes for you.

noted. That would, in fact be an awesome additions to the port in page.

We are actually rebuilding the entire porting page and surrounding processes. In a future version, you'll be able to associate it yourself prior to submitting a port request, see all of your pending orders, and Port In fees will be charged upon submission. We also want Tenants to be able to submit LNP requests too.

Thats probably going to be a our next big project once Tenants and Tenant Portal are both out

@JaredBusch said in When does a port-in number show up in the Skyetel portal:

@Skyetel said in When does a port-in number show up in the Skyetel portal:

We delay adding them because once they are added in our Inventory they route instantly on our network, and on our interconnecting peer's networks. To stay compliant with PSTN standards, we don't want to do that until we have FOC

This is why I like to setup routing in the provider portal as soon as I set up the number.

See if you begin to route the number immediately after putting it in a place I can access, that means I will immediately being to miss calls from anyone using Skyetel to call me.

Because I have not yet routed the number to point to any of my Endpoints.

Yes, calls from other carriers will still go to the existing provider, until the port completes. But for anyone else using Skyetel, the call will never leave your network and attempt to route to me potentially before I am ready.

We go back and forth on this, but settled on this method because about 25% of our LNP orders occur before a PBX has even been spun up. Many integrators want to get the port started, and then install & configure the PBX on the FOC date.

For future reference, you can actually ask our LNP team to route the phone numbers to a particular endpoint group in the Port Notes for you.

@JaredBusch said in When does a port-in number show up in the Skyetel portal:

So I started the process of porting two numbers in to a @Skyetel account for a client.

I have the confirmaiton email from Skyetel, but the numbers do not show in my portal yet.

I checked their knowledge base and it does not have nay information on this.
https://skyetel.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SUG/pages/59900006/Number+Porting

So, right now, I have no way, within the portal, to see my number port-in status?

I ask because, my normal process is to request a port-in, and then immediately setup the routing for the number so it is ready once it completes the port-in.

Obviously, I can come back to it later, but I find it easier to handle it all during the initial request time.

We add the numbers to your portal within a day or so of us getting FOC. (So keep an eye on your email).

We delay adding them because once they are added in our Inventory they route instantly on our network, and on our interconnecting peer's networks. To stay compliant with PSTN standards, we don't want to do that until we have FOC

@JaredBusch said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:

@Skyetel said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:

@scottalanmiller said in Skyetel is a scam:

@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel is a scam:

It's not about sensitive. Accounting departments can be incredibly cranky about things being negative and not "due". Negative usually means past due, and can get people up in arms.

Normally the system is pay ahead only, that he was able to port with no money on the account is odd. It is, under normal circumstances (and this is pretty standard for trunk providers for many reasons) standard to only allow you to pay ahead and send a notice when you are getting low on funds so that you can "top up", either manually or automatically. Under normal conditions here, I wouldn't expect a possibility of being in the negative.

This is true - our LNP team should not have ported the number without first reaching out to him about having a $0 balance. We made a mistake and we're going to be making sure to clarify that with our team

I intentionally didn't add funds to a new account I setup (but it does have a valid CC linked) and inititated a port request.

New process FTW. Good work @Skyetel

Thanks! We work hard to listen to everyone's feedback!

@Dashrender said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

@Skyetel said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

@Dashrender said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

@DustinB3403 said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

@JaredBusch said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

I never, ever, enter a 1 for anything.
All dial plans are built to use 10 digit dialing or look for the 011 prefix for international.
I didn't pull this out of my ass. It is based on how cell phones have operated for the last 30 years.

I'm not saying you're pulling anything out of anything, nor how it's not uncommon to not need the 1 or 011.

I'm asking how is it not intuitive? You deal with calling plans 24/7 among other things, and thus it's unintuitive for you. Many other people wouldn't see this as an issue at all.

