Lumen Next-Gen Voice vs. Rakuten Viber

[CenturyLink Enterprise Voice SIP is] good for environments that require tried and true SIP services, where high-quality voice is a requirement, and backed by a large, global company, with global footprint. CenturyLink voice is also well-suited to environments that want to use MPLS to interconnect their offices, as the same voice circuits can be used for data as well; however, the circuits are relatively expensive, even as far as MPLS goes, and watch out for Lumen's "fees" that often aren't included when you see their quote. Also beware if you require a rapid turn-up or have a very small or inexperienced staff, as MPLS with BGP deployments are great once they're up and running, but can be complex to design and implement.

Incentivized

It's perfect for messaging and group messaging, especially when users in group are from different places, organizations... (unlike slack where you have to be member of same organization to be in same group). The video calls are the weak point of the app, so Viber is not good for conference calls, video calls and especially for group video conference calls.

Incentivized

• Reliable service
• Supports wide range of key features
• They do have high levels of support where you can receive real answers

Incentivized

• It is very easy to use and is very user-friendly.
• You can have high quality video and audio meetings with more than 1 person.
• You can upload any type of file in Viber (video, audio, text, GIFs, PDF files).
• It is a very well known messenger so all people have access to it.

Incentivized

• Lumen-Centurylink has suffered from many noticeable outages in the last few years - this is a blow to their reputation that they still have to recover from.
• Lumen-CenturyLink does not peer well enough with OTHER carriers - they depend on their own network to give you SIP, which means less true redundancy.
• Lumen-CenturyLink needs a better customer portal/interface to handle failover, see the real-time status, etc.

Incentivized

• As far as I can tell, Viber lacks the feature to block specific callers/numbers. I've never needed to do this, but I'd like to know I have the option.
• Viber cannot be used without wifi, so it is not possible to connect with contacts who aren't also using Viber. (Unless you want to use the paid service.)
• This isn't a major complaint, but I find the layout of Viber to be a little cluttered. Comparing it to WhatsApp, I don't find it to be quite as user-friendly, and I sometimes stumble around to find my way to a contact to call.

Incentivized

SIP service support is definitely improving. A few years ago I would have rated them a 2. Now a 7. But, Lumen still needs a better portal experience to report and see a real-time status. Also to manage SIP failover functions in a WYSIWIG/GUI interface. When Lumen's network breaks in a larger outage, there are long hold times and support is not good.

Incentivized

I have not frequently used the support for Viber as I have not had many problems with it on my phone. I did use support one time for problems with the computer application and used the forums to solve my problems. They were fairly easy to follow and I appreciated the online help in that format.

Incentivized

I have found a better solution is to run two different carriers through SD-WAN (such as Bigleaf or Velocloud MSR) and use a provider like BCMOne (formerly NexVortex) to manage the SIP. BCMOne/Nexvortex is an AWESOME SIP provider with better planning, deployment, and technical support. When paired with redundant internet paths on SD-WAN (BigLeaf or Velocloud) a very resilient solution is created.

Incentivized

Rakuten Viber is overall the best. Hands down!!! Even though the other products have their own use and they are well functioning in the market, but Rakuten Viber is still top notch!

Incentivized

• Faster learning
• Increased numbers of calls
• Organization of calls

Incentivized

• Rakuten Viber allows me to delete any type of message I've sent
• Rakuten Viber can't access or read my private conversations in the first place, Viber can't sell them.
• Hidden Chats allows me to keep whatever chats I want away from my main chat list, so they don't show up in my main chat list. Only a PIN that I set gives me access to Hidden Chats.

Incentivized