Primeros Pasos

From VoIP.ms Wiki

Revision as of 18:26, 13 July 2011

Este es un articulo para orientarlo en sus inicios utilizando los servicios de Voip.ms .

Una vez creada una cuenta surgen ciertas preguntas al registrarse la primera vez. Algunas de estas cuestiones fueron contestadas por el equipo de soporte a travez del Chat en Vivo o mediante el sistema de tickets( el cual esta ligado a la direccion de correo: [email protected] ). Otras fueron contestadas mediante busquedas en foros o sitios web.

Creando una cuenta

Crear una cuenta es totalmente Gratuito. No es necesario proveer información acerca de su tarjeta de credito para abrir una cuenta. Simplemente visite signup page y complete la información solicitada. Despues de crear una cuenta esta deberá ser activada al hacer click en la liga que se recibe en el correo de activación.

La contraseña de su cuenta principal será la misma que usted usara para ingresar al portal del cliente, sin embargo podrá cambiarla después  
desde la sección de configuración de la cuenta.

Primer acceso al Portal del Cliente

La primera vez que usted ingresa a log in es posible que se sienta algo abrumado por la gran cantidad de opciones de menu disponibles. No se preocupe... en cuanto usted tenga mas tiempo para explorar el portal del cliente se sentirá mas familiariado con la forma en que trabaja el sistema.

La sección Portal Home( la primera pagina que usted ve al ingresar al portal del cliente ) le muestra información importante, como el numero de su cuenta principal. Cabe resaltar que pude registrar mi ATA con este numero de cuenta como usuario. Por lo tanto, si mi usuario( numero de cuenta ) fuera 100000 entonces usted podria registrar un ATA o una applicacion ( soft phone ) con [email protected]. Sin embargo, esto no le permitirá recibir llamadas entrantes. Su siguiente paso será crear una extensión, en términos de VoIp.ms estas son llamadas Sub Cuentas.

Creando una Sub Cuenta

No existen cargos por crear sub cuentas. Desde el menu principal usted podrá crear una sub cuenta en la opcion Sub accounts -> create a sub account. Ahi debera ingresar los diferentes campos requeridos y guardar estos cambios, de la misma forma usted podrá crear todas las sub cuentas que necesite.

Nota Importante: El usuario SIP de sus sub cuentas es diferente al usuario SIP de su cuenta principal. Por ejemplo: el usuario SIP de su cuenta principal es 100000, entonces el usuario de una sub cuenta podria ser asi 100000_1.

En caso de que no pudiera conectar su ATA / telefono IP /Soft phone a una de sus subcuentas, lo primero que debe hacer es revisar bien estos detalles.

A manera de prueba, si usted registra 2 dispositivos diferented utilizando 2 diferentes sub cuentas, entonces usted podra realizar llamadas internas entre ellas. En este case deberá asegurarse de registrar ambas sub cuentas al mismo servidor, posteriormente utilizando numero de extension interno de cada sub cuenta usted deberia ser capaz de realizar llamadas de una sub cuenta hacia la otra, tome en cuenta que estas llamadas son completamente gratis.

Es posible confirmar el status de cada una de sus cuentas o sub cuentas desde la seccion Portal home -> main menu > registration status.

Por que querría un Sub Cuenta?

Una de las razones por las cuales es recomendable utilizar Sub Cuentas es para recibir llamadas entrantes via SIP URI desde otros dispositivos o proveedores VoIP.

También puede usar las sub cuentas para tener comunicación con otras ubicaciones, no importa si estas se encuentras incluso en otros continentes, utilizando los numero de extensión internos estas llamadas serian gratuitas.

Pensándolo de esta forma, basicamente tu puedes considerar a las sub cuentas como extensiones para poder utilizar diferentes dispositivos en tu red VoIP.

Estas son solo algunas de las razones por las cuales utilizar las sub Cuentas.

Adding Funds

In order to purchase DIDs, make outbound calls and so on, you will need to add funds to your account. This is a very simple procedure. Just click on Finances --> Add Funds in the menu system. Make a payment with your Credit Card or Paypal account. The minimum is $25. As Voip.ms operates a prepay service, you will notice your funds deplete as you use their paid services. However there is a good chance that your initial $25 deposit will last a lot longer paying for voip.ms services than your local phone company!!!

