Greetings Mike:
In addition to what Bruce has outlined and mentioned - the overall "call
quality" even when within the country (several regions in the Middle
East) is not necessarily the best due to several factors.
I have lived and worked in all of the oil rich countries in the middle
east and have also lived in almost all the under-developed non-oil
producing countries for an extended period of 30+ days. Their wireless
infrastructure is among the best in the world and the latest. However
if calls are being terminated to copper based fixed lines, even from
within the country you are at the **COMPLETE** mercy of the cable guy
who works for less than $300 USD per month under the blazing hot sun.
Even the latest high rise 5 Star Condos in the region have poor cable
work. In Qatar where I lived at one of the most prestigious 5 star
condos in the "Free Trade Zone", the ZIG ZAG Tower, had improper wiring
and DSL was problematic as the building used poor CAT4 cables. CAT5 or
CAT6 was completely absent. Fiber? Forget it.
So even when people are calling each other from within the region from
Cell phone to Land/Fixed line, the quality is always problematic. Poor
call quality to a land line is a "way of life". Cell phone to cell
phone, in my experience calling from Canada to Middle Eastern cell
phones is crystal clear and has been crystal clear per my experience
(except for the odd calls dropping). I'm not sure even the local
incumbent carriers can assure call quality to a Land Line because the
"quality" from the core does not exist.
Unfortunately your clients are likely comparing North American /
European digital quality audio and *expecting* that same quality in the
Middle East. It does not exist as the copper infrastructure within the
region requires a complete overhaul per what I have seen and experienced
first hand. Even densely populated developing nations are simply
ignoring copper and jumping to wireless.
FYI - we have clients overseas in the regions connected to our servers
via their dedicated T1 (yes... that ironically appears to be most
stable) and they are interconnected with us at approximately 300ms
delay with zero packet loss. At 300ms delay, its definitely possible
to sustain clear audible and digital quality audio at 300-350 ms delay,
and this is based on first hand experience.
Sorry Mike... I know its not the answer you were hoping for.... but it
is what it is.
Cheers!
Reza.
--
FOUNDER & SR. TELECOM ANALYST
VOIPERNETICS COMMUNICATIONS
TEL: 647-847-2287 x2016
Bruce N wrote the following on 11/17/2014 7:11 PM:
VOIP termination works just fine to anywhere in the world. Reason why it
doesn't work well in some cases is what is known as grey routes where VOIP
termination is not legal and providers use limited internet connections.
A-Z market is vast and there are tons of providers and no single one that
can provide you all very well. If you have high volume you can connect
directly to Etisalat (few middle eastern countries) for example to
terminate directly onto their network. This will be costly if you have to
do with all providers and you won't benefit the great prices that grey
routes provide. Finally, not all very routes are bad.
In summary, you need an admin and a routing system that is full time
checking and separating bad routes from good ones < something that might
not even be worth it.
All in all, you won't make money if you want to find perfect routes or Bell
Canada will be cheaper.
-Bruce
On Nov 17, 2014 6:36 PM, "Jim Van Meggelen" <jim.vanmegge...@gmail.com>
wrote:
I don't have any direct experience with this, so I'm just adding my own
questions and thoughts to this thread.
I would expect that there are a lot more variables in play that we aren't
used to dealing with when terminating to US/EU (let's call them G8 to save
on typing) destinations (over and above the capabilities of the VoIP
provider).
- Latency to that part of the world is going to include a propagation delay
that cannot be completely mitigated until some way to send data at faster
than light speed is found. Halfway around the world works out to something
like 80ms, if memory serves correctly. Even a dedicated strand of fibre
between you and wherever would have this delay.
- Are you terminating to more cellular connections? This adds all sorts of
impairments, from latency, to transcoding loss, to radio signal quality, to
who knows what else. In some places land line PSTN has never been deployed
(or is so hopelessly out of date it's barely useable).
- Some PSTN connections simply suck, so even with the very best VoIP
infrastructure, you still have to terminate to a PSTN that might have all
sorts of old crap hampering things, especially in the last mile.
- The number of network hops between you and the termination point are
almost certain to be much higher than to a G8 destination, and also are far
more likely to traverse multiple backbone providers. Naturally, this means
more bottlenecks of all sorts. Can you control the network between you and
the termination? Can the termination provider?
Even if you were to deploy your own termination equipment, with a carefully
engineered network between here and there, could you be sure of a
consistent improvement?
You might be barking up the wrong tree, is what's running through my head.
On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 4:43 PM, Mike - QTI <mike.ash...@qualitytrack.com>
wrote:
Hi,
I'm looking to see if any one has any good A-Z providers with quality
connections into either Asia or the Middle East we are always struggling
with the call quality in these regions.
Any input would be appreciated.
Mike
Mike Ashton
CTO
Quality Track International
Phone: +1 647.724.3500 x251
Cell: +1 416.527.4995
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