voip.ms

patlaw

I was able to port my friend’s number from VOIPo to voip.ms. (I manage seven voip.ms accounts for elderly and non-technical friends.) Kudos to voip.ms for gearing up to handle the transition, although it appears they underestimated the amount of work necessary to do so.

This morning I tried to log into one of the accounts I manage, and the website is as slow as molasses. When I type into a field, the letters may or may not show up. The last time this happened, there was a very ugly DDOS attack on their servers. Can anyone confirm that same problem so that I know it’s not something on my end?

They also “paused” one of the accounts I manage claiming it is from inactivity. That’s really strange. The first account I opened with voip.ms was in 2015. It stayed dormant with $25 on deposit for at least five years, before I became a regular and happy user. Hopefully they will resolve the issue quickly.

px_eliezer_

patlaw This morning I tried to log into one of the accounts I manage, and the website is as slow as molasses.

Site was fine this afternoon.

Obviously they’ve had a busy week.

But Voip.MS reports over 100,000 customers—probably “Voipo” had far, far fewer at the end/

patlaw

The site seems to be back to normal. The response from customer support is lacking, however. It concerns me.

px_eliezer_

patlaw

Considering the very unusual situation, Voip.MS probably deserves some slack on this.

px_eliezer_

patlaw Kudos to voip.ms for gearing up to handle the transition, although it appears they underestimated the amount of work necessary to do so.

Unless Voip.MS had some greater advance warning about the “Voipo” situation than the rest of us did, it’s not like they had a lot of lead time to hire and train more staff.

Again the Voip.MS tech support is largely provided in Mexico (the city of Mérida in the Yucatán) by their partner/affiliate Intercan Holdings S.A. de C.V. so this adds another challenge (language etc).

Samot

px_eliezer_ But Voip.MS reports over 100,000 customers

I heard from a little bird that isn’t very accurate because they will count sub-accounts as part of the customer base, which they claim is now around 250K. The little birdy was in talks to purchase VoIP.ms but their ARUP was abysmal (like under $6/month sans usage).

px_eliezer_ Unless Voip.MS had some greater advance warning about the “Voipo” situation than the rest of us did, it’s not like they had a lot of lead time to hire and train more staff.

They’re not going to higher more staff for this. VoIP.ms is a volume-over-margin strategy business. Think about it, take away the usage what is the revenue per user they are pulling in? $0.85/DID? $1.50/per 911 registration? The average VoIPO customer they sign up brings them a whopping $2.35/month at the most plus usage.

I mean at VoIP.ms being a non-reseller with a monthly bill of $20 makes you a big playa in their billing system. It may take at least 10 other accounts to match your big $20/month account. They rely heavily on resellers and if there was a mass exodus of resellers, they could be in some serious problems.

patlaw

Samot I agree with px about giving them some slack, but I’m beginning to get nervous. The problems I’m having with them currently are billing. The VOIPo migration shouldn’t prevent the billing department from solving problems, as far as I can tell. Nevertheless, I trust they will solve things soon. Then again, I said the same thing about VOIPo for over a year.

Samot

patlaw You could give them some slack but let’s not forget, as of this year Intercan Holdings has nothing to do with VoIP.ms anymore. They were bought out by Oliva Capital at the beginning of the year. So the company that ran VoIP.ms for the last 13 years is no longer the company running VoIP.ms today.

All of this could be a hiccup or showing chinks in the armor.

px_eliezer_

Samot They’re not going to higher more staff for this. VoIP.ms is a volume-over-margin strategy business. Think about it, take away the usage what is the revenue per user they are pulling in? $0.85/DID? $1.50/per 911 registration? The average VoIPO customer they sign up brings them a whopping $2.35/month at the most plus usage.

But it’s the “plus usage” that they are counting on, yes?

Must have seemed decent enough for the venture capitalists to come in.

patlaw

I love the company’s technical offerings. I’m not crazy about their lack of responses to support tickets.

Samot

px_eliezer_ But it’s the “plus usage” that they are counting on, yes?

Why would you count on that? An end user’s usage could be 100 minutes one month and 10 minutes the next. It’s a variable that can’t be relied on in this case. Not only that you’re talking tenths of a penny when it comes to usage charges. So if the cost is $0.005 and they charge $0.009 that’s a whopping $0.004 margin, they would need people doing 250 minutes a month at least to make a $1 profit at that point.

px_eliezer_ Must have seemed decent enough for the venture capitalists to come in.

Well that is the million dollar question, right? I highly doubt their claim of 250K accounts are unique billable accounts. So you have to wonder what the real break down is, what would the ARPU really be and also how many inactive accounts that still have a balance are being included in that number. I bet their actual unique customer base is like 50K or so. But the other factor is everything is pre-paid. There really isn’t “monthly revenue” because you could through $25 on your account in Jan and still have money on the balance a few months later.

So they are making a profit, probably a decent one if they are skimping on things over all. I mean having the support in Mexico is 100% a cost savings measure but if new owners want to save even more in support it could end up in India.

