provided by Star2Billing S.L.

If you sell calling cards and you have cost for incoming calls the minimun is 0.01 per minute

The account is very easy 26 user and 24 hour minimum day
24 hours is 1440 minutes
This is 14.4 dollars day 1 user 1 channel
14.4*24=374.4 dollars day cost

Really very expensive I prefer pay 24 dollars or less for channel every month
This is 624 dollars every month

And in your system is 11232 dollars every month

Pay minimum 0.01 dollars for incoming call is good when the user have one DID number for personal question But never is good for calling cards

If you sell plastic calling card. There aren't any chance . You need have low cost.

Other question is my user and business user this user pay for minute to any destination and the price for incoming is include in my prices and the DID is free for the costumer

I just signed up for VoiceTrading, I wish I had read your post first. They only respond to support tickets that are favorably. I'll share my experience with the group. I have direct routes to Ghana for $0.1330 if anyone needs it. Not trying to sell, only helping out here.

Greetings all -

I thought I share my experience with Voicetrading since someone else brought it up.

Basically they DO NOT respond to any configuration, or clarification emails. I have not had any technical problems yet, so I'm not sure about their response time for trouble tickets. I did have a billing issue (not their fault, damn paypal), but I had no response when opened a ticket through my account section. I ended up sending an email to the sales department to get some answers.

Now this can translate differently depending on your view, In order to pass their low rates they don't answer general questions. Or they simply SUCK!

In either case, you feel stranded working with someone you're not sure exist.

Their rates and routes are very good, but their customer service is very very disappointing. Unfortunately I don't know of any providers with similar rates, otherwise I drop them for ignoring their valued customers' communication.

Please list of any whole sellers here, I would love to know what's out there.

HTH -

Nabil

Thanks Nabil for your response. I set up up the configuration for the free 5 Euros test. That worked fine and will start using them fully on Monday and will report on the progress. If anyone needs configuration assistance let me know and I can be of help.

Nabil, we have used voicetrading for a while (several months) and let me tell you this, it's not worth the trouble. Even as I'm writing this message, we are having major difficulties with their services. And I'm talking about technical issues. Here's an example, we have users from everywhere calling almost everywhere (Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America). Not a whole lot of customers, but a wide variety of them.

For many destinations in Africa (more than 10 countries), when we call through voicetrading, they do not heat the phone ringing at all. And we never reach their voicemail if they have one. Strangely enough, during the ringing, the status of the line change and our equipments see that as if the line has been picked up and a2billing starts charging the customer. This only happen when we go through a2billing. If we use other provider listed under the trunk setting of a2billing, it works just fine.

Recently, we have started loosing audio. Without changing any configuration, the callback service would still call you back, then total silence. You can see in the asterisk CLI that asterisk is playing sound files asking for the number to dial, but nothing can be really heard on the customer side. Again, that's happening only through voicetrading.

Another issue we are still having is that is the same country, some cellphone companies are out of reach. At first, I thought that it was probably due to the fast growing of the number of cell phone companies. But the company that was out of reach used to be reachable by the same voicetrading trunk in the past. Meanwhile, the other trunks are able to reach destinations belonging to that cellphone company.

The list goes on and on. And the only type of emails that I have ever received from voicetrading are:

- Rate change messages
- Autoresponses to the tickets that I submit
- Marketing emails

I will post here the issues that will occur as they do. I can only warm you, do not hold they breath trusting their service. And make sure that you are not using it as the main trunk or make sure that you have good failover trunks.

Regards

I've encountered similar issues with VT. I'm at a loss as to why using them to call 123 will work, but then why if you do callback to 123, that the voice resources don't open. I was hoping that it would be fixed when I upgraded my version of asterisk and the new A2B callback module, but I haven't tested that part yet.

Asiby, is your issue with them on callback related to which version of A2B and Asterisk?

Oh - and I've even tried changing to their different level of service (gray, normal, premium) - all to no help.

Yes - if you ever send them a mail about anything tech or quality ... GOOD LUCK - I've NEVER received a reply. Oh - and they can change their payment methods at whim too.

Recently, I most cases, the voice resource will fail to work during callbacks when using voicetrading. They are probably not consistent when using a codec to dial out I am not sure when they force g729 as only codec when I do not support that? Will the .gsm sound files be compatible? No idea. It's just a wild guess, but I suspect something like that. I am not sure. But I do know that sometimes it works. Maybe it depends on what codec the phone being called back is able to support (meaning the phone company behind that phone number). When I make a direct call, depending on the destination, it may or may not work.

But the way, get ready to purchase some g729 codec licenses if you want to use CarrieXchange. I have learned that this is the only reliable codec used by them and the providers selling through them. You can still use other codec, but there are no guarantee that the channels with support your codec.

Voidetrading is no really very good we are waiting also few mails

ANY DAY CRAZY DAY

No .---

Carriexchange you need to select your routes for have good termination. This is long time and change.

And AFRICA . This continent give many problem in all the carrier. For AFRICA only there one solution seek DIRECT ROUTES or you look partner with any have direct routes.

