FOOD FOR THOUGHT Recommendation: don't use 8x8

[rastasean]

Hello VOIP Veterans,

Often times I write about voip companies I like because of their pricing, support, integration, etc. Many times people often also write about what they like about provider X or what their experience has been with provider X. Case in point, voip.ms. Some say its great; some say they have a few issues but works well; others say it's downright unmanageable.
This is a complete recommendation NOT to use a particular provider.

My company just paid the 34th consecutive 8x8 invoice and when I first took over the account, I didn't pay much attention to the rates or what the fees were until I started coming here more and more. I know 8x8 offers more than just origination and termination but they still charge a lot of money--we've paid nearly $28,000. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a way to break down the minute usage throughout the nearly three years of service but if you take a rather high $0.029/min rate, this $28,000 would have bought 965,517 minutes; if you have a provider charging just $0.01/min, that's 2.8 million minutes. It should be noted that this $28,000 also contains the various taxes that usually cost $100-150/monthly. Also, we are on a premium level of support since we're a high paying customer but since I've taken over in April, I've called just once. We're not getting our money's worth with support.

I don't want to insult those who do use and like 8x8 but for my company and I, I can't see the value in it. We're a small company with most of us not using the phone all day. I really would like to find out total minute usage on our account, but it's nearly impossible. Fortunately, 8x8 does provide a way where you can download a monthly report to see how many calls there were and the duration of the call.

Something that I find odd is that 8x8 is sip registration based, but you can't find out the sip credentials to register whatever devices you would like. I guess this was all handled when my company first started using 8x8. I can't register my polycom phone to 8x8 because I don't know the username or password to use. I suppose this could rule out liability on 8x8 by saying they provision phones to prevent some type of fraud. Is it common for a sip registration provider not to provide the credentials after a phone is registered?

For some reason, the invoices for November and December were a couple hundred more than October so I'll have to contact support to see what can be done about this. It goes without saying that amount of money could buy you tons of minutes elsewhere.

I also sent a ticket in to see how much it would cost to drop unused extensions so hopefully our bill will be reduced soon.

Stats for last three months (1 oct-7 dec)
incoming calls: 682
incoming minutes: 1440

outgoing calls; 672
outgoing minutes:5910

7,350 total minutes
averaged monthly minutes: 2,450

If you had a provider charging $0.01 for 2450 minutes, that's $24.5
and at $0.29, $71.05

All of the phone numbers dialed during the three month period were US48 and US Toll Free.


Like I said,the monthly price includes rather high taxes and things like voicemail, callerID, and ability to setup conferences--its not just termination and origination, fortunately.


My ultimate goal is to phase out 8x8 with partial in house solutions and various provider solutions.


Those who do have 8x8, what's your experience been?

 

[stanjohn]

Is it common for a sip registration provider not to provide the credentials after a phone is registered?

Yes, very common. The idea is to provide support from end to end with a limited number of devices that support personal need to know. Much like only power company supplied light bulbs could be connected to the power grid at one time. Magic Jack, Vonage are two other providers that ban bring your own device aka BYOD. I could go one step further and say Google and Skype are also such providers but that would be sure to lead this thread off topic

 

[rastasean]

Yes, very common. The idea is to provide support from end to end with a limited number of devices that support personal need to know. Much like only power company supplied light bulbs could be connected to the power grid at one time. Magic Jack, Vonage are two other providers that ban bring your own device aka BYOD. I could go one step further and say Google and Skype are also such providers but that would be sure to lead this thread off topic

Thanks for making the compassion clear, they are an expensive vonage.

 

[rastasean]

8x8 is not a sip provider, it is a virtual drop in replacement of a phone system. It has also been operating for a while, so it does enjoy a bit of brand recognition. Their policy against byod is understandable, only support devices they control with a custom firmware that phones home, very simple for the end user.

Users of this forum may wonder why someone may choose to pay more for a walled garden, but it is a business model that must be working for them. I am a bit grateful for their existence actually, the first hard phones I ever tried were reflashed 55i's bargains from fleabay. One has since died but the other still gets daily use.

Well in my opinion they are more than a phone system since you can setup things like IVRs, conference rooms, voicemail. Those things are common with sip providers, but the price is definitely not what I expect for a sip provider or even a phone system replacement.

Understandably, their business model works well for them and they limit the number of devices support so they can load custom firmware on them.

 

[Brian Simmons]

Well it sounds like they are basically a VOIP service provider as well as a hosted phone system provider rolled into one account/bill. So while I'm not trying to justify their cost, you cannot compare it to only a $0.01/min VOIP service provider. You also need to consider the cost of the hosted phone system.

On the other hand, I personally dont like the idea of paying for a hosted phone service when I can buy the equipment and eventually break even on the initial cost vs. paying for a hosted service perpetually.

 

[rastasean]

Absolutely correct, Brian. Still, when additional things are considered that's offered by 8x8, 8x8 seems even more expensive than the 'elitist' onsip.com offerings.

Your second point is absolutely valid. My company should have made something homegrown three years ago instead of pouring $28,000 into an offering we don't use much of.

 

[krzykat]

The reason people use this type of service is because they run a business. They don't have an IT department, and they want to focus on their core business, not learning how to manage queues, IVRs, or even what a ring group is. They say - we want our phones to do this and that, and those companies make it happen. It's convenience and knowledge that someone is running your phone system how you want for much less that if you were paying AT&T with even more services.

Obviously for anyone on this site, they wouldn't choose the 8X8 model for themselves, but then again, who here would pay $100 / month for a single AT&T line with little more than 3-way calling? (Yet Millions of customers do every day).

 

[rastasean]

Krycek in my opinion, you thoughts are invalid. Onsip has an offering very similar to 8x8 but its much, much less expensive and the interface is much easier to manage as well.