Reccomendation please

[jhdoan]

I want to be able to handle at least 20 agents with each server supporting up to 100 lines (T1/PRI). I plan on gettiong (2) servers one for the dialer and one for the appliation/database server. As far as the servers go, could I use 1u rackmount such as a DELL poweredge 750 or HP similar for the dialer? How will the dialer and database server is connected? What 4 port t1 card should I get. What do I ask the phone company to get t1 lines? Can I get them to my house? How much do they normally charge, I'm from orange county/LA area. How is the minute usage? I want to be able to call all states.what do you think of my setup? is it good enough to handle my needs? Again, appreciate any information you can provide or any advice. Thanks in advance.

[mflorell]

You are going to have 20 agents operating out of your house? most cities frown upon that.

T1 costs depend greatly on your location, but for long distance T1s you would see anywhere from $400-$800 per T1(not including actual long distance usage) and it would take a minimum of 30 days to get them installed if they could even be installed to your house.

[williamconley]

1U rack mounts are fine, the vicidial system cares not what the shape of the box is. It's all about CPU and bandwidth. If you bypass bandwidth by using PRI, you'll be able to handle more calls without much problem.

T1's at a residence, on the other hand, are a bugger. Never heard of one actually being installed, let me know how that goes.

And they will want a multi-year commitment, and they WILL try to rip you off if you've never had one. Mixed in with a bunch of stuff about how cheap everything is will be your minimum monthly actual required payment. make sure that is clear.

i've heard (and ripped for for several clients who were ready to sign) many contracts that claimed low per minute charges, low monthly fee, and then magically required a $2500/month minimum payment to meet these promises, and a 3 year term to boot. Of course, that actual monthly minimum wasn't spelled out, it had to be calculated.

Your First Vicidial Box? Take a computer you already have. Install VicidialNOW (or do a Scratch-Install) with NO digium/sangoma or anything extra cards. Get it running with VOIP. VicidialNOW will do the entire installation for you, but you have to get an account, which is free except for actual minutes used, with a VOIP provider.

This investment can easily be $20 or less. Then learn the system while you are waiting/debating/etc. any other form of installation. Do it NOW. It will be educational and you will be much more prepared to deal with all this stuff when the moment comes that it MUST be online. You may even BE online when that moment comes.

[jhdoan]

I will definitely get a cheap server around $200 range and install vicidialNOW. As far as installing T1 at my house maybe that might be a bad idea and not cost effective. Maybe if I host in LA and they provide what is called XO communication? Does any have any experience with that company. Thanks.

And also If My vicidial server is hosted at a data center. Can I have a broadcast campaign for press-1 and have the routed calls go to my agents with landlines and/or voip softphones ? Thanks.

[williamconley]

Yes, I have experience with XO. Excellent company. But they ARE one of the companies I have had to rip up a quotation for, the sales rep was about to commit a business owner to a $40k+ contract (over $2k/mo for three years) and the owner did not actually know that was what he was signing. He thought he would be able to "ramp down" to $750/month if needed.

However, another client (for whom I was directly employed and who NEEDED over $3k / mo in service) was very happy with both quality and service level.

Yes, you can have the "deep bandwidth" box run at a colo facility and feed only the actual live customers to the call center. Thus saving on the need to install massive bandwidth at the call center.

Of course, if you'll be doing that, you may want to just look into straight ulaw with a VOIP and NO "Voice T1" for a while. You may find that the quality and pricing (and lack of contract) is superior. There are major carriers who will give you a very good deal on minutes (especially if you keep your ASR good).

[jhdoan]

I am going to look into straight ulaw with a VOIP. what do you mean by "ASR"

Or...

How much would (1) T1 PRI's cost from XO. I'm from the LA area.general pricing. but isn't there some areas that charge a couple hundred per t1? just to start small and maybe expand to 4 T1's in the future.

[williamconley]

often a "colo" T1 can be less expensive than a delivered T1, but still they are generally over 400/mo. Noone canprice them out but someone selling T1s. Not even a guess, sorry. I'd just be misleading you.

ASR = % answered calls. Each VOIP has their own formula, and even then they change, are considered more of a "guideline", or written in blood, depending on who you ask and when.

Today MANY providers (even T1s) are looking down their noses at Dialers, and will ask that you NOT read the fine print that they will do bad things to your pocketbook if you use a dialer on their system. If your ASR stays high, they'll ignore you. If your ASR drops ... A place like XO can get very expensive very quickly. VOIP's best feature is that most providers do NOT require a contract. If your provider doesn't like you, they just drop you. They DON'T invoice you $2100/mo for 16 unused months and claim it's in their contract.

(I'm not trying to scare you, honestly, this is from personal experience. That particular client was my employer at the time and the offending company wasn't XO, and the employer was actually calling clients!)

[jhdoan]

how much bandwidth are we talking about here.
will the $88 per month colocated hosting suffice?

http://calpop.com/colocation.html

[williamconley]

you will have to discuss that with the colo. bandwidth usage is something they regulate and charge for. all of them differently. assume 90k for a single ulaw call. do the math.

