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I ported a number to Callcentric after being with them for over a year - and the process took two weeks. There was more paperwork than I would have preferred, but the port went through with no issues. I had a minor issue provisioning a new line on a Sunday morning, but support was able to fix the issue within an hour. It's rare in 2009 for tech support to jump on a ticket on a weekend - and resolve it within an hour. Call treatments are great, and allow for very flexible routing of calls based upon certain characteristics (such as calling number, called number, SIP status, time of day). It appears as if the first rule that hits in call treatments is used, and some clarification on this might be useful on the site. Codec support is ok - over all call types on the service G.729A and G.711u are supported. Some call types support additional codecs. I tend to use G.729A and can't readily tell that apart from G.711u. But perhaps I listened to too much loud music in my youth. Callcentric is a BYOD service - it may not be what everyone is looking for. But it's certainly worked for me. Followup comments:
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Well I'm happy to say I was mistaken. After putting up with downtime from a well-known free did provider, I took a chance on a dirt-cheap did that took about 4 days to activate since I used Paypal. Once it was working I set it up for GV and tried it out. After a few days there was no going back. The audio quality was better than I expected even after a cross country trip and the latency wasn't enough to really affect the audio. I enabled CNAM and it worked great with all the numbers I called from except my cellphone that showed a name that isn't mine, but as cellphones usually show WIRELESS CALLER I think my number may have been ported from a landline some time ago and I got it. Today I changed from IP Freedom to Pay-per-call and on a test call my outbound CID was my GV number as I had requested shortly after signing up. Support has always been helpful and courteous even when I was a free customer. I don't know if its standard policy for CC not to close accounts even when the customer asks, but in this case it eventually got them a paying customer. Update 10/13/09 After having used the service for a few weeks and tweaking the settings on my PAP2T and 2Wire modem/router I am satisfied with the service except for the per minute pricing. I have figured out what my average outbound usage will be and i've decided to move on to a VSP with lower rates and most of the features I'd use. CC has rock solid service and features and I still rate it highly. Update 11/21/09 I use Google Voice as my public facing number and forward it to two numbers for simultaneous ring, my VSP number and my cellphone. This way I can receive calls even if my VSP has a service outage (hasn't happened or I haven't noticed yet). This has been working great but I've decided instead of using my cellphone as backup, I'd use the second port on my ATA with another provider. I'm back on Callcentric using a per-minute did as my backup. I could use an IPKall number but I want something more reliable and $3.45 a month for that reliability is a fair price to pay. F9 is still my main provider where my paid outbound calls will be made through (Still using GV for free outbound). This setup will give me redundancy in call reception without spending too much and E911 (which i will probably never use). Followup comments:
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Well, it's coming up to 2 years since I started with Callcentric, & I am as pleased as punch with their operation. CNAM was switched on for free, & they recently upgraded their 'Call Treatments' software to support wildcards. I really don't use the 'phone that much, so for a long time now, I have only had to charge up my account every Two months, rather than every month. I really have to agree wholeheartedly with other responders here, that CC's tech support is absolutely top notch. I've had replies to support e-mails within 30 minutes or so, late on a Sunday evening. Not that I have had to use their support that often, the quality of service, and up-time, is truly outstanding. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Update: March 26th, 2009 * Free voicemail. * Free ability to block telemarketers (or other annoying individuals) using a disconnected notice, & the SIT tones. *Got my Free iNum. I still cannot believe all the features they have, & they are all included in the price. I pay ~$5.00 Canadian a month for this fantastic service. ******************************* I signed up with Callcentric a week ago. I haven't deposited any money to activate calling regular phones yet. ** UPDATES BELOW ** I think their web interface for configuring your account is spot on, with some great features including anonymous call blocking & regular call blocking - Should keep the telemarketers at bay  Had a problem with call quality doing a test call, however their online support was easy to use & very fast at replying. Got my problem sorted out. I like the fact they have no contracts & are an inexpensive way of trying out BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) VOIP. Once I am using the service to call regular phones I will update my review to reflect that, but so far so good. I have given them 60% on Call Quality & 60% on Reliability for now as I don't have the service proper yet; I think that's fair. I encourage other Callcentric users to go to the Callcentric forum here: »Callcentric ** REVIEW UPDATE ** I paid from my credit card to activate outbound calling & to get an incoming number. All it costs is $1.95 a month for an incoming number & that's it: No other charges other than your call charges pay-as-you-go. There are no contracts & they even have