Which ISP to choose

[brokenarrow]

I'm looking to deploy a small office VoIP installation [no more than 6 terminals]
Client has no DSL in the new office so I'm able to choose the ISP for them as part of the scope
Any recommendations as to which ISP to use?
Has anyone had any bad experiences or info on ISP's to avoid?

[support]

Hi Brokenarrow,

A good question and one with a lot of factors. A few general points:

For business VoIP you need business grade access. You need your bandwidth all day, not when your ISP decides to let you have it - mentioning no highly contended, cut-price vendors, but forget them. You need low latency all day long - run an all day pathping and see how your traffic is handled during peak hours.
Get an ISP at least peered directly to your VoIP provider - last thing you want is your VoIP streams traversing a few networks/interconnects to get to its destination. It might be find, but if you get a call quality issue you'll be on a guessing game.
Get the best upstream bandwidth possible, do not be intoxicated by high download bandwidths - LLU operators are now taking this to the next level, and we are so happy about that.

These are just general points and as this is an impatial forum we dont want to point the finger, however we only work with the best partner networks we can find, and are always interested in hearing of others experiences of other providers. If you require more specific information, feel free to email us at: i-hate-my-isp@firevoip.com (really!)

thanks