Really all I was originally saying is I don’t think they would hire more staff just because they have a no-guarantee deal that they could end up with all of VoIPO’s customers.

Samot

patlaw You are not the only one. VoIP.ms’s support reputation is a mixed bag. Some claim they never have any problems and others claim that simple things take forever to resolve and in some cases tickets get closed with no resolution after sitting in the queue for weeks.

px_eliezer_

Samot Really all I was originally saying is I don’t think they would hire more staff just because they have a no-guarantee deal that they could end up with all of VoIPO’s customers.

Agreed (and to your other points as well). 🙂

patlaw

And now their chat is broken.

patlaw

They have one of my accounts “paused”. It’s a personal account. Here’s the information they want to “un-pause” the account:

"In this case, our Account Department will require further documentation to authenticate your company:

Business registration documents (registration letter, full legal name, state of incorporation, registration number)
Identification documents for authorized representatives (passport, driver’s license, Identity card)
Tax identification number (TIN) or other relevant tax documents
Entity’s website or any other public-facing materials
Overall description of how the services will be utilized

Rest assured that your privacy is of utmost importance to us. Any documents we collect are exclusively used for compliance purposes."

You guys understand this nonsense better than I do. What sort of problem do they think they’re chasing? Do they think the account is being used for spam? You can see how long I’ve been around with DSL Reports. If I were a scammer, I’d have been gone a long time ago.

I’ve been through this nonsense with hosting and VOIP companies in the past. The red flags are all over the place. Luckily this account is not mission critical. I was only using it to burn up the money in it.

px_eliezer_

patlaw They have one of my accounts “paused”. It’s a personal account. Here’s the information they want to “un-pause” the account….

"In this case, our Account Department will require further documentation to authenticate your company:

As you know, VoIP companies are subject to tons of fraud.

Voip.MS has been known in the past to requite lots of documentation for some accounts.

HOWEVER:

In this case, they should cut some slack (LOTS of slack) for the former “Voipo” customers who were switched at gunpoint.

Sheesh.

Imagine if you were kidnapped, then the kidnappers added insult to injury by making you pay for room and board.

Typically with VoIP.MS these things are software-generated, so there’s that.

patlaw

px_eliezer_ They’re very unresponsive. I open and manage accounts (for free) for a number of elderly people. This account is one of them. The person for whom I set up the account had a change of plans and never used it. Now they’re saying I need to provide BUSINESS information to “unpause” the account. Luckily I don’t need the account or the number, but I want my money that is on deposit. I will collect. it. In the meantime, I will continue to warn people about them. This nonsense is the same thing that other VOIP companies have done on their way out.

What other company has the closest technical offering (IVR, etc.)? I have several accounts with them that have numbers I can’t lose. They’ve lost my confidence. Maybe I’ll hire someone to set up a FreePBX or similar software for me. Voip.ms is cheap, but their competitors are too expensive. Luckily, except for one account I manage, usage has gone down in the last year. Even older people are getting comfortable with using their cell phones exclusively.

david3

I’m using AnveoDirect, but for a more retail offering, I’d choose Callcentric hands down.

px_eliezer_

patlaw They’re very unresponsive. I open and manage accounts (for free) for a number of elderly people. This account is one of them. The person for whom I set up the account had a change of plans and never used it. Now they’re saying I need to provide BUSINESS information to “unpause” the account.

Yes, Voip.MS does seem more anal lately, and this was BEFORE they decided to become part of the “Voipo” mess.

Maybe due to the Venture Capital buyout from Oliva.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drouleau_oliva-capital-annonce-le-rachat-de-voipms-activity-7300572439120367616-dqo8

px_eliezer_

patlaw What other company has the closest technical offering (IVR, etc.)?

Callcentric.

Excellent features (including IVR), great customer support.

https://www.callcentric.com/features/
(See full list on left column of page)

I’ve used them for my home and for my office, for well over 10 years.

They are an established company, with offices in lower Manhattan for many years, incorporated in New York State, they are a licensed CLEC in many states under the “Telengy” name and likewise they have direct numbering authority, they have authorization to issue their own 800 numbers (rather than getting them from a 3rd party), etc.

Their retail operation is supported by their wholesale side, more info here.
https://www.callcentric.biz/routing.php

They have a wide variety of outbound plans and inbound plans, with both PAYG and flat-rate options.
https://www.callcentric.com/products/

All of the outbound plans (except the PAYG) include the 911 service.

They’re just darn good overall.

For example, billing procedures are excellent, and advance notice of billing is sent towards the end of each month. Everything is just very well thought-out.

If you want to just try them out you can do it pretty cheap.

Get the North America Basic outbound plan, the Dollar Unlimited inbound plan (even if you don’t happen to live in one of those states), your total cost including startup would be 4.45.

If you start in the middle of a calendar month, it MIGHT be prorated for more than a month, I’m not sure. But if that’s an issue, start it at the beginning of a month.

You mentioned IVR, they do have IVR, everyone does it differently. But as I said, you can try out all of Callcentric’s features for just a few bucks…