TIPS SIP trunk provider with free incoming?

[SellPro Business Services]

Looking for a wholesale SIP trunk provider that offers unlimited free incoming calls, while still offering competitive outgoing rates.

Many that I find that offer free incoming or unlimited are designed for pots/cell replacement service, i.e. single channel per DID.

Any suggestions of service providers for me to check out?

Thank you,
David

 

[wardmundy]

CallCentric and LocalPhone come to mind so long as you have a PBX supporting SIP URI connections.

 

[tjspcs]

Never heard of a sip provider with unlimited free incoming calls from pstn. The closest to free I've seen is bulkvs.com's origination rates. Or pay a fixed monthly fee ($15 to $25) for an "unlimited" incoming channel on sip trunk.
I'm usually pretty suspect of things labeled as unlimited. Somewhere there is bound to be something that spells out how that unlimited plan is not in fact unlimited.

 

[dallas]

It depends where in the world you are located. In Australia incoming calls have always been free. If you have a toll free number you pick up the tab for the incoming call and the call is free for the caller. My current VoIP provider does not charge me for any outgoing calls.

 

[mannen]

It depends where in the world you are located. In Australia incoming calls have always been free. If you have a toll free number you pick up the tab for the incoming call and the call is free for the caller. My current VoIP provider does not charge me for any outgoing calls.

Of course they do, you're just paying for it in another way, be it a monthly cost or something else. Pretty sure there is some fair-usage clause.

 

[wardmundy]

Never heard of a sip provider with unlimited free incoming calls from pstn. The closest to free I've seen is bulkvs.com's origination rates. Or pay a fixed monthly fee ($15 to $25) for an "unlimited" incoming channel on sip trunk.
I'm usually pretty suspect of things labeled as unlimited. Somewhere there is bound to be something that spells out how that unlimited plan is not in fact unlimited.

Keep in mind there are two legs to an incoming PSTN call: (1) from the caller to your provider and (2) from your provider to you. As I indicated, both CallCentric and LocalPhone offer free incoming calls so long as the leg from the provider to you is made using a SIP URI which isn't difficult if you have a PBX.

 

[Samot]

Keep in mind their are two legs to an incoming PSTN call: (1) from the caller to your provider and (2) from your provider to you. As I indicated, both CallCentric and LocalPhone offer free incoming calls so long as the leg from the provider to you is made using a SIP URI which isn't difficult if you have a PBX.

In both of those cases the other party needs to send the call directly to the SIP URI in question. This avoids the PSTN interconnections and thus the charges that go with them. So this requires the other parties to know your SIP URI and route calls out a trunk to it.

 

[wardmundy]

In both of those cases the other party needs to send the call directly to the SIP URI in question. This avoids the PSTN interconnections and thus the charges that go with them. So this requires the other parties to know your SIP URI and route calls out a trunk to it.

Nope. The other party can call using their PSTN phone to your DID hosted at either CallCentric or Localphone. Only the leg from the provider to you needs to be a SIP URI call, and you have total control over that, not the caller.

You can try out our Lenny number at CallCentric: 1-631-251-7122.
Doesn't cost us anything other than $1 a month for the DID.

 

[Samot]

Only the leg from the provider to you needs to be a SIP URI call,

Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding, the provider in question is CallCentric (or Localphone) and this SIP URI is between you and them?

You can try out our Lenny number at CallCentric: 1-631-251-7122.

If I call this from my cell phone, it's going to hit my cell carrier first that's going to route it to the LRN/owner of that DID. Then it will be sent to them who sends it to Callcentric who sends it to you. PSTN is involved.

Now based on CallCentrics own documents I could, from my SIP device, call [email protected] and that would go from me directly to CallCentric who sends it to you. No PSTN is involved. I could also have a SIP Broker account and just dial the CallCentric code *46216312517122 which will send the call to SIP Broker who then, because of the prefix code sends it to [email protected] and again avoids the PSTN.

I could offer the same thing to my customer base, calls to CallCentric users could be free if they just add a dial code before the number. Basically do the same thing as SIP Broker and route the calls directly to CallCentric instead of routing them to my upstream that will do an LRN dip and route to the proper carrier just like from my cell.

 

[wardmundy]

I thought the discussion was how to get FREE incoming calls from plain old telephones and cell phones to a DID that is assigned to you. That's what I was responding to. I fully understand there are many providers that would let you connect from SIP phones using SIP URI addresses. But, if that's the criteria, there's little need to go through a provider at all.