I agree with JB in this case - if you are going to demand the 1, then you should tell us that you want 11 digits in that field. I would never put it in there either - again, as JB mentioned, you haven't needed a 1 on a cellphone in 20'ish years.

Well we can just remove the 1 requirement and/or add it for you. Our network routes on 11 digits by default, and all of our numbers are displayed in our portal as 11 digits, so we tried to stay consistent.

That part is totally fine. But many people, obviously JB and I, are accustomed to only entering 10 digits - so having the system auto handle or, as JB originally said, just put a note above the field saying - requires 11 digits - would be a nice improvement.

Okay - good thinking. I'll add it to our next update for it then

We're working really hard on Tenants right now, so it may take a few weeks before we incorporate this suggestion.

@Dashrender said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

@DustinB3403 said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

@JaredBusch said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

I never, ever, enter a 1 for anything.
All dial plans are built to use 10 digit dialing or look for the 011 prefix for international.
I didn't pull this out of my ass. It is based on how cell phones have operated for the last 30 years.

I'm not saying you're pulling anything out of anything, nor how it's not uncommon to not need the 1 or 011.

I'm asking how is it not intuitive? You deal with calling plans 24/7 among other things, and thus it's unintuitive for you. Many other people wouldn't see this as an issue at all.

I agree with JB in this case - if you are going to demand the 1, then you should tell us that you want 11 digits in that field. I would never put it in there either - again, as JB mentioned, you haven't needed a 1 on a cellphone in 20'ish years.

Well we can just remove the 1 requirement and/or add it for you. Our network routes on 11 digits by default, and all of our numbers are displayed in our portal as 11 digits, so we tried to stay consistent.

@JaredBusch said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

but no payment method added to the account.

This is related to the error you got. Its expected behavior - we just need to fix the error

@JaredBusch said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

I think this is the same as before? So I assume the number port in process is what was updated for that process.

Yes, this is the same as before.

@JaredBusch said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

I'll be calling

@JaredBusch and I just emailed about this. Should be fixed within a few hours - it's an edge case that is related to the payment method.

Hey Guys,

Behold our new sign up page!

From the feedback here, we made the following changes:

1. You can now re-use your mobile number on 5 new accounts per month (so go nuts @JaredBusch )
2. The new field "Direct Contact Number" serves as the direct phone number for the customer; this is the number we call if there is a fraud event or a porting emergency. (so please make it a real phone number)
3. We made it prettier

Thanks for everyone's feedback - feel free to take it out for a spin!

@JaredBusch said in Skyetel tenant functionality:

This client has multiple offices and needs/wants to be able to track out billing separately for each office.

Tenants has two intended use cases:

1. People who are reselling Skyetel's services, and want to be able to track, brand and re-bill our services under their own name
2. Companies who want to be able to break out different parts of their usage into groups that are meaningful for reporting and reimbursement.

In both cases, there is only one billing relationship. So we would bill the Skyetel account holder, and then based on how each of the Tenants used our services, the account holder would see where the money was spent. Each Tenant does not have their own Skyetel account - and it would be up to the Skyetel account owner to sort out being reimbursed if the owner of the Skyetel account is different than the user of our services.

That being said, we have been discussing a Reimbursing concept. (This would kinda be a third option) The idea would be that BundyIT would own the Skyetel account and your customer would only have access to Tenants (basically a read-only version of the Skyetel portal). They would associate their credit card to that Tenant account, and at the end of the month we'd charge it and "reimburse" your Skyetel balance whatever the amount that Tenant used. The downside to this is that there would be a period of time where you are sorta floating them. The upside is that it does keep things sticky between you and your customer and prevents them from making changes that are harmful. (this also prevents you from having to worry about the taxes and things - since the Tenant would clearly see they are Skyetel customers)

This wouldn't apply to your use case, but we also plan on building a billing system for our resellers where they can add markups, pricing plans, etc.

