When James Kockler decided to expand his IT consulting business, JamKo Force Networks, to include hosted voice service, he had issues finding a SIP trunking carrier that could reliably provide everything he needed. The frustration was enough to make him give up on the idea of providing voice service, but he was losing deals to competitors who could offer IT support and phone service. By meeting all Jim’s needs, and then some, Flowroute is now providing JamKo with reliable voice services that actually deliver a competitive advantage.
Where others were lacking
James worked with his fair share of SIP trunking providers to power the Open Source PBX system he built. They all had critical flaws. Some providers required a minimum monthly commitment James’ fledgling voice business couldn’t meet. Others failed when it came to support. When he found an affordable provider with decent support, the quality and reliability of service was poor. His customers experienced audio latency issues because the SIP provider tromboned the media stream for every call all the way to Europe and back.
One major concern James had with every provider he used was that T-38 was about as reliable as a campaign promise. When one provider was unable to provide any guidance, they suggested James scrap his entire Asterisk-based system and start over. Many of James’ customers require reliable fax service and in some cases he had to advise them to keep a POTS-style line with their old traditional carrier just for their fax. In many cases these customers would chose to keep all their business with their incumbent, resulting in lost business. Or as James explained it, “To compete against the giant incumbent monsters, I have to be able to say it’s going to be very easy.”
An unbelievable discovery
James’ ongoing Internet search for a reliable SIP trunking carrier eventually lead him to Flowroute. He told me, “I couldn’t believe the rates were real, but they are.”
Jim now depends on Flowroute to provide all his carrier services, including origination, termination, local and toll-free numbers, international calling, e911 and more. “Before Flowroute, I was patching it all together,” James explained. “Flowroute was the first carrier where I could get everything I needed in terms of VoIP.”
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The competitive edge
When JamKo first transitioned to Flowroute, it continued to have issues faxing, which is notoriously tricky over IP. But the Flowroute team went to work to solve the faxing issues. Flowroute and JamKo got T-38 running smoothly through a combination of configuration changes on the JamKo switch and SIP messaging changes by other carriers. “I’m confident I can promise prospective customers that T-38 will work with Flowroute,” James said. And that’s a big advantage for JamKo because other hosted VoIP providers in his region won’t offer faxing.
When new customers do say yes, the process is easy. With Flowroute, James can scale capacity on demand, and add new numbers, features and services instantly. Plus, the Flowroute Account Manager interface makes creating new inbound routes “incredibly easy.” Regarding managing his account James says, “It’s on autopilot. Once I get a customer set up, I don’t have to do anything with it any more.”
