VOIPo Launch Updates

[VOIPoTim]

We've announced the feature/pricing for the full residential service now. So there is no confusion, I've created another thread for it.

http://forums.hostgator.com/showthread.php?t=29258

Let's keep the discussions in the right thread so things stay a little more organized.

[Gotter]

Nice! I can get a 1-800 number then, My Current host is too much for it.

Cheers, Hope this service becomes great!

[imaginehosting]

Is these three services launching at the end of the beta. Is the reseller plans for these 3 services launching with these 3 services. I have about 15 customers who are wanting this service yesterday. let me know

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by imaginehosting

Is these three services launching at the end of the beta. Is the reseller plans for these 3 services launching with these 3 services. I have about 15 customers who are wanting this service yesterday. let me know

Yes, these 3 services will be fully launched at the end of the BETA. The residential service will then go into public beta and we'll have the same process.

The full reseller plans will launch after both of these are fully launched.

[Techtroll]

I'm located in Canada and am watching this with great interest as we are in discussions now over possibility of doing a turnkey VoIP operation here with a major Canadian telco. I realize that Canada has its own set of regulations, and the CRTC is a political game unto itself, I used be a director for the third largest Western Canadian ISP, which has a VoIP operation, and the CRTC was my responsibility, so I realize you will not have those aspects sorted out yet.

Still I do have some questions:

1) What is the availability of Canadian numbers at this point, and what are your expectations in the future?

2) Will you be allowing handheld, devices using a softphone type applications, onto your network?

3) Does the VPanel allow for clients to do hunt groups that would terminate at international designations outside the US/Canada dialling region? As you know most locations have POTS but not necessarily Highspeed Internet.

4) Last question, a majority of clients, especially retail based ones, would be very interested in a call now web enabled function that would allow people to activate a toll free call from their websites. Is this something that is available from the onset, or being considered for future development?

We have been very impressed with the current Host Gator services and your VoIPo offering looks interesting. We look forward to more details, especially with regard to the business services.

Steven Gauci
Techtroll

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by Techtroll

I'm located in Canada and am watching this with great interest as we are in discussions now over possibility of doing a turnkey VoIP operation here with a major Canadian telco. I realize that Canada has its own set of regulations, and the CRTC is a political game unto itself, I used be a director for the third largest Western Canadian ISP, which has a VoIP operation, and the CRTC was my responsibility, so I realize you will not have those aspects sorted out yet.

Still I do have some questions:

1) What is the availability of Canadian numbers at this point, and what are your expectations in the future?

2) Will you be allowing handheld, devices using a softphone type applications, onto your network?

3) Does the VPanel allow for clients to do hunt groups that would terminate at international designations outside the US/Canada dialling region? As you know most locations have POTS but not necessarily Highspeed Internet.

4) Last question, a majority of clients, especially retail based ones, would be very interested in a call now web enabled function that would allow people to activate a toll free call from their websites. Is this something that is available from the onset, or being considered for future development?

We have been very impressed with the current Host Gator services and your VoIPo offering looks interesting. We look forward to more details, especially with regard to the business services.

Steven Gauci
Techtroll

Hi Steven,

1) At this point, Canadian numbers are not available, but we hope to have them ready to go within the next few weeks.

2) Yes, we allow softphones.

3) At this point, we only allow forwarding to US/Canadian numbers or a SIP address. There is massive fraud (some would say around 60%) with international forwarding and costs can add up very quickly to some international destinations.

Your best bet to route calls internationally is to setup a SIP client or softphone though and route using a "SIP Address".

4) This isn't available yet, but it's very easy for us to add and already planned.

Thanks for the interest and let us know if you have any other questions.

[Techtroll]

Timothy,

Thanks for your quick reply to my questions:


With respect to Canadian numbers, question one, are you looking to complete area code coverage or just a city coverage model?

Also further to question four, would your system allow for prepaid international minutes with an automated termination at the end of the prepaid allotment? I ask since this scenario is built into most VoIP platforms, basically a modification of the standard calling card solution, and it should be just a matter of working it into your VPanel and customized server configurations. I have direct past experience with this exact product. Although the incidence of fraud is high with International long distance we found that a required deposit at five times the rate of the prepaid amount quickly removes the abusers. Legitimate businesses have no issue with this if it fits their needs.

I again realize that this is something that could be available at a later date and you have more pressing issues before the public launch servicing the needs of the majority. I am just looking to the flexibility of your system and the potential of custom solutions for resellers. We have a substantial number of business clients looking to flexible VoIP solutions to fill the gap where standard technologies can't or won't.


Thanks again for your response and the ongoing dialogue within these forums.

Steven Gauci

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by Techtroll

Timothy,

Thanks for your quick reply to my questions:


With respect to Canadian numbers, question one, are you looking to complete area code coverage or just a city coverage model?

