Bandwidth

Pros

User-friendly which makes it time efficient and the Bandwidth team is wonderful to work with. The majority of our companies numbers are ported/ordered through Bandwidth because we have found this to be the best and easiest carrier to use.

Cons

The port tool will not tell you the carrier of a number if it is not portable. It also will not tell you the carrier of toll-free numbers or if they are on different RespOrgs before you submit them.

Pros

Its web based and makes self-management a breeze.

Cons

Having to create manual tickets for certain things like adding a trusted IP, but I understand its for security and allows their service to not be abused.

Pros

Port triggering, SMS integration, fairly reliable.

Cons

Different dashboards and logins for support, account management, hidden add-ons for 10DLC mandates not made available automatically, 911 dashboard, support dashboard.

Pros

I like it because whenever I need to talk to colleagues in other cities I only have to request a number and I get it instantly.
I have been able to assign numbers to employees who work together with me and we have been able to develop a very efficient collaborative work.

Cons

There is nothing I dislike about this platform.

Pros

Ease of use stands out first. As a daily user I count on Bandwidth to point thousands of phone numbers to my customers correctly and route tens of thousands of calls daily. We use 5 SIP providers in our business and I choose Bandwidth as the primary carrier over all the others every time hands down.

Cons

There is nothing I don't like about Bandwidth. They have all the tools on their site I need to do my job efficiently.

Pros

At the moment none, maybe that will change in the future.

Cons

Profound disappointment and frustration with Bandwidth's A2P SMS Program and Account Managers, which has been nothing short of a nightmare. In August 2022, we were excitedly enrolled in their A2P program, expecting a tailored service that would cater specifically to our needs. However, to this day we are being asked to fill out form after form, re-register. We have yet to send a single message in over a year since apparently being onboard into A2P SMS product.

Firstly, the lack of clarity and direction from Bandwidth is appalling. Despite our explicit request for a rollout in just one country, Bandwidth presented us with a plan for a global rollout in 120 countries. This not only demonstrates a lack of attention to our specific needs but also reflects poor communication and understanding on their part.

// Hidden Transaction Fees
The financial aspect of our experience has been equally frustrating. We recently discovered, much to our dismay, that we have been charged an additional 3% for having a card on file - a fact that was never communicated to us with a dedicated account manager, a single email nor listed on any of our invoices. This lack of transparency and proactiveness in billing practices is unacceptable and reflects poorly on Bandwidth's business ethics.

Moreover, the constant change in account managers has led to a chaotic and disjointed service experience. With three different account managers (ie [sensitive content hidden]
and now [sensitive content hidden]) in 12 months, continuity and understanding of our project suffered greatly. This resulted in mixed messaging, particularly concerning the advice to bulk buy 10-DLC numbers.

The cumulative effect of these issues has been a significant loss of trust in Bandwidth and a sense of shared revenue loss. The program, which was supposed to be a stepping stone to greater success, turned into a source of continuous frustration and disappointment.

In conclusion, our experience with Bandwidth has been extremely negative. The lack of focus on our specific needs, poor communication, hidden charges, and inconsistent account management have all contributed to a situation where our expectations have been thoroughly unmet. I'm compelled to share this experience openly as a caution to others who might consider engaging with Bandwidth for similar services.

We expected professionalism and efficiency but were met with a series of letdowns that have significantly impacted our business.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Exceptional Service! I work with Bandwidth on a daily basis and they always go above & beyond! Very easy portal, the staff is great to work with!

Cons

I've worked with Bandwidth for a little over 3 years and I have watched the company involve and raise their expectations for themselves. There is nothing I do not like about working with Bandwidth!

Pros

Everything is user friendly on the site and the technical and customer support teams are always super fast in responding and escalate things easily and quickly for quick resolution. Very satisfied!

Cons

I would say the ordering of phone numbers can sometimes be tedious. The old version is what I use and it is much easier to navigate.

Pros

Bandwidth provides my company with solid product at a very competitive price. They are large enough to have the services I need and a quickly responding support department.

Cons

Bit hard to work with finance team on unique taxation issues. Not a huge deal just a bit annoying and was a corner case.

Pros

Tooling is great and easy to use. It offers much more customization without having to contact the vendor than anyone else.

Customer service is stellar across all teams.

Cons

It's not flashy and looks outdated (Not something engineers generally care about but I had to put something)

Pros

Bandwidth's API provides for a great customer experience on our end.

Cons

When it comes to carrier registration (10DLC) Bandwidths service could be improved. Their team generally takes a while to debug or come up with an answer for something going wrong.

Pros

Porting dept. Super Team, thanks for the consistent top-notch help.

Cons

Porting - pain in the butt. Especially with the increase in SMS and overall call volume due to the recent world health issues and remote worker movement.

