How to start the next Vonage

This is a page for anyone that is interested in starting a full blown residential and/or small business VOIP provider business.

(original editor)
"What I wanted to do with this website is combine all the great minds of this website to get closer... faster to getting together all the information I would need if I wanted to create the next Vonage.
Please feel free to change, add or correct what I or anyone else that was posted here." - Damian

To start the next Vonage you will need essentially 6 things (other than 500,000 clients). Each of these things need to be qualified so that you know that your providers will still be there after you go live, and that they will honour your contract with them.

• Website to allow the customer to sign up, and see their options & minutes used. (optional, but probably needed)
• Provider of minutes - So your customers can call regular PSTN phone numbers - buy low, sell high
• DID provider - So your customers have regular PSTN phone numbers for incoming calls
• VOIP Server - to route the traffic from the DIDs to your customers & allow them to call out - Vonage Uses SER, Broadvoice use Broadsoft, RNKTEL uses asterisk.
• Hardware provider for the ATAs needed to have your customers connect to the VOIP server
• A billing engine. You do want to get paid, hm?

Number 1 rule: Test the entire solution. Run a pilot project with some volunteers for at least a couple of months before going live. Leave the pilot running so you can test changes before putting them into production. Reliability is your friend.

Provider of Minutes

You're going to be looking around for companies that provide you with Minutes for your customers to be able to pick up their phones and dial a phone number (local or long distance)

Most of these can be found in this page: VOIP+Service+Providers+B2B

Here are a couple of good minutes providers I've found so far:
StanaPhone Wholesale US =0.75-1.1 �/min - Accepts Wire transfer, Check, and Credit Card - $100 Minimum commitment - Email them and Sign up within weeks
VoipJet US=1.3�/min - Accepts Paypal & CC - FREE trial - $5 Minimum commitment - UP and running in 5 minutes
Commoice US48=1.5/min (All other A-Z rates: http://www.commoice.com/rates.php)
Gyrocom has rates from 0.44�/min, but varies a LOT - Up and running after you call them. ($250 Minimum per week use it or lose it)
FonoSIP.com Canada=1.6 US=1.9�/min - Accepts Paypal & CC - FREE trial - UP and running in 5 minutes. Also supports SER LiveCD Solution
http://www.five9snetwork.com Canada 0.0115 USD /min Full A-Z routing, AMAZING call quality. 604.628.0029 for sales desk
Commpartners - Large carrier class network, DIDs in most major cities, Sponser of www.voip-info.org!
http://www.mutualphone.com SERVICE IS NOT GOOD AND DON'T HAVE SUPPORT TO THE CLIENTS - USA 0.012 USD /min Full A-Z routing, AMAZING call quality and rates. Accounts work with any DID provider, such as free DID from www.ipkall.com. NOTE: www.mutualphone.com is a really bad services, they never give support to they clients, every day have problems and never answer your email support. Mutualphone is a really fake enterprises.

DID Providers

You're going to be looking around for companies that provide you 1-800 numbers, or Local DIDs in all the states, and/or countries where you'd like your customers (and maybe you too) to have phone numbers where people can call using any PSTN phone line. The best source for this is on www.voxbone.com - It is a exchange patform for differnt voip providers to sell there did's to you without a high per month cost to you of inventory. You show all there did numbers on your web site and route it to your network when customer orders it.

Most of these can be found in the same page as above: VOIP+Service+Providers+B2B

Airone Communications Wholesale Only, IAX/SIP VoIP Termination, Asterisk Support, Virtual PRI, DID Numbers in USA / CANADA: We Charge arround $0.03 Per Number Including Unlimited Inbound Calls. No Minimum Purchase Requirements

DID World Wide - Largest worldwide coverage, multi protocol and multi channel supported online DID provider.

www.didx.net - A wholesale marketplace and exchange patform for voip providers to buy to resell and/or sell DIDs to you with great features reporting, billing, point of sale, free APIs; ringto SIP IAX2 or Skype; ticket system, advanced manual search even for vanity numbers. You how all DID numbers available on DIDX on your web site and route to your network when customer orders. Routing is instant to your network. Get 2 FREE DID for testing as part of interop and terms and agreement. DIDX does not provide any DI on its own but all are provided by CLECs, incumbents, voip companies, cable companies, and other IP communications companies with a vendor rating system of 0-8 with 5 and above as good and better. It has millions of DID from 68 + countries. Since it's wholesale only, minimum monthly quantity of DID in each account is 20 through May 30, 2007 and then 50 purchased DID or 100 available for sale international DID (1000 available for sale USA DID) from June 1, 2007 until further notice. DIDX also offers complimentary publicity to active DIDX members on Super Technologies' magazine Techistan and its iTunes and DIDX audio podcast channels.

IPKall will provide you a FREE DID in washington state - You're up and running within minutes

http://www.phone2net.com Phone 2 Net offers SIP , IAX2, and h323 trunking services. You can get unlimited incoming calls over IP to any of the protocols or Google, MSN, or Yahoo messengers. Guranteed tier1 quality numbers only. Best price in the market. visit www.phone2net.com. Great for calling card voip operators.