We have also talked about creating a separate feature where one Skyetel login would give you access to multiple Skyetel accounts. So you could sign up your customer for us - they'd have their own account and their own billing - but your login would let you manage all of their numbers and endpoints along with every other customer you have approved access for. We tend to prefer the idea of Tenants and Reimbursement to this, but if guys have more feedback about it, let me know. (Multiple accounts per login wouldn't be built till after tenants, and would be a huge change to our authentication system - so this would take months to build)

We're building all of this right now and can make changes based on feedback. So please feel free to give us ideas and suggestions

We’ve used them for years and love them. The first outage wasn’t their fault, and the second didn’t last long. We do pay for them and it’s worth every penny. Their application firewall and DDOS prevention alone are worth it.

Hey Guys,

We’re going to be reviewing this first thing on Monday. @JaredBusch had a strong argument about Microsoft in his email.

I can say that we will be removing the 1 cell phone number per account limit and allowing a certain number of new accounts per month instead (so you can create 5 or so accounts per month before our system stops you). We’re also going to be reviewing the credit card idea but that may take more time.

I’ll update you all once we have a new policy in place and it’s deployed.

@Dashrender said in New PBX - on prem or off?:

@Skyetel said in New PBX - on prem or off?:

@Dashrender said in New PBX - on prem or off?:

https://www.hellosign.com/legal/hellofax-security

they don't claim HIPAA compliance.. so while they are likely OK, we wouldn't use them.

I'd suggest checking out http://mfax.io. They are HIPAA complaint https://www.mfax.io/hipaa-compliant-fax and we get feedback all the time from our customers about how great they are.

Nice - thanks

This pricing is clearly better than my current pricing... now to see how badly it destroys my workflow, and how do I send outgoing faxes?

I still need the "walk up and drop the fax on the machine" option for users.

They offer ATAs too - so you can keep the fax machine on the ground for the users.

@Dashrender said in New PBX - on prem or off?:

https://www.hellosign.com/legal/hellofax-security

they don't claim HIPAA compliance.. so while they are likely OK, we wouldn't use them.

I'd suggest checking out http://mfax.io. They are HIPAA complaint https://www.mfax.io/hipaa-compliant-fax and we get feedback all the time from our customers about how great they are.

@StorageNinja said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

@Obsolesce said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

Why not a credit card like all the real businesses?

Visa gift cards, and "cash cards" are common currency used by people who commit fraud. I've never been able to get a SIM without presenting my passport/ID.

This is precisely why we require the SMS verification.

@Pete-S said in Discussing with management switching to VOIP ...:

@Skyetel said in Discussing with management switching to VOIP ...:

@Pete-S said in Discussing with management switching to VOIP ...:

@BraswellJay said in Discussing with management switching to VOIP ...:

• No internet - no phones : this is an issue in that we don't have redundancy on our network link, but there has not been any network outage since the fiber was installed at this particular site several years ago. Not sure what I can do on this short of say we could keep a POTS line or two for emergencies but that of course starts to eat into the cost savings some also.

Maybe you can setup a 4G link as redundancy instead. Voip traffic doesn't require that much bandwidth so even if you only get 2 Megabit/s or something it is still plenty.

I would suggest against this - a lot of the 4G carriers do crazy things with NAT that SIP Trunks really really do not like. We run into CGN problems all the time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier-grade_NAT. It also can create issues with UDP Fragmentation.

But if you are using a hosted PBX is that really an issue?

You can mitigate it somewhat, but yea, its still an issue. The best way to get around it with a hosted PBX is to use a VPN between the phone and the PBX. That will bypass most of the NAT issues and keep the phones routing the way they should. You can still get dropped calls though.

@FATeknollogee said in Discussing with management switching to VOIP ...:

Honestly, this is just one of things (to steal a Nike phrase) "Just Do It".
The SIP vs PRI (insert your fav term) debate, that ship sailed a long time ago...

Yea - SIP Trunking has everything that PRIs do now and more. I'd put us up against any PRI each day of the week.