Voxalot Pricing Model - suggestion
 

I was recently helping my pal to set up his VoIP "system", and I obviously planned to build it based on Voxalot.

Looking into his situation I realized that Voxalot pricing model doesn't work well for customers with multiple SIP clients. He planned to put 3 to 5 ATA at his home and homes of some of his close relatives. Using free Voxalot accounts was not even considered, because most essential features on free accounts are severely limited. Opening 5 Lite accounts for $15 each comes to $6.25/month, and yet each will be limited to merely one registration. It's fairly insane, considering that those accounts weren't intended to be truly separate entities, but rather extensions of one private "family" communication system.

It would be nice if Voxalot guys considered adding a new package, priced by amount of extensions, as an opposite to a current pricing by amount of registrations.

Suggestions aside (I agree that it could be made slightly easier for people looking for Multiple User, One Administrator approach), you can clearly make this happen for about $25/year:

1. Get one VoX Premium acct. at $25
2. Get 4 VoXBasic Accts.

-Create Provider Lists and Dial Plans in your VoXalot Premium acct.
-Export Lists and Plans
-Import Lists and Plans to each of the VoXBasic accts

At this point each of the VoXBasic accts have the exact same calling capabilities as the VoX Premium acct. The 5 accounts can call among each other as well.

Now use VoX Premium to register up to 5 DID providers. Use the Call Forwarding capabilities of VoX Premium to forward each DID to the appropriate VoXBasic acct. (you'll need to forward to sip:*010xxxxxx@sipbroker.com)

Now you've got 5 users that can receive and make calls, and can call among each other for free.

Of course you can get creative even further (especially if this friend isn't planning on allowing BetaMax use for his four other extensions, hence FUP won't be an issue). You could do one VoXPremium with 4 MySIPSwitch accts, and then all the dial plans and providers can be managed from one spot....

That's right - but only if you're looking to set up a straight forward "home phone" thing. You don't really need Premium account at all - everything can be set up with no registrations, just SIP URI from DID provider.
But I have already described to that person how cool VoIP can possibly be, particularly about possibility to have multiple DIDs for different parties (work vs. family, etc), or time/CID based incoming call routing/blocking - all this isn't poissible with Basic account - and after he knows what can possibly be done there's no way back to simple "phone line".
So I'm stuck - whether to pay few Lite accounts, which is ridiculous; or to go to PBXes, which he surely won't be able to manage himself due to its complexity...

BTW, why sip:*010xxxxxx@sipbroker.com? I tried to define a speed dial from one Voxalot account straight to another - and it worked...

Oh boy....

That's just it, for me and you who don't mind sitting here tinkering with things, VoIP has all those options.....but frankly all the Bells and Whistles are not yet simple enough for the common user (even if you go with a commercial grade provider)

My personal suggestion, get your friend started with a VoXBasic acct. (don't even spend money right away)....

Then let him experiment until he has a reasonable understanding of what he's getting into (or you are gonna end up being an unpaid on-call technician whenever problems come up :D )

--------
To the best of my knowledge forwarding from one VoXalot user to another using sip:123456@us.voxalot.com is not allowed for programing reasons (I believe)

I've added a dial plan option as follows to call Voxalot numbers (all 6 digits for now):
_XXXXXX
*010${EXTEN}
Sip Broker

Sounds like you know quite well what you're talking about ;)

<rant>
This is getting ridiculous... Now I have to pay both Voxalot and PBXes - first doesn't offer support sub-accounts for more-then-one-ATA model, the other doesn't support flexible enough time-based forwarding rules... But PBXes is office dedicated system, as a private user I shouldn't be there at all. C'mon Voxalot, get off your a...., offer an advanced model for advanced users!
</rant>

I couldn't agree more. Since I moved to a Mac I've been able to fend off requests for PC support by claiming that I know nothing about any Microsoft OSs since WIN2K. It's true, but also very useful.