Stanaphone Retail They will give you a FREE DID in NEW York State (although it wouldn't be fair to use them unless you load some money onto your account) - You're up and running withing minutes - Takes Paypal

SipGate Free DID in UK & Germany - Same as Stana

Link2voip asterisk settings - 1-800 DIDs for $1.49/month & 4.5c/min - DIDs for $4.50/mo plus 1.37c/min only in a few Canadian area codes - Takes Paypal, but it takes about 1-2 days to get your DIDs - $20 Minimum Commitment

Commpartners - Large carrier class network, DIDs in most major cities, Sponser of www.voip-info.org!

VOIP Server

You can use SER or Asterisk for this purpose, but the biggest problem is the billing. Many recommend to write your own, or you can buy a ready made software which supports asterisk or ser. Vonage uses SER and many like broadvoice, phoneopia use asterisk. You can use an asterisk cluster to bring high redundency.

Asterisk The most talked about VoIP server here and with all the information here I was able to setup a server with phones within my office, and outside (for family members) also I am getting DIDs from the links above, and using minutes from the minutes providers above. Asterisk (or just *) is the most feature filled VoIP server at the expense of scalability. Asterisk can interface with a wider range of user CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) and trunk connections (referred to simply as "minutes" here) opening up more possibilities for you. Comment: Asterisk scales just fine by adding more boxes.

• Vidanetwork Technologies. Asterisk based Scalable network managment and billing system could be useed to provide services to not only residential users. but also small and medium businesses. It has User provisioning, Pre-pay, Post-pay, Flat Rate with free minutes billing plans, Hosted Virtual PBXes, Calling cards, and Conference room management. The End user web portal allows user to setup account, change call features, review call logs and even make payment online.

• SuperTec's Vonage Replacement Solution Super Technologies was one of the first Vonage wholesalers, and then later developed the a new solution based on Asterisk. Now offer the entire Vonage-type in a box solution starting 20,000$us. Includes provisioning, billing, CRM, Accounting, Auditing, Web Site, Credit Card charging, Paypal Charging, every thing and everything you need for becoming a Vonage-type or better. Includes integration with DIDX for DID numbers, and phoneopia for outgoing services.

• Jetnumber Communication. JetNumbers provides virtual phone numbers from all over the world. The calls can be forwarded to any international destination, including a call center, a regular phone line, a SIP phone or even Skype. Free trials are available.

SIP Express Router I've been told that if you have REAL traffic (if you move BEYOND selling to your friends, and 100 other customers) you should be using SER (as it's called). FWD, uses them and so do a lot of other providers including Vonage. It is touted that a powerful dual processor server can handle the call volume of a half of a million users. SER really only handles the setup of each call per the SIP specification. The actual voice stream travels directly between the calling party and your contracted PSTN gateway (provider of "minutes"). Comment: Asterisk and SER are not trying to do the same thing. SER is a SIP proxy, Asterisk is not (although it can function as one). You need to get your head around why you would want some of each in your mini-Vonage.

SER LiveCD Solution All-in-one solution with integrated pre-paid, post-paid and flat fee accounting. Commercial support.

You can look through this list of VOIP PBX and Servers where you can find the correct option (then come back to this page, and correct what I've written here)

Website for customers.

Here you're going to either have to build a custom made solution connecting to the VOIP Server above, or look for a product that includes some kind of website for you and your customer to be able to add remote, change services through a graphical or web interface.

Some companies you might look into:

Dialexia Canadian company that charges $15/user & $175 per concurrent call, normally you'd get these on a 10:1 ratio. They connect to their own VOIP Server and have a login for you, for your resellers, and for the final customers, as well as cyber-cafe or Calling booth options

Speedway - Take a look at this provider, they give you a very easy way to start a VoIP business in just 5 minutes whit $0.00, you only pay the minute that you (and your customer) need. You will have a control panel to manage your customers and if you wan't they can host asterisk servers with billing, cdr, and rating ready. (Site entirely in Spanish)

Calgary Telecom - Web based billing software. Online CDR's and provisioning. Customizable and Scalable to your needs. Works great with Asterisk.

Please add some more here.

Get someone else to do it.

RNK - Asterisk based. They offer did and termination. They have a starting price of around $7000 and they're growing very fast. They'll get you up on your feet within weeks.

Speedway - Take a look at this provider, they give you a very easy way to start a VoIP business in just 5 minutes whit $0.00, you only pay the minute that you (and your customer) need. You will have a control panel to manage your customers and if you wan't they can host asterisk servers with billing, cdr, and rating ready. (Site entirely in Spanish)

Voip INC - Alse HUGE, their intial cost is about $8000 which includes $5000 of minutes purchased through them. they're fairly flexable, and will accept DIDs from other providers of yours & minutes from other providers (after you used up the mandetory ones you've purchased from them)

They also offer a HOSTED voip solution for you to become a VOIP service provider.

Bicom Systems - Offers PBXware in three editions: Multi-Tenant PBX, Business PBX, and Call Center PBX. PBXware is the world's first and most mature Professional Open Standards Turnkey Telephony Platform. Since 2003, PBXware has deployed flexible, reliable, and scalable New Generation Communication Systems to SMBs, enterprises, and governments worldwide by unifying the most advanced of latest technologies.

• See others

www.voip-info.org has more information.

You probably also want to read : How to build a VoIP network

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