I am planning to setup and implement a VoIP solution to provide VoIP services in my country. What I exactly need to set up a service like Vonage or Net2Phone, for example? I would like to know the equipment I need, software to administer accounts, numbers and billing, other special things I may need to have a good QoS VoIP service? How much will I need to invest, starting small, and then slowly grow?
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The most cost effective way to begin is to use an open source solution such as the SIP Express Router (SER) from IPTel.org. This product has the ability to support many features and allows you to manage everything with a Web-based interface. It also supports RADIUS for accounting and authorization. The cost of this depends upon how much time you spend on customization and what hardware you decide to run on. You have to rent some space at a data center for your solution and you would likely want to establish redundant servers.
You will have to go and develop partnerships with different carriers and negotiate rates for terminating calls through their network to the PSTN. The QoS will depend heavily on the broadband service providers that people select and on the networks of the partners that you select. Before providing your offering, you'll likely want to come up with a nice interface so that customers can access all information over the Web, such as current billing and account information.
This was first published in January 2005