SIPSTATION not unlimited?

Is it true that “unlimited” SIPSTATION trunks are actually not unlimited, but you can only make 3000 combined inbound and outbound calls in a month on one trunk?
We are making around 30000 minutes of outbound toll calls a month, but don’t need 10 trunks.

You are correct that there is a ‘fair use’ softcap limit which is described very clearly in the ToS as you have observed. There are ‘metered’ options in SIPStation to ‘burst’ beyond the softcap as well as the concurrency to provide ‘elasticity’ for various business needs, peek times, peek seasons, etc.

If you are making 30,000 minutes of outbound calls per month you would need 10 or more trunks with SIPStation.

Ok, got it.
I have always wondered where the big savings, that SIP trunking promises would actually come from.
Smaller companies actually do benefit, bigger ones with a larger call volume not so much. Those are probably still better off to stick with their unlimited Verizon or Time Warner trunks at $35 a month.

You will probably read in the small print that Verizon and TW also have soft-caps, because making phone calls to the PSTN costs always cost someone some money.

Very possible.
Never had problems with 40000 minutes of outbound calls on our 8 TW trunks though.
Wanted to look for alternatives because there were other aspects of their service we weren’t happy with.
SIP trunking sounded promising in the beginning, but once we got to the fine print there, we realized it doesn’t really fit our needs.

avayax,
there are many different reasons and benefits that come from SIP trunking vs. other alternatives. Price is only one of those and there are many others. The spectrum spans for customer service when you have issues to flexibility of the service, reliability and failover options, E911 flexibility for some people, and many more. If your goal is to get the cheapest cost to do 40,000 outbound minutes a month then that will result in a different set of carriers. If TW is happy with your volume and type of traffic you’re sending them, that may be a better option.

The other question I would have is to review how you have calculated your 40,000 minutes per month. I’m guessing you have a good handle on your usage and that is probably an accurate assessement, but I bring it up because I’ve seen many people try to calcuate their minutes using Asterisk CDR’s and come up with some very overstated numbers. The reasons range from simple errors like looking at the call duration vs. the billable call duration, to some of the more complex dialplan scenarios that result in very confusing ‘multiple CDRs per single call’ records that can create double, triple, … counting. The softcap minutes in SIPStation are based on the billable duration (Call answer to call hangup, 20 seconds of ringing before the call is answered is not billable but is part of the overall duration that can overstate a call if incorrect data is reviewed).