Also with this many times no work because the line is OFF in the country in question . This is for many question the line is physical cut in any point or there aren't electrical supply and the company is OFF.

In africa is normal one week or more no electricity and computer router switch etc all OFF.

And in this case telephone off

Please Gineta, this is not true at all. Please, name some specific countries instead of pointing out the whole continent. Cause Africa is a continent with many countries and I know very well about West Africa for instance, and I do not know a single country there where it is normal to have a whole week without electricity. And even in case of power outage, I have personally never experienced a local telephone service outage. Of course, that doesn't mean that international connectivity is always up. I seriously think that you should take the time to visit a few country there before assuming that is hell on hearth.

Change of subject. As promised, I am here to give some feedback about our experience with Carriexchange. To sum up, it's not brilliant.

We are experiencing some very bad voice quality with carriexchange. The most frustrating is that their published phone numbers are not even working. We have selected on purpose the supposedly "highest quality" routes available, but the quality was sometimes worst. Often, when we call, the phone ring on the other side and keep ringing even is the person picks up the line. By switching back to Voicetrading, the problem disappears. Oh, and that is happening for calls within North America. Nothing to do with Africa this time.

Another issue is that their IP would be "Unreachable" for hours at a time. Easily more than 8 hours the last time. And when reachable, SIP SHOW PEERS shows a ping time of more than 3000 ms while voice trading's ping time is at 132 ms.

We are seriously starting to have second thoughts about Carriexchange and we have decided to keep voice trading for the time being. At least we will have an alternate route.

One other thing. We have also noticed that depending of the final route that your call will be using, if your SIP debug is on, you will sometimes notice that the provider has totally different configurations. For instance, the preferred codec or the DTMF capabilities may be different from that of the previous call and of course, from the static configuration available in your sip.conf. I am wondering if that is the reason why the audio is randomly lost or the DTMF are often simply ignored.

The list goes on. And let me tell you that we haven't change anything in our configurations.

A few days ago, I have received an email with the subject "Quality Alert" stating the following:

Can somebody please tell me what proper action I can take here (other than dumping Carriexchange)? The problem here is that we ARE NOT selling any route through them. We are buying route from them to make outgoing calls only, and lately their quality has be far from acceptable. Maybe I didn't understand the message.

Anyway, I am tired. I guess that the search is on again for another "better" provider.

Regards

Look the problem with the carrier is long and difficult.

Is true carriexchange have 4 telephone number and always there the voicemail.

AHHH Try to call to the mobile number at 11 in the morning UK Time
There answers any time but never can back the contract I send days before.

The problem with electricity is long . Look I have other software no a2billing but also asterisk and in this we have many call shop.

Many time's I have resquest the call no drop and I call to the country in to the telephone company in question and I get this "sorry for my english"

Operator: Very sorry but were you are calling the the electricity line is down more of 24 hours and we no have UPS WORKING.

UPS uhm I think in petrol generator and other system of power supply.

UPS is for my house for my personal computer . What happened the carrier drop your call to this country the telephone company of this country make the call or busy or always ring to no any costumer.

This Test I make many time because many of the call shop is people from senegal, gana etiopia, zambia etc

Other question is the network problem by internet but you think is many nodo is OFF the lag is very big.

I think the only solution about all this is what we are making now contact with every telephone company and try to contract DIRECT ROUTES and switch for us and other is interest in the project .

No for really make big business Only for win quality in the calls.





Added after 8 minutes:

For all the people Only we go to have quality call with africa when is finish the project CABLE AFRICA - EUROPE

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2840637.stm
East Africa plans cable link
Fishing boat off Mombasa, Kenya
East Africa's seas could soon be hi-tech below the surface
Telecom executives from East Africa have been meeting to discuss the possibility of connecting countries in the region by an undersea fibre optic cable.

At present African states pay about $400m (£250m) a year to have international calls to other African countries routed via Europe.

"Africa has better connection to Europe and America than within the continent," Telkom Kenya managing director Augustine Cheserem told the meeting in Nairobi.

The meeting decided to draw up a feasibility study for the cable which is not yet fully costed. A report in Kenya's Nation newspaper cited an estimate of 300m Kenyan shillings ($4m).

Growing demand

"We are anticipating substantial growth in (international data) traffic over the next five to 10 years," said Telkom Kenya strategic planning manager Joseph Ogutu.

Deregulation of the region's fixed line telecoms sector coupled with expansion in mobile phone providers means East Africa has more telecoms firms than before.

The cable would create a cheaper alternative to existing satellite-based transmission systems whilst adding extra capacity, Mr Ogutu told BBC World Service Radio.

The cable would probably run from Durban, in South Africa, as far north as Dijbouti in the Horn of Africa via Madagascar, Tanzania and Kenya.

Mr Ogutu dismissed suggestions the consortium might face similar problems to Global Crossing, the international fibre optic network giant which filed for bankruptcy in January 2002 with liabilities of $12bn.

Global Crossing's collapse revealed the rush to build networks in the late 1990s had resulted in overcapacity. The firm's networks linked 200 cities in 27 countries.

Going it alone?

