Okay, sure. But I think we might be talking past each other here. My whole response was predicated on the assumption that the media gateway that a given term call is sent to is picked based on its geographic proximity to either the ratecenter/CO or tandem of the callee. It doesn't really make sense for a provider to do anything otherwise, AFAICT, so I doubt that they would. If my assumption is correct, you gain no advantage by having your long-distance term calls go through a Chicago MG (which was my original argument to begin with), and any local Chicago calls would be sent to a local Chicago MG anyway, so you're sweating bullets over nothing. And, like you said, origination for your end users would be hitting a Chicago MG already. Soo...problem solved? -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana@fsr.com ________________________________________ From: NANOG [nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett [nanog@ics-il.net] Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 3:36 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: SIP trunking providers I want the gateway in Chicago as well. I am Chicago based. The end users are Chicago based. Therefore the origination would be coming from a Chicago area gateway. Half of the calls (inbound would be guaranteed to be local as they'd be coming in through a local tandem anyway. Most of the termination traffic would again be to local numbers, therefore would again have to be through local tandems. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan Anderson" <nathana@fsr.com> To: "Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net> Cc: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 4:11:37 AM Subject: RE: SIP trunking providers Maybe I'm missing something here, but what does it matter if the RTP from your perspective ends in Chicago or not? If it does end in Chicago, that only means they are proxying the audio before sending it on to the actual media gateway for that call where it finally drops onto the PSTN. So all that happens is that the audio latency remains the same (or worse, because of the additional, unnecessary proxy) AND that the actual media gateway remains hidden from you. You won't be able to actually test and see the latency to the MG, and you will be under the (false) impression that latency across all calls is equally "good" because you are only measuring RTT to a specific and common media proxy. By sending the audio directly to an MG closer to the point of exit from IP-land, it is taking a more direct route to the callee than you are seemingly asking for. If you're not talking about adding a proxy to the equation, are you expecting to find a provider in Chicago that immediately goes from IP to PSTN within Chicago, regardless of the actual destination of the call? Circuit-switched TDM is not a no-latency connection. Physics is involved here. The farther apart the caller is from the callee, the more latency there will be, regardless of the medium. All other things being equal (similar network path, etc.), I doubt IP packet switching significantly increases the latency over and above TDM call trunking. But I'm not an expert, and again, if I'm missing something here, I would love to be proven wrong. -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana@fsr.com ________________________________________ From: NANOG [nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett [nanog@ics-il.net] Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2015 1:04 PM Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: SIP trunking providers I too am looking for the Chicago area. Low volume. I'm looking for people whose SIP and RTP hit the end of the road in Chicago. Not interested in someone whose SIP servers are in LA , but will redirect me to the nearest gateway... without telling me where said gateway is. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rafael Possamai" <rafael@gav.ufsc.br> To: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 4:40:48 PM Subject: SIP trunking providers Would anyone in the list be able to recommend a SIP trunk provider in the Chicago area? Not a VoIP expert, so just looking for someone with previous experience. Thanks, Rafael