CelTrek - a new int'l SIM

[snidely]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

*Having a number in the Keys bothers me a bit. After Hurricane Katrina our numbers in the impacted areas didn't work for a couple of weeks. The Keys are frequently visited by hurricanes and I'd hate to have the service shut down because of a storm.

DRN -
CelTrek, I assume, issues "virtual numbers" - something involving E-1 servers, SIP servers etc. The call does NOT pass thru a physical location in Florida, but wherever the E-1 server is. What little I could figure out about all this is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-carrier
Also: http://www.answers.com/topic/virtual-phone-number-1
and: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/788...ward_dial.html

This is all way beyond me. Your only worry would be if the E-1 server would go out - and that can be located anywhere, as I understand it. It would seem that CelTrek, being a U.S. company, would want the server to be on this continent, rather than overseas, to avoid latency problems.
OTH, I could be wrong.
I think all (or most all) of these outfits like voicestick, onesuite etc. use virtual numbers as well. And Vonage and all other VOIP carriers.
I assume if you are in France and dial a Vonage French number, the call would have to go to an E-1 server in the U.S. and the SIP server in the U.S. and back to France, causing some latency. I doubt Vonage would have servers in all the countries for which they have numbers.

STU - who seems to know more about this stuff here than almost anybody can probably explain this better!

...mike (Who hopes someone here can tell me what I just said)