a money back guarantee. it took literally minutes for the service to be active & I could start making calls, it was that fast! I called my sister here in Canada & the call quality was great. Just as good as Vonage. I am absolutely over the moon at their prices. I looked at my call history with Vonage & it looks like I will be paying round about $8 a month (Includes tax). I have already canceled Vonage & I am very pleased with my decision to switch to Callcentric. If you are looking for a quality VOIP provider you should really look at Callcentric. You wont be disappointed. ** UPDATE ** 11 December 2007 I finally bought a PAP2-NA device to use with Callcentric. They had setup information on their website & it was a breeze to configure. Calls are clear & with no echos. Paying $5 a month for my phone bill, fantastic! ** UPDATE ** 1 February 2008 Still using Callcentric. I have been making calls to the UK from Canada & the quality is fantastic. No static or drops. Still very pleased with the service & rates. Sure there are other providers offering lower rates, but we are talking 0.005 cents a minute difference. That's not enough to make me switch from what is a great VOIP provider. I just hope they keep up their excellent service & rates. ** UPDATE ** 18 January 2009 FREE VOICEMAIL Wow! Can this provider get no better? No wonder they are the top rated VoIP provider on DSL reports. Fantastic, these guys are the bomb! Followup comments:
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-------------------------------------------------- CallCentric is an excellent provider overall. It's so good, I keep forgetting my phone service is Voip. In fact, CallCentric is clearer than my old Verizon POTS line. MAJOR STRENGTHS: *High quality phone service! *Great reliability, consistent track record. *Excellent customer support! Ticket system based, but almost always very quick. *Good peering capabilities and SipBroker and iNum support, and URI calling. This allows you to make and receive free calls from many other Voip networks. SipBroker support is the best around. I also note that it is easy to get a number for the new iNum service, which may even further expand the universe of free calling. *BYOD: Just about any type of device will work. Extensive configuration information for many devices. *Excellent website and control panel (dashboard) with extensive "call treatment" options. *Good billing system. *Many new features, such as incoming CNAM, added March 2009! Good job all around. And the CNAM can be customized for specific calls. For example, if a caller shows up as "Wireless Call" you can override the system to show the specific person's name. MINOR QUIBBLE: *Price is a tad high. Outbound pay-as-you-go calls are almost 2 cents a minute. The flat-rate outbound plan (North America Unlimited) is $ 19.95. They could offer some kind of "inbetween" option like some other providers have. Still, they are a good value, and their excellent and reliable service is worth it. AT HOME: I ported my home number to them recently. The whole process went well, it works great, and my family is happy. Overall, a very solid provider, and I don't think there is anyone else who is more conscientious and reliable. They really care about their service and take a personal pride in it. UPDATES: November 2009--- a) I recently added another CallCentric account. Whereas my first one is for home, the new account is for business. I am using it for outbound calls and also we are setting up a new DID to use as a second main DID for incoming calls. This reflects my faith in this company. b) On October 1st there was an outage relating to equipment upgrades and enhancements. This is a very rare event for CallCentric and they jumped on it quickly and aggressively. As a backup means of communication in the unlikely event of a repeat episode, CallCentric has set up a Twitter account at »twitter.com/Callcentric. This is only for use as an emergency backup communication system. c) One nice use of the CallCentric Call Treatments and easy SipBroker access: Last night an obviously drunk guy kept calling my house on his cellphone. Using call treatments, if he calls again, he will be routed to the recording of monkey sounds. (His calls will be forwarded to **275*266300 which is the screaming monkey recording. Might sober him up). Followup comments:
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At the moment I have DIDs in USA and Denmark with Callcentric, and also one iNum DID. Earlier I have also had DIDs in UK, Ireland, Sweden and Brazil with Callcentric. Callcentric is very good at assigning "easy to remember" numbers when ordering DIDs. Every DID I have purchased from Callcentric had a number very easy to remember. The quality on calls to/from North and South America is excellent. The quality on inbound calls from Europe is good but the noticeable delay is sometimes annoying. However the quality on outbound calls from Europe to European PSTN numbers is bad. The quality on free inbound and outbound calls between Callcentric customers in Europe using 1777xxxxxxx numbers is very good and there is no noticeable delay. Callcentric Phone Book entries replacing incoming Caller ID is a wonderful feature you get addicted to. Callcentric could be a good choice for European customers if they could use better carriers in Europe and also have servers in Europe. As it is now Callcentric can't be recommended for use to/from European PSTN numbers for European customers. However for calls to/from North and South America Callcentric is an excellent choice for European customers. Followup comments:
