FAQ

Do you offer a Test Account or Number?

We currently do not have a test account or test number program however opening an account is completely free and we provide free dialing codes to test the quality of the service. Please check our many dialing codes here: Dialing Codes

How do I start?

You can open an account for free following this link : https://voip.ms/signup.php Once your account is active you will be able to log in and find all of our features and options. We suggest to also check our Getting Started guide.

Is there a cost to open the account?

Opening an account is completely free. The minimum amount of funds you can add is $15 USD which will become your account balance to use the services.

Is there a Contract?

There are no contracts with us, you can open an account for free at any time you wish, for as long as you want.

What are the Payment Options?

The current options available are Paypal (No Account Needed for Paypal Guest CC Payment), VISA, Master Card, American Express, and via Bank Wire deposit to our bank account in Montreal. Please contact Customer Support for information about Bank Wire.

As of 2023-10-05, we now support Google Pay and Apple Pay (for Apple device users).

Can I deposit less than $15 into my account?

Currently $15 is the minimum amount you can add to your account.

Can I get a refund of my balance if I am not satisfied or no longer need the service?

If a customer made a deposit and does not want to continue with the Service, for any reason, the Company will refund the Customer in whole, for any unused pre-paid balance (total amount of deposits minus the usage by the customer), upon request, for all new deposits made within ninety (90) days of such request of refund. Any other amounts will not be refunded to the Customer, but will still be available for use.

Do you charge taxes?

All customers with Canada as country will pay for the tax called GST. The customers who are also from Quebec in Canada will pay an additional province tax, PST. This applies for both Paypal and Credit Card payments. The HST will get applied on Canadian provinces that require it.

As of April 1st 2022, and in order to comply with the respective tax authorities in British Columbia, Manitoba & Saskatchewan, VoIP.ms is required to collect customer tax IDs to identify business-to-business (B2B) exemptions and accurately bill its customers in the previously mentioned province. This also means that for customers in these provinces, the respective tax will show on their invoice(s). For more information, click here.

In order to get further details about how these are applied, feel free to check this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_Canada

How much does the service cost?

The cost will vary depending on the services used. For outbound calls you are subject to the per minute rate of the destination you call and the billing increment. For inbound calls you are subject to the rate plan of the DID, the monthly fee and the billing increment it if applies. There may be additional monthly fees or set up fees depending on the services you subscribe to. Please check more details about the service cost here Service Cost

What is the Billing Increment?

The Billing Increment is a call duration measurement unit expressed in seconds. For example, with our 6 seconds billing increment, a 5 second call will be billed as 6 seconds or 1/10 of 1 minute or $0.0010. This way, you don't get charged for a whole minute just for a 10 seconds call.

With a $0.0100 per minute rate, and a 60 seconds billing increment, any call less than 60 seconds is rounded up to 60 seconds or 1 full minute of usage. A 5 seconds call and a 50 seconds call are both billed as 1 minute or $0.0100.

What is a DID?

A Direct Inward Dial number (DID), in simple terms, is a virtual number that, for all intents and purposes, can be considered a regular phone number, with the exception that it is not attached to any POTS line (Landline). Once your configuration is ready, your DID will be the phone number that everyone in the world will call to reach you, just like any other phone number.

What type of DID numbers you offer?

There are different types of DID numbers. They are mostly differentiated by their geographic presence. Local DIDs from US or Canada. International DIDs. Toll Free numbers.

These are the most common used by our customers. For further information about getting a DID number and other types please check our related article Order a DID Number

Can I dial out with my DID?

The DID numbers are a type of service that are exclusively for receiving calls. When you place outgoing calls with our service you are not calling from the DID number but from the account instead and the number you will pass on your calls as your Caller ID will be the one that is configured on the accounts settings from the portal.

What is Caller ID?

Caller ID is a telephone service that transmits the calling party’s number to the called party’s telephone . When available, the Caller ID number can be complemented with Caller ID name (e.g. John Smith). If you are placing outgoing calls you will likely need to pass a Caller ID to ensure proper termination of your calls, particularly to reach toll free numbers. There are two types of caller ID and it is important to differentiate them: Caller ID Number (CID) and Caller ID Name (CNAM). Please contact Technical Support for assistance or more details about Caller ID or check our related article at Caller ID

What is CNAM?