Also further to question four, would your system allow for prepaid international minutes with an automated termination at the end of the prepaid allotment? I ask since this scenario is built into most VoIP platforms, basically a modification of the standard calling card solution, and it should be just a matter of working it into your VPanel and customized server configurations. I have direct past experience with this exact product. Although the incidence of fraud is high with International long distance we found that a required deposit at five times the rate of the prepaid amount quickly removes the abusers. Legitimate businesses have no issue with this if it fits their needs.

I again realize that this is something that could be available at a later date and you have more pressing issues before the public launch servicing the needs of the majority. I am just looking to the flexibility of your system and the potential of custom solutions for resellers. We have a substantial number of business clients looking to flexible VoIP solutions to fill the gap where standard technologies can't or won't.


Thanks again for your response and the ongoing dialogue within these forums.

Steven Gauci

Our focus right now is on the US market, so unfortunately our Canadian service will be limited. These are the rate centers available:

EDMONTON AB
VANCOUVER BC
VICTORIA BC
WINNIPEG MB
HAMILTON ON
KITCHEWTRL ON
LONDON ON
OTTAWAHULL ON
TORONTO ON
MONTREAL PQ
OTTAWAHULL PQ

In terms of the dial around type service for international, that's something we've looked at and is a possibility for later. It's just not in the system right now, so I don't want to make any promises about it.

[imaginehosting]

Does this luanch in april the call forwariding voip services or when resindetial service goes live.

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by imaginehosting

Does this luanch in april the call forwariding voip services or when resindetial service goes live.

The first launch will just be for the forwarding services outlined in this thread.

[VOIPoTim]

I wanted to give everyone a general update on the launch status. We’re extending the BETA for the time being.

The primary issue we’re facing now is that we're in the process of filling a few key technical positions and just like HostGator and most other American companies, we’re having problems finding people to fill these positions. It’s unfortunate and ironic given all the reports of such a bad job market, but is probably the biggest problem businesses in our country face.

I really feel we’re lacking on the technical side and would feel better with a few additional positions in that area filled. While it’s not a critical issue right now, we expect massive volume very quickly and with that, it will turn into a bigger issue if we’re not adequately staffed in key areas. The telecom industry is very rough due to the regulatory environment, patent issues, etc. Unfortunately, that makes filling key management positions even more challenging and some of the people we've had in those positions have not lasted.

In terms of actual service issues, everything seems to be running very smoothly with just minor issues cropping up.

The one area we have identified as having some problems is with our call records. This is one area you will notice may be hit and miss for a while as we’re redoing the call log engine entirely. We need to be able to store terabytes of calls logs and be able to process them easily. This is not only just to display them for you, but also for regulatory compliance in the US. Beyond this, there are no major system issues.

For those of you in the BETA, just continue to use your accounts as you have been and help us by reporting bugs. As thanks for your time in helping us test and improve our system, you will not be billed during the BETA and we will provide advance notice when we’re about to end it.

We’ll be launching as soon as our people issues are solved. I expect this to be ironed out in the next few weeks as we have been doing a lot of interviewing and have some negotiations in the works here.

We’d rather be conservative right now and take a loss by not launching too soon than to launch and not be able to handle the growth and cause service issues for you. We’re looking forward to launching soon. Thanks for your patience!

[livepublicity]

thanks for the update.

Originally Posted by VOIPoTim

I wanted to give everyone a general update on the launch status. We’re extending the BETA for the time being.

The primary issue we’re facing now is that we're in the process of filling a few key technical positions and just like HostGator and most other American companies, we’re having problems finding people to fill these positions. It’s unfortunate and ironic given all the reports of such a bad job market, but is probably the biggest problem businesses in our country face.

I really feel we’re lacking on the technical side and would feel better with a few additional positions in that area filled. While it’s not a critical issue right now, we expect massive volume very quickly and with that, it will turn into a bigger issue if we’re not adequately staffed in key areas. The telecom industry is very rough due to the regulatory environment, patent issues, etc. Unfortunately, that makes filling key management positions even more challenging and some of the people we've had in those positions have not lasted.

In terms of actual service issues, everything seems to be running very smoothly with just minor issues cropping up.

The one area we have identified as having some problems is with our call records. This is one area you will notice may be hit and miss for a while as we’re redoing the call log engine entirely. We need to be able to store terabytes of calls logs and be able to process them easily. This is not only just to display them for you, but also for regulatory compliance in the US. Beyond this, there are no major system issues.

For those of you in the BETA, just continue to use your accounts as you have been and help us by reporting bugs. As thanks for your time in helping us test and improve our system, you will not be billed during the BETA and we will provide advance notice when we’re about to end it.

We’ll be launching as soon as our people issues are solved. I expect this to be ironed out in the next few weeks as we have been doing a lot of interviewing and have some negotiations in the works here.

We’d rather be conservative right now and take a loss by not launching too soon than to launch and not be able to handle the growth and cause service issues for you. We’re looking forward to launching soon. Thanks for your patience!

