VoxPremium goes live 16th July, 2007

[bstanier]

Dial plans are OK now in Firefox, but the Service providers screen has the same problem in my FF with the edit icons etc beyond the RH margin.

[Hally]

Originally Posted by Tony

Hallycat - whirlpool enthusiast goes down in Voxalot history as the first subscriber to VoxPremium.

Thanks Hally for your support. The Voxalot team appreciates it very much.

Tony.

Thanks Tony for the recognition but I was glad to join up.
I love the new website and it is easy and comfortable to navigate.
Thumbs up to the design guys

[affinity]

A couple of suggestions, please consider.

• Use checkbox or simple click toggle for "Active" status [VSP outgoing / Smart Calls (Dial Plans) / Web Call Back Phonebook / etc....] related:
  For the options that are YES or NO only, such as whether or not a VSP or Smart Call (Dial Plan) rule should be active.... how about using an 'active value field' with a submit button and warning message or other indication (as below) when change(s) are still pending.
  
  I don't think the change should occur unless the submit button is pressed, similarly there should be a cancel button to reject changes not submitted. Hitting the cancel button should naturally cause a form reset event.
  
  This idea is similar to the Web Call Back Phonebook 'action' that is invoked when you press the handset icon to initiate a call; instead of activating an external process (initiating the call), pressing the 'active value field' should dynamically toggle the data in the currently displayed page. Any such 'active value fields' should have floating text on mouse over indicating the 'click to toggle' function. The pending value should immediately be shown (either as text or a graphic) -- and a different colour or style sheet setting could indicate that it is a modified value which still needs to be submitted. Perhaps the style of all display items of each row that has pending modifications could be adjusted to highlight the need to submit the pending change.
  
  This would be particularly handy if a user wanted to easily toggle the status of one or more providers; they can action each change and review the whole screen before pressing the submit button to effect all changes quickly without navigating other forms. The same can be done for dial plan rules -- they may already be grouped logically and a bunch of rules might apply to one provider that you wish to adjust. As indicated, this could be a good enhancement for other function areas too.....
  
  An extension on this might be to have two delete icons, a 'light' and 'dark' coloured trash can; pending deletes should use the dark version. This may be a little more complicated and may be better left as is.
  
  
• [SIP] Registration Status / Mode Change
  The registration "status" could become an "Activate / Deactivate" toggle button acting the same way as above.
  
  The user can 'quickly' change the status of each or all providers very easily without navigating other forms. For example, you may know that one provider has issues, you can quickly turn it off and turn on an alternative.

[ColinW]

Sorry but I am still confused: For more than a year now I have been using this service to register 5 different providers for incoming calls. One of these providers is also used for outgoing call using a single dial plan. To the best of my knowledge, all of my providers require registration for both outgoing and incoming calls (sipgate / voipbuster / freespeech). My understanding is that following this "upgrade" all of a sudden nothing will work as of 30/07/2007 unless I pay to upgrade. If this is true then there would appear to be certain elements of extortionate behavior at work... Attract people to invest time and effort to make it work because it is free - and then make them pay if they want to continue...

Martin, can you please correct me on all above elements I have wrong?

Thanks, Colin

[emoci]

Originally Posted by ColinW

Sorry but I am still confused: For more than a year now I have been using this service to register 5 different providers for incoming calls. One of these providers is also used for outgoing call using a single dial plan. To the best of my knowledge, all of my providers require registration for both outgoing and incoming calls (sipgate / voipbuster / freespeech). My understanding is that following this "upgrade" all of a sudden nothing will work as of 30/07/2007 unless I pay to upgrade. If this is true then there would appear to be certain elements of extortionate behavior at work... Attract people to invest time and effort to make it work because it is free - and then make them pay if they want to continue...

Martin, can you please correct me on all above elements I have wrong?

Thanks, Colin

Well, I don't know if SipGate is working for you right now...

As for VoipBuster and FreeSpeech, there is a good chance they do not require a registration to make calls. Since you have them registered already, to try, first erase them, wait about 1 hour, then re-add them setting Active to Yes but register to No. See if you can make calls.

If you need to have them registered than you will have to pay after the 30th.

