Looking for VOIP providers compatible with Microsoft, etc

Second voip.ms here. Easy to work with and they're a "real" telco so you shouldn't have any issues.
 
And paid doesn't mean expensive. There are plenty of cheap service providers out there.

I pay about $3.30/mo for unlimited calling and e911 service ($80 for 24 months of service). I can't remember the name of the company off hand, but it was the VOIP service that Obi offered and was later bought out or changed to a different company. I honestly only think about it once every 24 months!
 
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Things are getting less friendly in the VOIP world. We've had a couple of numbers on https://www.openphone.com/ for awhile now. Really nice interface. They are using Twilio under the covers.

BUT, things have really gotten ugly regarding the ability to send messages. This isn't the fault of openphone or twilio, this problem applies to ALL voip providers.

All the mobil carriers have gotten together to "solve" the problem of messaging spam. See https://www.campaignregistry.com/. They are all supposedly weeks away from rejecting messages from unregistered numbers.

The problem comes in that they assume that ALL VOIP numbers are "a business". There are 2 ways to register a business. One is to provide a bunch of info including an EIN (tax # for businesses). The other is to register as a Sole Proprietor using a real mobile number. Either way this TCR organization verifies the info. And if registering successfully as a Sole Proprietor only ONE of our voip numbers will be accepted - any others can't be registered.

My family is using voip for personal purposes - not as a business. There is no way to register a voip number that way. I've tried to register as a Sole Proprietor but it rejects my mobile number (T-Mobile prepaid). They (openphone) are still trying to figure out why.

If one gets registered successfully there is an initial charge (~$20 I think) and then $2/month to remain registered.

I'm all in favor of cleaning up spam messages but the way they've done it sucks. It's like they want to prevent individuals from using voip for personal purposes. As in - get your phone service directly from us instead.

Consider yourself lucky if you're on voip and haven't been hit with this - yet. I suspect it's coming soon.
 
For those having trouble using voip numbers for verifications...

I've used https://www.smspool.net/ successfully for several verifications. Costs a small amount per verification. You get a temporary number to use that's only valid for the duration of the verification.

I've used it for Google account creation a couple of times. Sometimes I have to go through a couple of numbers before it works. You only get charged if the verification code arrives.
 
Not very comfortable with the burner number approach for verification, since someday, I may have to verify again (mostly concerned about services I use on a regular basis). Might be useful for temporary accounts tho.

Thanks for the info on campaign registry. I actually had to read the details multiple times just to believe/digest how bad this is, this is one big expensive mess (example 1, example 2, example 3).
 
Have been using Ooma for several years as well. Pretty much set it up and forget it, it's that reliable. Only time it's down is if my Fiber to the home is offline, and that's rare.
 
I recently discovered https://mysudo.com/

I just confirmed with them that their service is not subject to The Campaign Registry. Their numbers are considered "personal".

I've lost the link but at some point in my research I read that MySudo at one point in the past was using Twilio and they changed vendors.
 
Finally ported the last "important" number away from OpenPhone (now Quo) to VOIP.ms. No CampaignRegistry garbage (I might have created an account tagged for personal use). Using mysudo for burner type stuff.

Now if only VOIP.ms could fix their inbound messaging. Their system receives them and they can be seen on their web interface - and forwarded to other numbers. But their iOS app (and others that it is derived from) never displays them. Apparently a well known problem for some time that they can't seem to get fixed. One would think that is a pretty critical problem.

Don't expect an easy-to-use/obvious administration interface for VOIP.ms. It may be very flexible/powerful but its complex and crude.

It is a shockingly CHEAP service! (as low as $2/month).

Not going to help with verification as VOIP numbers are rapidly becoming useless for that.
 
I have used VOIP.ms for years, and it works great. I will say its not really a consumer level service, more a business type service, so many features can be a bit complex to set up. If something doesn't "work" it might be user error. Did they actually tell you its a "known issue," or was it momcart64 on Facebook who said that? If you haven't contacted them directly yet, you definitely should reach out to them. They are responsive, or were several years ago when I contacted them.
 
ano said:
I have used VOIP.ms for years, and it works great. I will say its not really a consumer level service, more a business type service, so many features can be a bit complex to set up. If something doesn't "work" it might be user error. Did they actually tell you its a "known issue," or was it momcart64 on Facebook who said that? If you haven't contacted them directly yet, you definitely should reach out to them. They are responsive, or were several years ago when I contacted them.
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I don’t recall where I saw it - multiple places I believe. I’d have to dig to find again.

I have tried their iOS app with everything else working but it does not receive messages. Haven’t contacted them yet.

I’ve read that their app is a crippled version of Groundwire. I’m using the paid version of Groundwire and it doesn’t receive messages either. Researching under the covers suggests a nightmare mess of protocols and ports.

If it works for others then I need to reexamine my outbound firewall rules…
 
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