CNAM stands for CallerID Name and it's the information that will be displayed in the phone of the receiving party, when you place an outgoing call. If you will be making calls to Canadian numbers, you can simply pass the Caller ID name from your device or system as most of them support this. The Caller ID name on US calls works differently, this is controlled by a national CNAM database with records of numbers and names matching each number. We can update the CNAM database under request. For more information please check our related article at [Caller ID Name]

Can I port my existing number from another provider to VoIP.ms?

VoIP.ms does offer Local Number Portability (LNP) service and your number may be available for porting. Please contact Customer Service to find out whether your current number is portable to VoIP.ms network or if you already have an open account, please refer to the Porting a Number guide.

Do you provide any hardware for the service?

We don’t provide any kind of hardware device, software or system to use the service. The service is a BYOD (Bring your own device). You should be able to get one from any Communications specialized store and all SIP- compatible devices are supported.

Can I use my existing device with VoIP.ms?

Basically any device or system that supports SIP or IAX2 protocol will work with our service . If you bring your device (ATA, IP phone) from a previous provider, make sure it is unlocked and you are able to make changes to its configuration. You can find a list of some devices that we support, with their configuration guides, at Devices

Do you have Configuration Samples?

You can find configuration samples for most of the common devices and phone systems used with VoIP.ms here: Devices If your device or system is not listed there but supports the protocol SIP or IAX2 and at least one of the following codecs: G711u, G729a or GSM, you should be able to use it, and you can always contact our Technical Support staff for additional assistance.

Do you offer Technical Support by phone?

Due to the nature of the troubleshooting which can result time consuming we chose our main ways to offer support to be via Ticket System (Email) and Live chat. At this point, Technical Support over the phone is not available.

What is my Main Account SIP password?

The main account SIP password is, by default, the same as your customer portal password. If you have not changed the SIP password, it is the same password you use to log into your portal. You can change your SIP password from the Customer Portal at any time from the Main Menu - Account Settings page. Please check our related article for more information: [Account Security]

What Server should I use?

Usually, in order to receive better results, you should choose the server physically closest to your location. Please check our related article for more information about this subject Choosing Server

Can I ping VoIP.ms Servers?

For security purposes, VoIP.ms servers cannot be ping. What is suggested to test the quality is to call 4443 (quality test call) which is free and see the results.

Does VoIP.ms encrypt the communication?

By default the SIP communication is secure although not encrypted. We offer Call encryption over SIP-TLS/SRTP, that we can enable as you wish for your main account/sub accounts. The communication will be encrypted between our servers and your devices/PBX. We suggest enabling this option if you are in a public network.

Do you Support e911

We offer e911 service only for US and Canadian DID numbers (including USA and Canadian Toll-free numbers). This feature can be activated in the Customer Portal directly under the e911 page under the DID numbers menu. More information available in our related wiki article here E911

Do you offer Calling Card?

We do not offer any Calling Card feature at this moment, however you can set up a Calling Card solution with your own system and our DID numbers as long as this is used with DID numbers in our Per Minute plan. For more information please contact Technical Support.

Do you offer Fax service?

We offer a Virtual Fax feature. This feature can be used with special Fax DID numbers which can be acquired and configured through our Fax portal. Please check our related article for further details: Virtual Fax

Do you offer SMS service?

SMS is available for a great number of DIDs and Cities from US and Canada and requires to be used through the SMS portal.

We also offer SIP SMS, providing the possibility to send and receive SMS messages from softwares and PBXes that support the functionality.

You can read more details about this feature in our related article SMS

Do you offer Conference Calls?

We offer Conference calls, as a feature in the customer portal. This feature is known as Audio Conferencing

Do you support TCP for the SIP communication?

TCP is fully supported in our servers.

Do you Support IPV6 with SIP and or IAX2?

We do not support at this time IPV6 for SIP and IAX2 protocol at this moment.

Do you transmit DSCP QoS priority bits?

Yes we do, we transmit Code CS3 for SIP and EF for RTP.

Do you offer alternative ports besides 5060/5061?

We offer alternative SIP ports, UDP/TCP 5080 and 42872 on all of our servers, You can try those ports in case your Internet Service Provider blocks the port 5060 UDP/TCP or if you need to use another one. For the SIP-TLS we offer alternative ports only by TCP protocol, 5061 and 42873 on all of our servers name with a number at the end. e.g. chicago1.voip.ms

Can I register 2 or more different devices with the same account username?