[jhdoan]

10mbps (3300 gigs) is what calpop includes in their hosting. do you mean 90 kilobytes. and is it likely i'll go over in traffic?

[jhdoan]

Can you explain IAX and how it is used in terms of if I choose to use VOIP.

[williamconley]

When you purchase service from a VOIP provider, you must transmit the sound to them and they must transmit to you. The standard protocols for this transmission are IAX and SIP.

SIP is the standard, IAX is a modified form of SIP specific to Asterisk. IAX is adept at getting through firewalls at both ends of the call (client and server) whereas SIP can only traverse ONE firewall (client or server, not both).

Neither of these protocols requires special hardware other than Network. Both are built into Asterisk. Both are also available in "soft-phones" for free as well. KIAX is an IAX soft phone which is free and X-Lite and Eyebeam are free SIP soft phones.

Of course, they are all also available in MANY paid hardware/software devices as well.

[jhdoan]

IAX is used to inter asterisk communication I understand. There isn't many IAX termination services for voIP. all the ones i see are SIP?

[mflorell]

There are dozens of IAX termination providers, includeing BinFone(our project sponsor) and Vitelity.

[Op3r]

I would suggest you get with binfone.

It works with vicidial.

and it is a sponsor of VICIDIAL.

just remember to tell them VICIDIAL guys recommended BINFONE

[williamconley]

Month-to-month but no monthly fee for outbound calls, cancel any time you like and only pay for outbound minutes you use. if you purchase a DID for inbound cals, there is a low monthly fee in addition to minutes used, but once again it's month-to-month so you can cancel any time you like.

this describes virtually every VOIP out there, you will find MANY listed in various places throughout this forum that work with vicidial ... but you should start with binfone if you're a beginner, as you will (a) be benefitting from a software project which they have sponsored and (b) receive direct support on this forum for any connectivity issues, since everyone here is familiar with their techniques.

besides, there's no less expensive way to get a vicidial server up and running, really.

[jhdoan]

Looking at binfones rates they seem really high. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong rates, but I'm only trying to call within the united states. How much will it cost per minute. not 2 cents I hope!

[codeslush]

a few comments:

1. Cox seems competitive on the T1/PRI and can get your per minute fees reasonable but you will have to have a minimum monthly commitment - which may put you back to the SIP trunking providers.

2. Why not order your hardware from Vicidial? You may find they beat your other quotes.

3. I am a new user to vicidial and downloaded vicidialnow iso, put on an old machine that was useless and got it working. Per my most recent post, I ended up upgrading to svn trunk for the new survey stuff and am happy to report that I have it working in a press 1 style over a test sip line behind a firewall. I find the gui admin components easy to understand and am really impressed with this project. Total investment was the cost of the voip line and some time.

4. I do have some asterisk background - which undoubtedly eased working with the config files.

5. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have not used the ISO and instead followed the scratch install directions. They are very detailed but I didn't know of them until AFTER I started playing around with the ISO.

6. Good luck to you! I'm in LA/OC area and working on a project of almost the exact same specs - minus the remote agents. Was bizarre reading your post.

-M

[jhdoan]

Greetings from OC! Yeah Cox is the provider around here. do you know how much they charge for PRI and minutes?

2. what do you mean order hardware from vicidial?
I just purchased an old dell poweredge 2650 and 750 that I hope will do that job. The 750 is slower, should I use that for the dialer or database server?

3. Can you provide a link to do it from scratch? I downloaded vicidialNOW. and don't have a linux distro cd on me. What one is every1 using?

[codeslush]

1. Cox - just under $400. Per minute will depend on your usage and all I can say is that you can get it for under .02. You can also call Excel as they have service in this area and will get you good per minute rates (at least based on what I have seen).

2. No problem - I just thought if you were buying new equipment then you may as well support these people that have made this possible. That's what we are doing.

3. The "from scratch" docs are in the docs directory. It's called "SCRATCH_INSTALL.txt." Use svn to browse the repository if you haven't already. agc_2-X/trunk/docs. Aside from this document, you may want to read the others as well for background info. Also, at the root of trunk is a file called UPGRADE - which I thought provided a great progression of changes from the initial release until now. Maybe they are somewhere else too that I'm not aware of.

4. If you downloaded the latest vicidialNOW ISO then you have done the same thing as me. I'm just on a test box so I don't really care too much. Just read the upgrade docs to see how to upgrade. It's painfully simple - at least for someone that didn't have much data in the system. Since you are interested in the survey stuff/press 1 campaigns then I think you'll find the latest changes appealing. The dial plans have changed slightly and you'll want the latest changes. Therefore, make sure you backup your modified config files (e.g. extensions.conf, sip.conf) in the etc\asterisk folder so that you can merge back in as appropriate.

Best of luck,

-M

[jhdoan]

I may consider using PRI but I would need at least 2. to be able to have more than 50 lines.

For VOIP providers, which ones will provide an unlimited number of channels and charge less than a cent. I've looked at VTWhite, but am not sure as far as qualities is concerned.

[mflorell]

If you want less than $0.01 per minute rates you're going to have to sign a term contract with a minimum monthly volume. I don't know of any carriers that will give you that kind of rate without some kind of lock-in.