Last year, I took the plunge and switched from a big local telephony provider to a web-based VoIP provider: Phone Power. Their features set is quite something: free second line, voicemails to email, some free international minutes, etc. But, when it comes to routing local calls, they are so-so.

I live in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Many local agencies & companies have 1-800 numbers that are geolocation-locked; you can’t call those numbers from outside Canada, or outside Quebec (depending). How they detect the origin of the call is not based on the caller ID (the caller’s phone number); it has to do with how the call is routed, i.e. where it’s coming from for real.

Now, the problem is not that Phone Power isn’t technically capable of routing those calls correctly, since I have been able to call those numbers on multiple occasions. The problem is that they are unable to keep routing consistent. The result is that those calls will only work sometimes, and will sometimes fail. And, when it’s not working, and you call/chat support to fix it, they don’t know how to resolve the situation. Sometimes, after 20-30 minutes of back and forth, they are able to make those calls go through. Other times, they can’t fix it, and answer that they’ll investigate further, and contact me later when they found something.

CrashPlan****, it’s a remote backup solution for (almost) everyone. The principle is easy enough: install the software client (available for Windows, Mac OS X or Linux), change the default selection of files that will be backed up (if you want to) and you’re on your way to never loose a file again! Where are your backup stored? You have the choice. One option is to pay CrashPlan developers (the company is called Code 42) a small fee each month for them to store your backup: this is what they call CrashPlan Central.

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