June 30, 2010 Calling iNums with Vonage

Vonage subscribers – at least in the USA – can directly call iNum numbers.  Currently this is free.  This short video gives a basic overview of iNum numbers and demonstrates the ease of calling iNums from Vonage.

Tags: ,

Posted by hgoldstein | Permanent Link | Make a comment

9 Responses to “Calling iNums with Vonage”

  1. Manamongst Says:

    July 1st, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    Dude is there any way to get the number of digits down on this, you say 15 but in the test you essentially dialed 18 digits with the country code (011) included. Even if you eventually get it to the point where you don’t have to enter a country code 15 can be tedious, but I must admit probably not a deal-breaker for most.

  2. hgoldstein Says:

    July 1st, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    Thanks for commenting & the feedback. For more digit friendly calling of frequently dialed iNum numbers, its easy to save as a contact or speed dial.

  3. voipster Says:

    July 19th, 2010 at 8:37 pm

    I’ve noticed that it’s “currently free” with voip.ms right now as well. Does this mean that these providers intend to charge for iNum numbers in the future?

  4. hgoldstein Says:

    July 20th, 2010 at 5:17 pm

    hi @voipster – was not implying anything; the iNum initiative provides the numbers to the service providers and termination from SP to SP within the community for free.

  5. FuriousMurphy Says:

    December 28th, 2010 at 6:10 am

    I have attempted to call my iNum DID number from another service provider with my Vonage account(Canada), but all I get is an automated “The number you have dialed is invalid”. It does however work just fine when I dial an iNum local access number first and dial it from there. I guess that means that Vonage is not allowing free calls to iNum numbers from Canada? I just checked my account, and international dialing is enabled.

  6. iNum Says:

    December 28th, 2010 at 11:37 am

    Hi @FMurphy – thanks for the update on Vonage Canada. Please contact them and let them know that you’d like them to support calling to iNums from Canada, and that they can obtain free termination and numbers if they wish from the iNum Initiative. Here is an example of language that another iNum supporter recently used with his provider in Canada: http://www.inum.net/forum/index.php?/topic/8-virgin-mobile-canada/

  7. FuriousMurphy Says:

    January 2nd, 2011 at 7:26 am

    Well I contacted Vonage support concerning iNum not being reachable via direct dialing. This is the reply I got 4 days later after being redirected to a higher level tech.

    Thank You for contacting Vonage.
    Supposedly iNUM numbers are accessible from almost every network.Many Vonage numbers will work and many will not.It is basically about what background carrier is used for the call and whether they support iNUM numbers.iNUM numbers may be available everywhere in the future but currently they are not. We cannot guarantee connectins to iNUM phone numbers.

    This doesn’t seem right to me, as I understand the connections to iNum numbers are handled by the sip server, not the background carrier. Just as long as Vonage sip servers are configured to allow this, it should just work. Am I misinformed or is this tech just blowing smoke?

  8. TelecomDude Says:

    January 6th, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    Vonage does not do any SIP to SIP peering with anyone. This means that in order for a call to complete to any number off the Vonage network, Vonage would need to send the calls to one of their PSTN interconnecting carriers that offers them rates to the specified DNIS code which is this case is 883. If none of the many carriers Vonage uses to complete outbound calls offers them rates to 883, then these calls will not complete. Also note that I cannot complete calls to any iNum 883 number from Vonage in the US either.

  9. iNum Says:

    January 6th, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    Thanks TelecomDude. I happen to be a Vonage customer in the US as well, and they were supporting free iNum calls (see video!) until fairly recently then. There are A -Z wholesale carriers offering paid termination to the +883 code that they must be interconnected with, but if you are correct (and you sound well informed) its too bad they can’t take advantage for their customers of the opportunity to send calls for free over a SIP Connection to us directly. In my experience almost all wholesale carriers offer (and many prefer) SIP interconnection these days anyway.

Leave a Reply