Expensive mobile termination costs - workaround?

Patrickof

Hi,

Been thinking. I have a Cisco 7940 with an account on blueface, working perfectly, very happy with it.

As all other Irish operators they are subject to comreg's ridiculous mobile terminating rates (meaning about 18c per min for calls to 08x numbers).

However, foreign operators are not subject to these charges (e.g. calleasy.com is just 6c per min to Irish mobiles).

So, my question is: as there are two lines on my cisco phone, can I have blueface configured on line one and a foreign voip operator on line 2 - I would then dial a mobile on line 2 or a national number on line 1 - I'm not worried about the CLI the end user would see as I should be able to get an Irish geo number to appear and have that forwarded to my "real" landline).

Any thoughts?

Patrickof

Replying to myself here!

It works! I signed up to a foreign voip provider that has calls at €0.072 per minute to Irish mobiles. Less than half the best Irish rate.

Simple to config, the second line on the phone is now for calling mobiles and the first line for irish national/local numbers.

Isn't the logic behind this ridiculous, I can route my phone calls through Germany and they're less than half the price of keeping them within Ireland!!!!

I think I might write to comreg. (Knowing them though they're response is likely to be to increase the international inbound termination rates....)

Fresh Pots

Sounds good. What provider are you using then? Might try set this up myself.

Patrickof

smartvoip.com

They appear to be in Cologne. I haven't given it much use yet but my initial use seems good, had to sign up for €15 to get credit to make calls.

And the registration took a few attempts, it kept saying I had a firewall blocking ports, which I didn't - worked third time.

craichoe

Patrickof wrote: »

smartvoip.com

They appear to be in Cologne. I haven't given it much use yet but my initial use seems good, had to sign up for €15 to get credit to make calls.

And the registration took a few attempts, it kept saying I had a firewall blocking ports, which I didn't - worked third time.

Their one of the Betamax companies

http://backsla.sh/betamax

Calleasy is the cheapest at 6c / minute.

Patrickof

I haven't yet been able to get them to relay my CLI from a Cisco 7940 phone. They only let you specify your CLI when using their PC based softphone, which I'd rather not use.

Earth Traveller

Patrickof wrote: »

I haven't yet been able to get them to relay my CLI from a Cisco 7940 phone. They only let you specify your CLI when using their PC based softphone, which I'd rather not use.

Not so in my experience. I use Betamax clones (Poivy, VoipStunt, VoipCheap) with a Linksys PAP2 ATA and regular telephone handset. I am able to relay my CLI, including my Irish Vodaphone mobile number.

Patrickof

What settings are you using on the linksys?

And what format CLI, i.e. I verified my landline number and have tried setting my CLI with the international code, with 00, with + and without the international code but no joy, still comes up as "Private number"

amby666

Patrickof wrote: »

Hi,

Been thinking. I have a Cisco 7940 with an account on blueface, working perfectly, very happy with it.

As all other Irish operators they are subject to comreg's ridiculous mobile terminating rates (meaning about 18c per min for calls to 08x numbers).

However, foreign operators are not subject to these charges (e.g. calleasy.com is just 6c per min to Irish mobiles).

So, my question is: as there are two lines on my cisco phone, can I have blueface configured on line one and a foreign voip operator on line 2 - I would then dial a mobile on line 2 or a national number on line 1 - I'm not worried about the CLI the end user would see as I should be able to get an Irish geo number to appear and have that forwarded to my "real" landline).

Any thoughts?

I'm doing something similar using http://www.mysipswitch.com

At the moment I'm using a dial plan to route mobile calls via http://www.callwithus.com (1.1c (US) per min), and the rest of the calls through Blueface because I have a Blueface account.
If you don't have a Blueface account, http://www.vyke.com might be worth a look at 3.3 cent per call.

Patrickof

I got the CLI working with voipcheap (haven't tried with other operators yet).

Twas my fault, the setting in the Cisco 7940 for CLI is not the obvious one, when I tried a less obvious parameter it worked (Line_name is the one that counts, not Line_displayname)

taoiseachjoe

amby666 wrote: »

At the moment I'm using a dial plan to route mobile calls via http://www.callwithus.com (1.1c (US) per min) account.

I just looked up the rate to irish mobiles from callwithus.com and it is more like 10 US cents per minute. Still good, but not ad good as 1.1

Patrickof

You're right!

I just looked at my call history and sometime between 25 March and 30 March the rates changed! All my calls were at a rate of 0.0144 USD up to then, now they're 0.1409 USD.

Anyway, I wasn't using it much - it wasn't very reliable and I couldn't get it to pass my CLI.

Last

Earth Traveller wrote: »

Not so in my experience. I use Betamax clones (Poivy, VoipStunt, VoipCheap) with a Linksys PAP2 ATA and regular telephone handset. I am able to relay my CLI, including my Irish Vodaphone mobile number.

Could you tell me what parameters in the Linksys PAP2 ATA you need to set to get your mobile number to go forward. I have verified the number with the PC client software but cannot see what needs to be changed on the PAP2

Thanks

Sorted. I found the parameter. User ID:

tranceenigma

Patrickof wrote: »

Hi,

Been thinking. I have a Cisco 7940 with an account on blueface, working perfectly, very happy with it.

As all other Irish operators they are subject to comreg's ridiculous mobile terminating rates (meaning about 18c per min for calls to 08x numbers).

However, foreign operators are not subject to these charges (e.g. calleasy.com is just 6c per min to Irish mobiles).

So, my question is: as there are two lines on my cisco phone, can I have blueface configured on line one and a foreign voip operator on line 2 - I would then dial a mobile on line 2 or a national number on line 1 - I'm not worried about the CLI the end user would see as I should be able to get an Irish geo number to appear and have that forwarded to my "real" landline).

Any thoughts?

Hi Patrick.

I see you have a setup v. similar to that of mine, I have also two accounts, one Blueface & the other VoipCheap, but I use them on my Nokia N95.

I see you were able to configure a Cisco 7940 for this, how exactly is this done. I have a Cisco 7960 IP Phone but its a little tricky.

Pehaps you can provide details.

Thanks for the Help.

Patrickof

PM sent.

Cat5

Last wrote: »

Could you tell me what parameters in the Linksys PAP2 ATA you need to set to get your mobile number to go forward. I have verified the number with the PC client software but cannot see what needs to be changed on the PAP2

Thanks

Sorted. I found the parameter. User ID:

Would like to hear that answer..(have the same idea.).

Last

Cat5 wrote: »

Would like to hear that answer..(have the same idea.).

The User ID is the paramerer. Set it to +3538xxxxxxxx