FOOD FOR THOUGHT Anveo: Best Free VoIP Resource on the Net

[wardmundy]

It's All Good. There's no Bad and no but there is a little Ugly (see below).

Hands down winner of Best Free VoIP Resource on the Net.

See today's Nerd Vittles writeup for everything you want to know about Anveo...

 

[wardmundy]

A Word of Caution. For those considering commercial or home use of Anveo for "real calling," be advised that Anveo recently changed their pricing model on calls terminated in the United States. Some of these calls now are $.005 per minute while others can be as high as $.25 per minute! Anveo rolls all inbound calls to the next whole minute just like the cellphone carriers. Outbound are 30/6.

We would strongly encourage you to find a different termination provider especially if you make frequent calls to the midwest and if costs are a consideration. Here is an area code table to assist with deciphering the attached tier tables.

HINT: Google Voice remains free for all calls to the United States and Canada.

Tier 1 - $0.005 per minute
Tier 2 - $0.01 per minute
Tier 3 - $0.03 per minute
Tier 4 - $0.08 per minute
Tier 5 - $0.12 per minute
Tier 6 - $0.25 per minute

Curious about the coverage of each tier ?
Below is the coverage (percent) for each Tier of all exchanges
Tier 1 - covers 34% of all exchanges in US
Tier 2 - covers 46% of all exchanges in US
Tier 3 - covers 15.5% of all exchanges in US
Tier 4 - covers 2.5% of all exchanges in US
Tier 5 - covers 1.5% of all exchanges in US
Tier 6 - covers 0.5% of all exchanges in US

 

[atsak]

This doesn't appear to apply to Anveo Direct though; I am not using them for US termination but they are awfully cheap for Canada.

 

[wardmundy]

From DSL Reports:

The point of the comments was simply to rebut Anveo's sales pitch that they're doing everyone a favor with their new pricing model. In fact, Anveo is far outside the normal pricing model for US48 call terminations.

Anveo's response that they're competitive for 80% of US48 calls misses the mark when the buyer has no control over the remaining 20%. These can cost as much as 50 times the Tier 1 rate. Even for medium tier locations, Anveo is double to triple the cost of many leading VoIP providers. For high tier locations, Anveo's pricing is nothing short of outrageous. Think Ma Bell, 1964. Little wonder that you won't find any mention of termination pricing in Anveo's Dashboard.

But, hey, don't take our word for it. Click on the links below and verify these US48 per minute rates of leading VoIP providers. With the exception of Anveo, none have ASTERISKS FOR TIER CALLING...

FREE - Google Voice
$.005 - LocalPhone
$.007 - DIDlogic
$.009 - SIP.US
$.011 - VoIP.ms
$.014 - Vitelity
$.015 - Les.net
$.020 - CallCentric
$.250 - Anveo Tier 6*

 

[wardmundy]

Thought some of you might enjoy the lively debate about Anveo on DSL Reports. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

 

[MGD4me]

The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Mum's the word ....

 

[w1ve]

What a HOOT! I am involved in helping a WISP Integrate with Anveo. I'd have to say, Dennis is very flexible and has added a LOT to his API for us. But man, he is TOTALLY HOSED (a Canadian term) on this pricing model.
For my purposes. I uses Anveo Direct DIDs, but use other carriers for termination!! Localphone to ALL 48, great quality, for 1/2 cent (and buck DIDs unmetered, BTW, but not a lot of coverage). Voip.ms is very reasonable in the US
and very,very cheap to Canada.

Dennis (the owner, who I'm sure is at the keyboard on DSL) keeps saying "Yes, but we pick from the best quality carriers for Anveo retail." That's not going to fly with most people who know about VoIP trunking.

 

[wardmundy]

Joe Schmoe hit the nail on the head:

Yes, one can limit maximum rate to, say, 1c/minute in account settings but this will mean: "Outgoing calls are 1c/minute or less but you can only reach 88% of US numbers". How well do you think this is going to fly? Plus if you do this you block all international calls as well, which I personally wouldn't want...

Tiered pricing within US is probably OK for wholesale but I think for consumer product it should be the same rate per minute for any destination. Otherwise it is not possible to estimate any costs, considering that Anveo doesn't offer any "unlimited" outgoing plans.

If someone's business uses 10,000 minutes/month that would cost them between $50 and $700. That's [a] hell of a difference.

 

[wardmundy]

Anveo blinked:

As both JoeSchmoe007 and SunnyD have pointed out tiered approach indeed makes it very challenging for residential users to understand and estimate the cost. We had internal meeting today to discuss the exact the same issue. The decision has been made to rollback to the flat rate model but we will be tracking calls to "expensive" exchanges internally and will monitor and block any abuse.

 

[Dave Gray]

Hmmph. I certainly can see why they (Anveo) felt the need...

But, on the other side I'm dealing with a wife who is involved with a company that uses those "free" conferences extensively. Google voice just doesn't connect to their line - I had to do some digging to find out why. They don't seem to want to come out and tell you.

I guess I'll be keeping the $50/month verizon line a bit longer...

 

[tm1000]

There are many services that are 25/month unlimited. These days paying 50/month for copper is just outrageous.

Hmmph. I certainly can see why they (Anveo) felt the need...

But, on the other side I'm dealing with a wife who is involved with a company that uses those "free" conferences extensively. Google voice just doesn't connect to their line - I had to do some digging to find out why. They don't seem to want to come out and tell you.

I guess I'll be keeping the $50/month verizon line a bit longer...