There are 2 additional payment options such as Bank wire and Western Union, you can ask the voip.ms staff for all the details regarding.

Getting a DID number

Next thing on my list was to choose a DID number. A DID number (DID) is a "regular" landline telephone number. As I was creating a new business venture and wanted a separate telephone number for the business (rather than handing out my home number) I purchased a DID. This would give me a normal phone number that could be dialed from any standard telephone (landline, VoIP line, cellphone).

Voip.ms have a fantastic selection of DIDs and extremely competitive rates. For example a 415 area code (San Francisco, California) would cost $0.99 per month + 1 cent per minute for each incoming call, or $4.95 inclusive of incoming calls (up to 3500 minutes per month, intended for residential use).

If you wish, you can choose to enable Caller Line ID (CNAM) lookups on your DID. This is completely optional. A CNAM lookup checks the telephone number that is calling against a database and returns the name of the calling party. If you do not make use of this, you will still see the person's telephone number on your display, just not their name. This service has a cost of 0.8 cents per query (8/10 of a cent).

I wanted a Toll Free number for my business. It costs me $0.99 (yes, 99 cents) a month, plus 2.4 cents per minute for incoming calls from the lower 48. 8c per minute for incoming from Canada, and a little more for calls coming from Puerto Rico or Alaska. However, as is typical with Voip.ms, I had other options available. If I was going to receive a lot of toll free calls from Canada, I could have chosen to get the DID from the Canadian carrier. All incoming calls would then have cost 3.2 cents per minute, although the monthly cost would have increased to $1.49 per month!

It is worth noting that when you set up a DID number with voip.ms, you will also get a new SIP URI. In North America, the DID number is used (without the leading 1) in combination with your chosen server. For example if your DID was 1-555-0199-3333 and you were registered with the New York server your newly assigned SIP URI would be [email protected] although you may find that [email protected] works as well.

When you order your DID, you can tell voip.ms what to do with calls that come in on that number. You can have it route directly to one of your sub accounts. So your aunt in England can have a regular New York landline number that is routed to her extension (103 in the example above). Then when you are on your cell walking around Manhattan and want to ask your aunt a question, you dial a local number to you, but her phone rings in England. Of course you may want a DID that routes directly to your Voip phone at home, or in your office. Perhaps you would rather have all calls go to Voicemail and then be emailed to you, or maybe you would like to set up an IVR menu ("press 1 to speak with Sales, 2 for Customer Service..."). I set up my toll free number to forward calls to my cell and to my IP phone between the hours of 9-5EST. Outside those hours, the calls go to Voicemail automatically and my phones don't ring :-)

Outbound Calls

In the Voip industry, outbound calls are known as termination. The termination rates at voip.ms are very low, and you can choose to send your calls over the value route or premium route.

The Value Route generally offers lower rates, and monitoring may not be as good. I have been using the value rates since I signed up, and have had no trouble with them.

The Premium Route offers higher call quality, but if you are mostly calling within the US & Canada you may be fine on the value route. Caller ID is also guaranteed on Premium routes.

Users who regularly make calls to the Middle East and Far East have reported that the Premium routes provide excellent service, whereas the Value Routes may or may not work as well.

You would expect that Premium routes would always be more expensive than Value routes, however this is not necessarily the case. Here are a few sample taken from the Rates pages as of May 2011.

Premium to US = 1.25 cents per minute. Value to US = 1.05 cents per minute. Premium to Canada = 1.25 cents per minute. Value to Canada = 0.52 cents per minute (yes, that's half a cent). Premium to UK = 0.7 cents per minute. Value to UK = 0.79 cents per minute. Premium to Japan = 10 cents per minute. Value to Japan = 2.5 cents per minute.

Different termination rates may apply for calling cell phones in other Countries. The rates pages list all the various rates for different cell providers in each Country.

Conclusion

I hope this Getting Started Guide will serve as a useful "how to setup voip.ms" how to guide for new users. Existing users, please feel free to add more to this wiki!!!