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Callcentric charges a small recurring fee for e911, but since I know local municipalities charge for this, I understand that callcentric needs to pass along this cost to me. I also got a 'dirt cheap did'. This costs 2.95 per month and gives me unlimited incoming calls. I also use a Google Voice number I have associated with this 'dirt cheap did' to give me a true local number to give out to family & friends. I also use Google Voice to make my outbound calls so I get unlimited outbound and inbound calling for less than $5.00 per month with e911 support. Truly an amazing deal! I haven't found this value or reliability from any other VOIP provider, so I am very pleased with Callcentric. Their website is top notch and they provide a lot features for their price point. Followup comments:
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Same great service as when I first tried the service. There was one outage, but they had already planned (and emailed) an upgrade to address their increasing capacity. Would like to see simultaneous ring, but everything else is great. *********** I tried the service before I transferred my main number, and was not disappointed. I now have other "Dirt Cheap DIDs" that use SIP URI pointing to different providers. Another one points to their FAX service and has worked great. Call quality is excellent. I have only called US numbers so I cannot comment on other countries. The website has a lot of useful information and is well organized. Call Treatments allow me to redirect telemarketers (one at a time) to an error message. Call logs help me find the number. When I email support, even at 2:00am Sunday night, I receive a response within 30 minutes even on low priority problems. Followup comments:
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I have been with CallCentric (CC) now for over 6 months and I am still one very happy customer. As a complete phone service, they have been a very reliable company - I still have absolutely no regrets porting my numbers over to CC from my previous traditional phone company!! I had an issue with quality at one point and spent several hours with customer support only to discover that the fault was actually on my end. Just as an fyi - the quality problem was coming from my old cordless phone system but once I upgraded to the new Panasonic Dect 6.0 cordless phones the quality issue disappeared - just a tip if you are having call quality problems with any VOIP and are still using the older 2.4Hz cordless phones. While some have complained about CC US rates, I have found you need to evaluate the total package of each provider and you will find that CC holds up easily in the top tier of VOIP Providers. Also, note that to get free 1800/1866/1877 with CC just dial **275* before the toll free number (a minor inconvenience) or better yet just add the code to your Dial Plan in your ATA (and the inconvenience disappears!). Overall, CallCentric remains my top pick of the VoIP Providers I have tried and anyone looking for a serious VoIP Provider should consider them. There are several other good services out there so in the long run it will come down to your individual taste. 2009-04-12 I switched from Verizon to CallCentric about 3 weeks ago and have found their service to be excellent. While slightly cheaper US rates can be found with other VOIP services, I have also made a lot of international calls to Africa and when all rates are considered CallCentric comes out to be a lot cheaper for me than other VOIP services. Also if you make a lot of local US calls then the unlimited plans are great especially the inbound plans. Their website is the easiest I found to navigate through. They have all the regular features such as call blocking, anonymous call rejection, do not disturb, international call blocking, 99 speed dialers, etc. There is also a Call Treatment option that allows you to set up custom rules to have additional control over call blocking which is very good compared to other services I looked at - actually much much better than most. I still think there is room for improvement in the Call Treatment section for this features to be exceptional but for now it is still a great to-have. Customer Support is super with questions being answered rather promptly. I am now in the process of porting my 2 Verizon numbers. So far, I am very happy especially as I am getting great service for less!!! LB Followup comments:
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At first I was skeptical about their per minute pricing but when I ran the figures I realized I have been getting ripped off by the other providers. Especially with their unlimited plans. Their DID price is also extremely reasonable. Porting my number was painless and contacting support was a breeze. I usually cringe at having to deal with support staff who either don't know what they are on about or sound like a automated response. Definitely not the case with call centric. Never want to go through a sunrocket situation again. The cloned 2 line feature would also be nice. Bottom Line: At this stage I am extremely happy with their service and customer service. They will save you money. UPDATE (March - 25th) - Just received an email that they now offer CallerID with CNAME. What a pleasant surprise. With a range of other new nifty features. This company is probably the best voip and telco I have dealt with across 2 continents. End to end excellence. I have to thank the person who recommended I use them a while back. Best move I made. Keep up the fantastic work guys. Update (Oct - 17th) Still going strong. Swapped a did from one account to another with out any issues. Just so used to the nope cannot do it from other providers. Once again Callcentric delivered. Followup comments:
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Callcentric
(14)
Rogers,Benton,AR
Contract price not specified. 
"Competitive rates, unparalleled support, excellent reliability"
"None"
"Highly recommened"
about 4 days
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