"Most of the investment of Global Crossing was across the Atlantic and parts of the Pacific where already there's quite of lot of submarine cable," said Mr Ogutu.

He said it was too soon to decide whether the consortium would seek a strategic partner from outside Africa.

However, South African and West African firms had already co-opted to lay an undersea link for the west coast of the continent without outside investment, he said.

The consortium includes Telkom Kenya, Tanzania Telecommunications, Uganda Telecommunications, MTN and Zantel.
Encuentran financiación para el cable que unirá el este de África con Europa

SPANISH
por : Diana Delgado: martes 27 noviembre 2007, 01:03

El proyecto de cable submarino que unirá esta parte de África con Europa costará 70,7 millones de dólares y se espera que con él el precio de Internet se reduzca para los africanos al menos dos tercios del precio actual, que es de 300 dólares al mes.

Cinco instituciones financieras han accedido a financiar este proyecto que podrá empezar a construirse en breve y que significará una mejora considerable de las comunicaciones en esta parte de África.

En la construcción participa un consorcio de 29 empresas y se espera podrá estar terminado en marzo de 2009.

Hace dos semanas comenzó un proyecto de cable de fibra óptica submarino aún más grande, el SEACOM, que unirá Kenia, Madagascar, Mozambique y Tanzania con el cable de banda ancha internacional de Sudáfrica, India y Europa y que se estima tendrá un coste de 650 millones de dólares.

Woahhh. Calm down please. I have never said that my issues occured during calls to Africa. It is all occurring with calls to North America (Canada and USA). So your UPS theory does not apply. And regarding the Internet connection, we are using a lightning fast low latency symmetrical VDSL (Very High Speed DSL). We are located in Canada and I am sorry but the connection with your servers sucks most of the time. A normal ping will work fine, but the SIP connection to your IP have been unreachable for extended period of time. I am sure you know about it. Maybe your "UPS" was down too. Try using a generator.

This is for your information Gineta. UPS are not solely for home use. I have worked on UPS backup system with battery pack the size of 2 entire rooms from floor to ceiling. And UPS does not only provide backup power, but also clean power. It receives power from the grid and go through a few steps to clean it up. Using just a generator is not enough. In a case of accidental loss of power, a generator will not be instantly be running. So even if it take just 1 seconds to start it up and stabilize it, the computers would have lost power by them. A UPS will gracefully provide power during that time. Also, if there is a problem with the generator, the UPS can sustain the needed power output for a given period. The UPS that I have mentioned earlier was able to provide energy to all the computers, printers, alarms systems and some electronic gizmos (fax, copier, ...) for roughly 24 hours without any generator.

It's good to know that you are going to improve connectivity with Africa, but for now, I am more interested by the quality of what we are purchasing from you.

Oh, I almost forgot, we have called all numbers available on your Web site. And we called from our cellphones (Rogers Wireless) as well as from landline phones (Bell Canada). I guess your next move will be to say that Rogers and Bell Canada had bad connections or no electricity. We didn't even have the chance to leave a message on your voice mails.

By the way, you don't need to try to justify yourself here. Whatever you say, I know for a fact that we have having difficulties with Carriexchange. You will have some hard time convincing me of the opposite. Anyway, I was merely posting my feedback so the a2billing community will know what to expect if it ever happen to them too. To get someone to fix our issues I will simply try calling those numbers until somebody answer. I will try to call as you have suggested around 11am GMT.

VERY SORRY YOU NO UNDERSTAND

UPS USE THE AFRICAN NO I.

I HAVE GENERATOR AND ELECTRICAL SWITCH SECURITY SYSTEM . ETC

AND OTHER QUESTION WHAT SITE.

PLEASE PUT ME CLEAR THIS.

CARRIEXCHANGE IS NOT MY SITE. I AM NOT ARABIAN THIS IS CLEAR

WHEN YOU NEED MY TELEPHONE NUMBER AND MY SITE PLEASE SEND ME A PRIVATE MSG

Added after 4 minutes:

[quote=". I will try to call as you have suggested around 11am GMT.[/quote]

SECOND QUESTION

THIS IS THE TIME IN ARABIA IS AROUND 5 PM .
IS THE TIME THIS PEOPLE CALL ME TO ME AND I CALL AND OTHER QUESTION THIS PEOPLE CALL AND IS NO MY SITE BUT THE PEOPLE YOU
BUY NEVER CALL NEVER CAN BACK ANY INFORMATION.

I NO GET NOTHING FREE FOR CARRIEXCHANGE BUT SURE IS MORE BEST OF OTHERS

I have been using carriex for several months now. I am very pleased with there system as a whole. It is important to stay on top of which routes you are using for providers have good and bad days. The tools they make available to me gives me all the control I need to ensure high-quality - low-cost routes. Most of my customers call South America, parts of the middle-east, and some of eastern Europe.

My primary concern is the time it takes to add funds to my account. It is usually done within 24hrs but I have had experiences with payment processing taking up to 72 hours.

Happy New Year!

I am with you only the payment system is very slow but transfers overseas have this

HAPPY NEW YEAR