That said, when I first heard they were gonna charge I felt like you, so I went ahead and tried to set up my own Asterisk Server (tried Trixbox, TrixBox for Windows via VMWare, 3CX, even played with PBXes services) Well, for what I needed to do, the headaches were not worth it, on top of that I would need to upgrade my machine, get me a better internet connection etc. All in all I calculated, assuming I could do all the grunt work myself, an upfront cost of about $150 USD to host all my connections myself.

Now imagine these guys doing this for who knows how many subscribers, all the programming hours, and then providing support too.... They have to be making something somewhere right?????

All that said, if you are willing to trade down some voice quality, try mysipswitch.com (of course keep in mind nothing will be free forever, unless maybe if Google buys it out )

[emoci]

Now,

Quick question:

Say I signed up for $25, but midway through I need to upgrade to $40, how does this work billing-wise?

You guys are gonna have to make a billing FAQ now too!!!

[Tony]

emoci,

We are working on creating SIP registration bundles in packs of 5 that you can purchase, to upgrade from VoxPro to VoxExtreme.

Tony.

[filmnet]

"VoxPremium goes live 16th July, 2007 " - this date is now elapsed, where can i get the 40 pounds from?

I can't even get it working on my system at the moment, for over the past 2 months.

regards,
-filmnet

[The King]

Originally Posted by ColinW

Sorry but I am still confused: For more than a year now I have been using this service to register 5 different providers for incoming calls. One of these providers is also used for outgoing call using a single dial plan. To the best of my knowledge, all of my providers require registration for both outgoing and incoming calls (sipgate / voipbuster / freespeech). My understanding is that following this "upgrade" all of a sudden nothing will work as of 30/07/2007 unless I pay to upgrade. If this is true then there would appear to be certain elements of extortionate behavior at work... Attract people to invest time and effort to make it work because it is free - and then make them pay if they want to continue...

Martin, can you please correct me on all above elements I have wrong?

Thanks, Colin

Oh....my....god.

You say you've invested time and effort, ever given any thought to how much time and effort these guys have invested!!?

Tony & Martin must be much cooler than I am, coz if I were them I would have been cursing like there's no tomorrow!

[kurun]

Originally Posted by ColinW

Sorry but I am still confused: For more than a year now I have been using this service to register 5 different providers for incoming calls. One of these providers is also used for outgoing call using a single dial plan. To the best of my knowledge, all of my providers require registration for both outgoing and incoming calls (sipgate / voipbuster / freespeech). My understanding is that following this "upgrade" all of a sudden nothing will work as of 30/07/2007 unless I pay to upgrade. If this is true then there would appear to be certain elements of extortionate behavior at work... Attract people to invest time and effort to make it work because it is free - and then make them pay if they want to continue...

Martin, can you please correct me on all above elements I have wrong?

Thanks, Colin

The comment on "extortionate behavior" is unfair.

For Voxalot to host this service, there are data centre costs involved, besides the expertise and time.

To run a server at home, one should consider the overall cost of ownership, initial cost of the server, physical space, maintenance costs, server data back-up, UPS Back-up, your time, and cost of electric power.

Probably the cost of the electric power alone to run the server will be comparable to or higher than the yearly VoxPremium charge.

I do not know of any provider that requires registration to send outgoing calls (yes, perhaps it shows how little I know).
And if I did, I have learned how to stay away from them !

Registration is only required in general for incoming calls depending on the provider, as to whether they provide what I call a "real" DID with SIP forwarding capability or a "captive" DID that works only with their registered account.

Further, I am more comfortable using services from a company that charges a nominal and fair fee, than from a company offering free service, as then I have a reasonable expectation of ongoing reliability and support. This is very important for me, and the support from the VoXalot team has been absolutely excellent.

I do realize that you and me and many others were beta testing the system.
That was part of the technical attraction for me to learn how to use VoIP in general, and as many features of the Voxalot service as possible, in particular.
Is it reasonable to fault a company offering a valued service for trying to create a revenue stream?

The feature set in VoxBasic is extensive, and enough for my purpose.
However, I still feel I should sign up and express my vote of support.

Thanks