PSTN Failover

Is there a VOIP service (apart from the most excellent and expensive
Vonage) offering UK geographic numbers that has a PSTN Failover
function that actually works?

Our Gradwell number became unavailable for about an hour today due to a
bug in their code (?) or somesuch vague reason. Gradwell of course
don't offer a PSTN failover at the moment on their normal SIP accounts
and the SIP device was registering with no problems so the first we
were aware of the problem was an email fron an irate customer.

We set up a divert via a SIP URL to our Voipfone account and started
receiving calls with one-way audio - obviously some problem between
Gradwell & Voipfone because direct dialed calls to the Voipfone account
worked perfectly.

To give Gradwell their due they sorted the 'unavailability' problem out
very quickly once we'd reported it - although the problem did occur
again for a short time after they'd told us it was sorted out and given
us the all-clear to undivert our calls. They admitted that it was their
problem rather than trying to blame someone else's service, which is a
credit to them BUT we selected their service because they're alleged to
provide the most reliable service available: suitable for business use.

Peter Gradwell said on here recently "our Centrex / single
line customers can also get PSTN fail over by setting a divert on no
reply on their extension".

Have you actually tried that Peter? Set up the divert, disconnect from
your ISP and see what happens if you make a call to your number 20
minutes later. Nothing - Number Unobtainable.

So anyway, once service had been resumed on our Gradwell numbers I
experimented with our Voipfone account to see if it was a viable
alternative. I set the PSTN Failover number to a known-working number,
disabled the ATA that was connecting to Voipfone, waited a few minutes
and dialled the Voipfone number. The call was answered by the Call
Queuing feature and then went nowhere even after holding for 5 minutes.
I waited another 20 minutes and tried it again - still no ringing on
the line the number was diverted to.

I love the apparent flexibility of using VOIP for our incoming calls
and the PBX-like features available but until there are services
available that at least come close to matching the reliability of BT
(and Vonage) then I think we'll be avoiding VOIP for our incoming calls
at least.

--

Alec

SmartAlec has brought this to us :
> Is there a VOIP service (apart from the most excellent and expensive
> Vonage) offering UK geographic numbers that has a PSTN Failover
> function that actually works?

Voip.co.uk's works.

AFAIK, voipfone's does too.

> Our Gradwell number became unavailable for about an hour today due to a
> bug in their code (?) or somesuch vague reason. Gradwell of course
> don't offer a PSTN failover at the moment on their normal SIP accounts
> and the SIP device was registering with no problems so the first we
> were aware of the problem was an email fron an irate customer.

I'm sure that's changed. Search this group for posts by Peter Gradwell.

> We set up a divert via a SIP URL to our Voipfone account and started
> receiving calls with one-way audio - obviously some problem between
> Gradwell & Voipfone because direct dialed calls to the Voipfone account
> worked perfectly.

Oh dear.

> To give Gradwell their due they sorted the 'unavailability' problem out
> very quickly once we'd reported it - although the problem did occur
> again for a short time after they'd told us it was sorted out and given
> us the all-clear to undivert our calls. They admitted that it was their
> problem rather than trying to blame someone else's service, which is a
> credit to them BUT we selected their service because they're alleged to
> provide the most reliable service available: suitable for business use.
>
> Peter Gradwell said on here recently "our Centrex / single
> line customers can also get PSTN fail over by setting a divert on no
> reply on their extension".

Ah, you can ignore my advice above!

> Have you actually tried that Peter? Set up the divert, disconnect from
> your ISP and see what happens if you make a call to your number 20
> minutes later. Nothing - Number Unobtainable.

Pah!

> So anyway, once service had been resumed on our Gradwell numbers I
> experimented with our Voipfone account to see if it was a viable
> alternative. I set the PSTN Failover number to a known-working number,
> disabled the ATA that was connecting to Voipfone, waited a few minutes
> and dialled the Voipfone number. The call was answered by the Call
> Queuing feature and then went nowhere even after holding for 5 minutes.
> I waited another 20 minutes and tried it again - still no ringing on
> the line the number was diverted to.

How long is your ATA set to re-register? If you have it set to 3600
seconds, perhaps their servers hadn't noticed you'd disconnected until
the next missed registration. Clearly I could be talking utter bollox
as I have no idea if the ATA tells their servers "I'll re-register in
an hour". Certainly voip.co.uk's servers a re very quick to notice that
the ATA has disappeared.

>
> I love the apparent flexibility of using VOIP for our incoming calls
> and the PBX-like features available but until there are services
> available that at least come close to matching the reliability of BT
> (and Vonage) then I think we'll be avoiding VOIP for our incoming calls
> at least.

Hmm.

Jono wrote:

> SmartAlec has brought this to us :
>
> > So anyway, once service had been resumed on our Gradwell numbers I
> > experimented with our Voipfone account to see if it was a viable
> > alternative. I set the PSTN Failover number to a known-working
> > number, disabled the ATA that was connecting to Voipfone, waited a
> > few minutes and dialled the Voipfone number. The call was answered
> > by the Call Queuing feature and then went nowhere even after
> > holding for 5 minutes. I waited another 20 minutes and tried it
> > again - still no ringing on the line the number was diverted to.
>
> How long is your ATA set to re-register? If you have it set to 3600
> seconds, perhaps their servers hadn't noticed you'd disconnected
> until the next missed registration. Clearly I could be talking utter
> bollox as I have no idea if the ATA tells their servers "I'll
> re-register in an hour". Certainly voip.co.uk's servers a re very
> quick to notice that the ATA has disappeared.

I wondered about that - I'll experiment with it later.

Surely though, in a robust system, once the server has tried to deliver
a call and failed it must be 'aware' that the call hasn't been handed
over and the PSTN failover (or at least a parallel diversion) should be
triggered until such time as the the ATA registers again?

--

Alec

Jono wrote:
> How long is your ATA set to re-register? If you have it set to 3600
> seconds, perhaps their servers hadn't noticed you'd disconnected until
> the next missed registration. Clearly I could be talking utter bollox as
> I have no idea if the ATA tells their servers "I'll re-register in an
> hour". Certainly voip.co.uk's servers a re very quick to notice that the
> ATA has disappeared.

A decent SIP system should fork to include the next destination when it
receives no reply after sending a few INVITE packets to the first
destination.

Tim

Jono wrote:
> SmartAlec has brought this to us :
>> Is there a VOIP service (apart from the most excellent and expensive
>> Vonage) offering UK geographic numbers that has a PSTN Failover
>> function that actually works?
>
> Voip.co.uk's works.
>
> AFAIK, voipfone's does too.

Not yesterday it didn't.
Apparently the problem with a severed optical fiber was not sufficient
to get the failover to kick in.

A right PITArse especially on the first day I actually published our
voipfone 0845 number all over the web-sites!

Seems ok today though.
Thankfully!

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hi

SmartAlec wrote:
> Peter Gradwell said on here recently "our Centrex / single
> line customers can also get PSTN fail over by setting a divert on no
> reply on their extension".
>
> Have you actually tried that Peter? Set up the divert, disconnect from
> your ISP and see what happens if you make a call to your number 20
> minutes later. Nothing - Number Unobtainable.

My personal ddi is regularly connected to a huntgroup which calls to a
phone which is regularly not there and my mobile and seems to work ok.

Could you either mail me, or not post anonymously, so I can investigate
your settings and see what isn't working.

cheers
peter

--
peter gradwell. gradwell dot com Ltd. http://www.gradwell.com/
-- engineering & hosting services for email, web and voip --
-- http://www.peter.me.uk/ -- http://www.voip.org.uk/ --