 

[Samot]

I thought the discussion was how to get FREE incoming calls from plain old telephones and cell phones to a DID that is assigned to you.

Sure but in the case of callcentric, you pay $1.00 for unlimited incoming calls. They've opted to not charge you for it but the catch is, it's only in NY, NJ, IL and MA. As long as you're getting a DID within those states you can get $1.00 unlimited. If not you can get Per Minute or pay at least $5.98/month for unlimited inbound. I get why they can do $1.00 unlimited in those states (they have real presence/status and costs are next to nil) but everywhere else they have to raise the price for the same service, they have higher costs for it.

But, if that's the criteria, there's little need to go through a provider at all.

That's always been the case. It's part of why DUNDi and other projects happened 15+ years ago when SIP all started. There was even a craze for being able to do [email protected] for calls. However, it required you to give out your telephone number like an email address. Simple devices like ATAs and even IP phones required either multiple accounts or ways to manipulate dial patterns to send to the right URI. It also meant you had to open your firewall to the entire world unless you set up your own PBX system (that was exposed to the world) and you remotely connected to that. It's why DUNDi and other projects existed because have a proxy made it easier but it still required constant updating and people needed static IPs or DynDNS for the SIP URI's to work. Oh it also turned out that doing SIP URI to SIP URI directly with both parties behind NAT and nothing in between also required both parties to have the *exact same codec setup* because nothing would translate.

Callcentric and SIP Broker, maybe even Localphone, are battle scarred veterans of SIP that have being doing it for a long time. Back in the early days of SIP/VoIP even the providers I worked at did the same thing. We offered SIP URI calling and other shining new features (at the time) that were fun to play with. But a lot of it failed and even started to see a down turn about a decade or so ago. IPv4 exhaustion really clamped down on getting resources, the use of CGNAT started to grow and outside of it being fun and cool if you wanted actual consistent and reliable service using VoIP/ITSP providers was the better option. That and the major's stopped seeing SIP as a fad and started doing it themselves.

 

[SellPro Business Services]

Thank you for all the input and thoughts on free incoming.

I was thinking about creating a service that would solve a pain point from a couple of my clients. The don't have or want a PBX or any virtual number, they just want to use the cell number.
However, I know the big providers (guessing all) have a way to forward calls on busy or no answer.

I am thinking about holding any forwarded calls or maybe a way to schedule a call back so it does not go to the providers voice mail. I can see from the discussion and some limited experience I have that free unlimited is often more marketing than reality and the fine print keeps changing.

Unlimited incoming seems to be sold as a per channel and with a relative high cost per month and does not auto reset to 1 each billing cycle, why would they.

Looking like the best option that will not be cancelled and can scale is a very low rate like from bulk.vs offering of .0003 , that is a lot calls on hold time.

Once again, thank you for the thoughts on this topic, I agree about using a SIP connection to a client VS using PSTN channel or per minute to route back to the client. [GMTA]


Dave

 

[Samot]

Thank you for all the input and thoughts on free incoming.

I was thinking about creating a service that would solve a pain point from a couple of my clients. The don't have or want a PBX or any virtual number, they just want to use the cell number.
However, I know the big providers (guessing all) have a way to forward calls on busy or no answer.

I am thinking about holding any forwarded calls or maybe a way to schedule a call back so it does not go to the providers voice mail. I can see from the discussion and some limited experience I have that free unlimited is often more marketing than reality and the fine print keeps changing.

Unlimited incoming seems to be sold as a per channel and with a relative high cost per month and does not auto reset to 1 each billing cycle, why would they.

Looking like the best option that will not be cancelled and can scale is a very low rate like from bulk.vs offering of .0003 , that is a lot calls on hold time.

Once again, thank you for the thoughts on this topic, I agree about using a SIP connection to a client VS using PSTN channel or per minute to route back to the client. [GMTA]


Dave

VoIP is no longer something where you can decide today to be a provider and be one tomorrow. There have been a lot of changes with the biggest being the FCC now wants every VoIP provider registered and they need to do things like sign their own calls.

 

[krzykat]

Thank you for all the input and thoughts on free incoming.

I was thinking about creating a service that would solve a pain point from a couple of my clients. The don't have or want a PBX or any virtual number, they just want to use the cell number.
However, I know the big providers (guessing all) have a way to forward calls on busy or no answer.

