RECOMMENDATIONS Most reliable DID provider to port an *Alaska* number to?

[jackal]

I'm looking to port an Anchorage-based landline number over to a DID provider and route it to my Asterisk box.

The catch about this particular question is that not all of the "major"/recommended providers will work with Alaska numbers. A few actually offer some Alaska DIDs, and several more (including ones that don't actually sell Alaska DIDs) appear to support porting my specific number, at least based on the testers on their websites.

In addition to some specific recommendations, I do have a general question: is there any benefit to porting the number to a provider that also resells Alaska DIDs? I'm left wondering if the providers who will take my number by porting but don't sell any numbers in Alaska may not be as reliable. Nothing to base that on, since I assume the traffic flows from the DID owner's TDM switch to me via IP regardless, but it's just a gut-check I have.

Anyway, what I'm looking for is primarily reliability; for origination, cost is a secondary concern (within reason). Also, I'll need E911, as this is a primary residential line.

So, I've uncovered the following:

VoIP.ms: sells Alaska DIDs and will port Alaska numbers; offers E911; proxies media
Flowroute: will port Alaska numbers; offers E911; direct media
Callcentric: sells Alaska DIDs and will port Alaska numbers; offers E911; direct media?
Vitelity: may sell Alaska DIDs and will port Alaska numbers; offers (free?) E911
CallWithUs: will port Alaska numbers; no E911
FutureNine: unknown; offers E911
Anveo Direct: no Alaska DIDs/porting; no E911; direct media
Alcazar: no Alaska DIDs/porting
VoIP Innovations: unknown--company based a few miles from me in Pittsburgh, though!
DID Logic: sells Alaska DIDs, does not port (AFAIK), supports G.722 (for whatever good that does here)

As for pricing, the only one that's really somewhat uncompetitive is FutureNine's $20 fee for number porting. The others that port Alaska numbers are within the same ballpark, so reliability/call quality is my main concern. That said, all other things equal, VoIP.ms and Flowroute come in at the low end of the inbound calling spectrum, at least among providers that work with Alaska number porting, though Vitelity has a slight edge if it's true that they have free E911. (VoIP.ms currently also has a promo with free porting.)

I have personally had good experience with both origination and termination with VoIP.ms and Flowroute, though Flowroute doesn't sell Alaska DIDs, so it's back to my first question about reliability with that arrangement. OTOH, VoIP.ms has a potential single-point-of-failure (since I must register to a single server that also proxies the RTP stream), whereas Flowroute has a few different servers with DNS SRV and does not proxy media, which I appreciate.

So, my question is, given all of the above, what would your recommendation be? I'm kind of leaning towards either VoIP.ms or Flowroute, but if CallCentric is going to be much more reliable, they may be worth the (small) premium; Vitelity remains an unknown, and the rest probably won't work for me. Am I missing anything?

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I also have a related question about termination: Anveo Direct has (by a good margin) the lowest prices for calling Alaska (907 area code) numbers. How do they compare, especially for Alaska calling?

Back when I worked for and set up a PBX with a local company in Anchorage, I had experience with VoIP.ms for outbound calling to Alaska numbers. VoIP.ms's value route of 3 cents per minute was OK, but I had a lot of complaints from my sales staff about poor call quality especially to rural Alaska, so I ended up just moving intrastate calls to our PRI at 16 cents per minute for long distance with the local ILEC (ACS) versus 18 cents per minute for VoIP.ms's premium route. After moving state, I later discovered Flowroute's 5 cent per minute rate for Alaska, and my own limited personal testing seems to indicate that it is fairly reliable--at least it's much better than VoIP.ms's value route for Alaska.

But--Anveo Direct has rates as low as 0.2 cent per minute for many numbers in urban Alaska and peaking at 3.2 cents per minute--much lower than almost every other provider--for even rural Alaska calls, and even when looking at their intrastate rate table (that's another ball of wax). Anyone have any comments on the reliability of Anveo Direct's rates and routes, especially as it applies to Alaska? Any other things to look at for outbound termination as it relates to Alaska?

Thanks!

 

[jeff.h]

I have been using Flowroute for years now and have been extremely happy with them. What I have done in the past if they don't have a number I want is to get it from another carrier then port it to Flowroute.

 

[jackal]

I have been using Flowroute for years now and have been extremely happy with them. What I have done in the past if they don't have a number I want is to get it from another carrier then port it to Flowroute.

I ordered a VoIP.ms DID to test with last night and it seems to work fairly well*. I also contacted Flowroute and they said they can do a carrier order for an Alaska DID, so I'm waiting for them to process that.

At this point, it seems like it's really those two I'm considering, unless someone has something else to add. Not that it's a big deal in the long run, but Flowroute's porting fee of $7.50 is one minor strike against them--VoIP.ms's is currently $0. So I'll need to be a little more convinced of Flowroute's reliability over VoIP.ms's to decide in their favor. In theory, I like Flowroute's DNS_SRV and direct media implementation better, but in practice, in years of using VoIP.ms, I've had no issues with them and both inbound and outbound call quality has been excellent (except for value routes to Alaska).

For termination, I've opened a test account with AnveoDirect and have found call quality to be quite good and actual termination rates in the CDR to be what I was expecting (i.e. lower than pretty much anyone else), even to Alaska numbers, so I've funded an account with them and they are now first in my outbound routes. (I did a little CID-mangling on a couple of my extensions to take advantage of their lower intrastate routes to Alaska numbers, which oddly actually improved call set-up time from acceptable to decent, though it's still quite as fast as other providers.)

Oh, one other question--any providers who don't allow outbound LNP? If I need to transfer this number anywhere else after porting it to one of these services, will I have any trouble? I came across a reference on a forum late last night that Broadvoice doesn't let you port a number out of their network (whether it's policy or technical incompetence on their part wasn't clear), so I just wanted to be sure that I will retain this number's portability in case I need to move it elsewhere or even back to a landline someday.

*except for this issue that cropped up in testing, though that's not likely a reflection on the provider but rather my setup...