Quote Originally Posted by VOIPoTim View Post
Unfortunately that's really just the nature of VoIP in that there are so many variables that one person could have a good experience with a provider and their neighbor could have a bad experience. The variable could be something as simple as the model/firmware of the router the two people use.

Comparing provider to provider doesn't really help in that kind of scenario though since all VoIP networks are completely different and the way they handle things + the carriers on the backend can dramatically affect things. There's not really standardization per say between different providers even if they're both using the SIP protocol.
Well, your first paragraph contradicts the second one... if it's "as simple as the model/firmware of the router the two people use" then it would be similar experience for both VoIP providers. I agree that today's troubleshooting tools are inadequate; VOIPo tech asked me to run ping; hoping to glean something useful. Several years ago, when troubleshooting with VoicePulse, we were running pingplotter and it gave more useful information.

But from business development perspective saying "nothing can be done" will inevitably push customers to combine ISP and VoIP service from the same provider. This would be the only way to avoid finger-pointing!