It is strongly suggested not to do so, this can possibly cause conflicts while routing the calls to your device as well issues related with registration. If you need to register more than one device please create and use the Sub Accounts, you will get new credentials for any additional device. For more information about Sub Accounts please check the related article on this subject Sub Accounts

Do you accept Call Center, Autodialers or Telemarketing traffic ?

The Customer covenants and agrees that if he wishes to use VoIP.ms termination (outbound) services for telemarketing purposes (including, but not limited to Automated Dialers, Call Centers and collection agencies) that he first has to reach out to [email protected] to get the written authorization to do so. In the event where the Customer does not obtain the proper authorization from the Company, Customer understands that VoIP.ms will suspend such activities without warning, to its sole discretion.

Can I resell your services ?

Yes, our customers will be able to find a "Reseller Section" included in the Customer Portal. We give you all the tools you need plus a White label Reseller Interface that has been developed to help our clients upsell our services under their own brand. We also recommend that you must familiarize yourself with the Voip.ms interface before reselling the service. For more information about reseller please contact Technical Support or visit our related article here: Reseller Basic Guide

Do you offer Wholesale Rates ?

If you are interested on a discount based on traffic usage or volume, please send an email to [email protected] providing all details about your traffic like destinations you need to call and average of minutes used per month, in order to receive additional information and quotes.

Can I port out my number ?

If you wish to port out a number from our service you can do so at any time by starting the porting request with the new provider. We authorize all Port Out Request matching the correct information from your account. Remember to delete the DID number from your VoIP.ms account once the port out process is completed. For any question regarding Port Out please send an email to our LNP Department at [email protected]

How do I delete my DID ?

From the customer portal, go to the “DID Numbers” menu tab and then click “DID Billing”. From this page, you can cancel number(s). Remember this process cannot be reversed, please be sure that you will no longer need the number.

Is there any Cancellation Fee ?

We do not charge any cancellation fee of any kind, you are free to cancel your account or number at any time you wish to.

Where are you located ?

VoIP.ms is a Canadian Company founded back in 2007 in Montreal. The main office is located in Montreal, QC, Canada and there is also a Technical Site in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico for the South America market.

Do you offer a Referral Program ?

Yes, the referral invite link, as well as all the details and information can be found in the customer portal under the "Finances" menu. You can also review the public information by clicking the following link: https://voip.ms/en/features/referral-program

What are the audio codecs you support?

We support audio codecs: G722, G729a, G711u (also know as uLaw or PCMU) and GSM. Their specifications are:

Codec : G.722

Bit Rate: 64 Kbps

Nominal Ethernet Bandwidth (Kilobits) : 87.2 Kbps

Codec : G.711u

Bit Rate: 64 Kbps

Nominal Ethernet Bandwidth (Kilobits) : 87.2 Kbps

Codec : G.729a

Bit Rate: 8 Kbps

Nominal Ethernet Bandwidth (Kilobits) : 31.2 Kbps

Codec : GSM

Bit Rate: 13 kbps

Nominal Ethernet Bandwidth (Kilobits) : 29.2 kbps

What is a pulserate?

Since call fees are usually advertised per minute, and most calls last more or less than sixty seconds, to calculate the charge rate of a call, we use what is called a Pulserate. With a Pulserate of six seconds, a charge is made based on how many intervals of six seconds the call lasted. For example, if you make a phone call to a $0.05 per minute destination, lasting only one second, you will be charged for six seconds - $0.005 ($0.05/minute x 6 seconds ÷ 60 seconds). If the call lasts thirty-two seconds, you will be charged for thirty-six seconds, or the equivalent of six Pulserates - $0.03.

The grand majority of countries around the world are calculated with a pulserate of 6 seconds, but there is a few countries which have a pulserate of 60 seconds, meaning that wether you speak for 10 seconds or 50 seconds, you will be charged for the whole 60 seconds.

Here is the list of countries having a pulserate of 60 seconds

• Mexico
• American Samoa
• China
• Cook Islands
• Fiji
• French Polynesia
• Gambia
• Haiti
• International Networks
• Kiribati
• Lesotho
• Maldives
• Nauru
• New Caledonia
• Niue
• Papua New Guinea
• Solomon Islands
• Suriname
• Tokelau
• Tonga
• Tuvalu
• Vanuatu
• Vietnam
• Western Samoa
• Global Mobile Satellite System
• Satellite
• Thuraya Satellite