[wildweasel]

Any news or updates on this yet? Seems it started off like gang busters and then ground to a halt. I have a lot of people interested in this that are about to jump ship. How much longer will it be before the re-seller part gets a start?

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by wildweasel

Any news or updates on this yet? Seems it started off like gang busters and then ground to a halt. I have a lot of people interested in this that are about to jump ship. How much longer will it be before the re-seller part gets a start?

Check the post above for status info: http://forums.hostgator.com/showthre...037#post112037

Unfortunately just as HostGator has staffing issues, we do too. It seems odd that it's so hard to find competent people, but it really is. There's always alot of talk about how bad the job market is, but in our experience very few people actually are willing to work when it comes to the upper end technical positions. Most want to be consultants and do very little actual work. We're working on increasing our staffing on the technical side to a level we're comfortable with. At that point we'll do launch the full public beta.

As we've always said, the reseller program won't be available until several months after the direct service is. This is what we've said from day 1. That way we can resolve any issues before having you guys sell the service and run into issues. So the reseller launch is really unfortunately dependent upon how well things go with the actual launch.

Since this is a new platform that was custom built, we know there will be issues that we haven't yet found and want to focus our resources on getting all the bugs worked out at the initial launch since we can control growth. Once you guys are offering the service to your customers, we can't slow growth as much and need to be sure issues are resolved ahead of time so we can focus our development resources on handling growth and the reseller side of things.

Sorry we don't have a solid ETA, but we have to be realistic about staffing issues. If we could find enough quality employees, we would hire them on the spot and would be able to launch VOIPo, Windows Shared Hosting, etc.

We do have a few new people who have started and hopefully shouldn't be too much longer, but staffing is definitely an issue with growth.

Again sorry this is probably not what you want to hear, but we like to keep communication open and be upfront about why we do things.

On a side note...

My opinion is that this crisis is one of the more subtle reasons the American economy is in the shape it is in. AT&T's CEO recently had an article explaining that this exact situation is why they are forced to outsource out of the country. A few years ago I wouldn't have believed him, but I 100% do now. A huge chunk of the new generation has such an entitlement mentality and doesn't want to work....Brent and I are both in this generation so I can comment on it without stereotyping. It's just the truth. Everyone wants to be a consultant and just talk. Programmers especially are just shocked when they find out you want them to work 8 hours a day. If anyone knows any competent Linux Admins or LAMP programmers that are looking for work and willing to move to Houston, please let me know.

[codesight]

i know things are rough but by limiting your employees to houston you are really limiting the pool... in this day in age telecommuting happens all the time ESPECIALLY in this sort of field.

if you pay enough and get what you want from the worker you can get some damn good developers out there.

good luck in your search

[livepublicity]

any news ???

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by livepublicity

any news ???

We've slowly started opening up the residential BETA to the users from this forum (maybe some of them will comment) and expect to open it all up to your later this month.

The results there will help us determine if anything is remaining that would prevent launch and we'll set a specific launch time at that point.

[claygorman]

residential beta would be awesome!!!!

:-)

[wildweasel]

I am currently using another VOIP provider with similar features to yours, but I would be interested in testing yours to see how it compares.

[VOIPoTim]

I'll have some new info for you guys by the end of the week.

[jakeruston]

Those prices are very affordable. Well done!

[info121]

I am a reseller located in Australia - any plans to launch this service here?

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by info121

I am a reseller located in Australia - any plans to launch this service here?

In time, Australia is a country we'd like to add full service in.

Right now it'll be US-based, but still usable there if you have a good broadband connection and want to have a US based number.

You'll also be able to resell US accounts.

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by codesight

i know things are rough but by limiting your employees to houston you are really limiting the pool... in this day in age telecommuting happens all the time ESPECIALLY in this sort of field.

if you pay enough and get what you want from the worker you can get some damn good developers out there.

good luck in your search

Fortunately, I think this is resolved now. We'd added some great people over the last few weeks including a new CTO.

Check out http://forums.voipo.com/showthread.php?t=491 if you're interested in some specific info.

We still have a lot of hiring to do, but basically our "problem areas" staffing wise are now taken care of to the extent that we can prepare to countdown to launch.

[phonedev]

Originally Posted by VOIPoTim

Fortunately, I think this is resolved now. We'd added some great people over the last few weeks including a new CTO.

Check out http://forums.voipo.com/showthread.php?t=491 if you're interested in some specific info.

We still have a lot of hiring to do, but basically our "problem areas" staffing wise are now taken care of to the extent that we can prepare to countdown to launch.

Tim - excellent product. But sorry, if I missed something here. How is it different from products such as RingCentral, 800PBX, Virtual PBX and GotVMail.

All these players have been eating this business for quite some time. Few of them are losing grounds and few of them heavily funded. I know Ringcentral has crossed into UK and 800PBX coming up with unified messaging soon on top of their virtual pbx systems. Virtual PBX's call center application works well. GotVMail is the leader amongst all.

Let me know if you would like to partner with anyone in those companies. I will be very happy to help.

Thanks.