I am thinking about holding any forwarded calls or maybe a way to schedule a call back so it does not go to the providers voice mail. I can see from the discussion and some limited experience I have that free unlimited is often more marketing than reality and the fine print keeps changing.

Unlimited incoming seems to be sold as a per channel and with a relative high cost per month and does not auto reset to 1 each billing cycle, why would they.

Looking like the best option that will not be cancelled and can scale is a very low rate like from bulk.vs offering of .0003 , that is a lot calls on hold time.

Once again, thank you for the thoughts on this topic, I agree about using a SIP connection to a client VS using PSTN channel or per minute to route back to the client. [GMTA]


Dave

I've got on my desk phone an account registered that has my mobile number as the extension number. When someone calls my cell phone while I'm working, I prefer to use my speakerphone of office phone or even better yet, my Sennheiser headset. I also prefer my voicemail system which does complete transcription and emails and SMS alerts me over the mechanism used by the cell phone providers. So what I have done is grabbed a DID that I call my mobile number VM. It will ring my desk phone for just 10 seconds before going to VM. Next is I set my mobile phone to no answer, unavailable, etc. to a destination of this DID instead of the mobile company's voicemail. This gives me the ability to answer the phone on my desk, or let it go to VM. It's also nice if I happen to forget my mobile phone while in office or if some people that call deserve to talk to Lenny. As far as costs go, for inbound I don't think you can beat BulkVS, but really does it matter? The number of minutes going through it are typically very miniscule. Of course, I can also dial out that extension and even though I'm not calling from my mobile, it will show up to the end user as I'm calling from my mobile. Again, this is wonderful if my cell phone reception sucks and I want to make a clear call. The only downside, is that I've found some mobile companies are recognizing that the origination number is one of theirs, but yet the call didn't originate inside their network, so they don't allow the call through.

 

[teltech]

Of course they do, you're just paying for it in another way, be it a monthly cost or something else. Pretty sure there is some fair-usage clause.

For your information,

in almost all countries around the world are possible to get free DIDs with unlimited channels (1000 channels with no problem)

(all the free conference platforms are using these numbers they are getting paid from revenue share from the carrier who gets this from the carrier calling in)

this is called revenue share numbers

we have these numbers in

USA
UK
Brazil
Australia
Israel

 

[SellPro Business Services]

For your information,

in almost all countries around the world are possible to get free DIDs with unlimited channels (1000 channels with no problem)

(all the free conference platforms are using these numbers they are getting paid from revenue share from the carrier who gets this from the carrier calling in)

this is called revenue share numbers

we have these numbers in

USA
UK
Brazil
Australia
Israel

hmmm, curious @teltech is just the DID free or both the DID and per minute usage?
I am assuming all separate channels not all in one conference bridge to my server.

Thank you for the info.
Dave

 

[dallas]

hmmm, curious @teltech is just the DID free or both the DID and per minute usage?
I am assuming all separate channels not all in one conference bridge to my server.

I can’t speak for any countries other than my own. In Oz I pay a fee to have a phone number. With my current provider that fee is $1 AUD per month. For incoming calls there has never been a charge, be it per minute or per call for incoming calls.

 

[SellPro Business Services]

I can’t speak for any countries other than my own. In Oz I pay a fee to have a phone number. With my current provider that fee is $1 AUD per month. For incoming calls there has never been a charge, be it per minute or per call for incoming calls.

Thanks for the info, there used to be a few in the US the offered unlimited wholesale sip on incoming for DID, though they never seem to stay around long. Most unlimited plans these days seem to be for a number, 2-4 channels at a time max.

The good news is Bulkvs is only .0003 for incoming, that less than $4 a month so def good for small scale and maybe more. Just figured it worth asking if there was someone out there offering free incoming for all DID's. Def would allow for easy scaling, for now I can build the demo with Bulkvs to see if there is interest.

 

[wardmundy]

Keep in mind with BulkVS, you also pay for a CallerID dip in addition to the per minute charges.

 

[teltech]

hmmm, curious @teltech is just the DID free or both the DID and per minute usage?
I am assuming all separate channels not all in one conference bridge to my server.

Thank you for the info.
Dave

yes, you can get free unlimited channels & minutes in the US and almost all countries around the world.
Here is my contact information

live:.cid.bb9aa695974ab84f
[email protected]

keep in mind

I cannot provide with DIDs in all areas around the US (we have them in New York. South Dakota, Iowa, and more)

in the UK we provide 033 of what is designated for VoIP

in other countries like Israel, we have DIDs around all cities