Review by priller 
UPDATED: 7 days ago
member for 8.2 years, 3611 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Gainesville,Prince William,VA
 Contract price not specified.
 "Flexible Plans; No Contract; Outstanding Customer Service; BYOD"
 "They really need to offer CNAM"
 "One of the best VoIP providers going"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Callcentic is one of the growing number of providers that allows you to Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD). They provide sample configurations for many common ATA's, SIP phones and Softphones. A couple of entries and you're making calls.
Callcentric has the standard "Unlimited" calling plans. However, they also have Pay Per Call (or PAYG) plans. Pay only for what you use. This is more than sufficient for many people. NOTE: Incoming and Outgoing calling plans are purchased separately. For example, you can have an unlimited outgoing plan and a PAYG incoming plan. This allows you to customize your service to your needs.
There are no contracts, no monthly minimum. If you want to cancel, just open a trouble ticket ... no "retention" agents to fight with.
I use Callcentric for outbound calling only, no DID, no incoming plan. They will set your outbound CID to a real number by opening a trouble ticket.
They are a sponsor of SIPbroker, so you can place calls to people on other "open" networks totally free.
Support: I've opened two tickets with them. One was to change my CID number, the other to close a different free account that I did not use. On both cases, I received a response within 20 minutes.
The user portal is the best I've seen ... and I've tried many different VoIP providers.
Call quality has been excellent.
Highly recommend you give them a look!
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Update: I added a FAX line and have no problems. This is direct to my fax machine, not using their fax server. Using a Linksys SPA9000.
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Update 6/2008: Callcentric continues to perform. No issues after months of service.
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Update 9/29/2008: You have to love Callcentric's reliability and call quality; absolutely nothing negative to say.
What continues to frustrate me is their lack of CNAM. More VoIP providers are offering CNAM as an optional service on a per look up basis .... voip.ms for example. I don't care about somebody's name showing up if they are in my phone book, I already know that ... it's the numbers I don't recognize that I need the name.
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Update 12/30/2008: Still a great performer. I'm a big fan of CC. However, when it finally came time to leave Vonage after 6 years, I just couldn't port my primary number over to Callcentric due to the lack of CNAM. I will continue to use CC in a limited way.
Followup comments:  replaytv1
join:2008-04-12
Miami, FL
edit:
December 31st, @02:02PM
|  Excellent Service
My bill taxes and fees are $0.
Call Treatments feature is very good.
Calling Card is excellent.
Thanks Callcentric! Keep Up The Great Work | |
| PX Eliezer
join:2008-08-09
Wickatunk, NJ
 ·voip.ms
·Optimum Voice
·Callcentric
| CallCentric review and CNAM Thanks, priller, for excellent review. Agree that CC is fine provider.
Regarding CNAM, I have found that CNAM is less and less useful. I have a Verizon landline at my business, and half of the CNAM's show up as "cellphone", "Private Name", "Unknown", or "Incomplete Data".
And I have found that CNAM from VoIP providers tends to have an additional problem: Inaccurate databases. On an Optimum Voice (cable company VoIP) line that I have at my office, incoming calls from the local hospital show up on CNAM as being from a realtor.
I can see that the total lack of CNAM would be an issue for a business phone line. For residential, though, for many folks it would not matter that much.
In fact, CallCentric has an advantage because you can program the CNAM yourself. So when my wife calls me on her cellphone, I can program the CallCentric CNAM to show her name, whereas when she calls my Verizon phone, Verizon's CNAM will just say Cellphone-NJ.
I do agree that they should try to offer it as an option, and in fact I believe they are working on this.
Overall, as you said, CallCentric is a fine provider.
I think these days (January 2009) that CallCentric may be best choice for the BYOD crowd (bring your own device), and that VOIPo may evolve into the best for the DISCO crowd (device is supplied by company). | |
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