Pros

Has great customer services.
It's UI and API are very user friendly and intuitive.
Has very amazing features that makes it easier to work with it.
Very cost friendly.
Also communication has always been great while working with it.

Cons

I haven't come across any major flaws while using this great platform,I therefore have nothing that I dislike towards it.

Pros

The portal! It's so user friendly and has a really nice design to make finding things easy.

Cons

The updates provided in a port request. They seem to just run on and on. There has to be a better way to provide us updates.

Pros

The Bandwidth team is very professional. They are easy to get to and respond quickly.

The customer service is very high quality.

There setup is mature and works with very high reliability. If there is any outage, status is provided at regular intervals.

Cons

There are a couple of missing features for our use-case: within US and Canada the service is great, however, the international calling rates (last time I checked, which was over a year ago) need to be lowered. Also, for post-paid accounts, the short-code SMS rates are much higher than regular SMS rates (which might be true for other vendors also) so it will be good to provide some mechanism to turn short-code SMS feature off for an account or phone number.

Pros

The database is real time. When requesting products most of the time you get an immediate response. Also the functionality is very easy to learn and train on. Set up under administration is also very easy and the turn around time for new colleagues to use the sight is same day.

Cons

Multiple logins for databases. One for ordering, one for trouble tickets, one for 911. It would be nice if they were all merged under one site. Also if the order could fall out to a rep when notes are applied that would be great. Typically there are instructions needed for the team when submitting a port. Those notes aren't viewed if the orders flow through BW automation.

Pros

I have a lot of complex customers and complex ports that need special handling. Their executive was instrumental in assisting on a process for me and has trained our team to assist to help me with these complex ports. They have been difficult and tedious, the communication and support are top notch. The portal is easy to use and update

Cons

I would like to be able to submit a trouble ticket with out having to go to a different login area and log in to submit a ticket. At this time the rest of any issues have been resolved. I cannot think of any other cons at this time .

Pros

Porting features are the most used, also to purchase a number

Cons

availability to purchase 800 or toll free numbers

Pros

Provide clear concise explanations when there is an error and customer service is always patient and ready to provide friendly service.

Cons

The update emails are not easy to ready in an organize clear fashion. The text should be formatted neatly.

Pros

I like that the software is user-friendly. The software is very self-explanatory for processing and submitted a port request. Also, another thing I enjoy about the system is creating support tickets that have a quick turn around time, instead of waiting on hold.

Cons

The only con I have with the website is the data showing for a vanity number search. I wish there were more numbers available for the search. Although at times when you speak with a rep they can provide you with more numbers.

Pros

ease of use, customer support and nimble in making changes. portal and api driven company.

Cons

lacking depth in features and foresight in sales strategy

Pros

The customer service is very high quality. The database is real time. The layout is nice as well as the ease-of -use.

Cons

I am not sure if this is part of the software or if it is the losing carrier, i have notice several times that my customer requested date receives FOC, then the system supps the order and changes the date to something other than originally requested.

Pros

It's flexibility in terms of value for money

Cons

High expenses when it comes to higher/faster speeds

Pros

The Portal is very intuitive and easy to use. The new number ordering dashboard is very helpful as it has more better search options.

Cons

Rejection Codes/Comments can be confusing. I also do not like that the portal logs you out after a certain amount of time

Pros

The user friendly dashboard is great! I love the new number ordering section and how easy it is to upload line options for a large amount of numbers at one time.

Cons

Sometimes it is hard to find articles that are recent and relevant to my questions. I usually just open a ticket when this happens and someone answers my questions.

Pros

Bandwidth's platform is well-regarded by developers, who appreciate its scalability, reliability, and ease of use. provides comprehensive documentation and resources to help developers get started with their platform and make the most of their services.

Cons

The port tool does not provide information about the carrier of a number if it is not portable.

Pros

Bandwidth provides us with the ability to provide our clients with a high level of call quality, consistently. We mainly use Bandwidth for routing calls once they leave the datacenter. The web GUI is fairly straightforward.

Cons

There have been a few repeat instances of call quality issues, but these kinds of problems have been rare and far between. At times, the site will throw an error during a routine task / order attempt, but then it will go through on the next attempt. Nothing that breaks the experience for us, but it happens often enough that it's worth mentioning.

Pros

I own an IT MSP and hosted PBX company. I've been using Bandwidth.com for about a year now, coming from VoIP Innovations and Telnyx. I signed a 2 year contract and overall I'm satisfied. The rates are very low, and the network is very reliable in my experience. Customer support is average. If you call in for support you won't get much help as you're usually directed to send in a support ticket via email or their website.

Cons

Lack of features. If you're only needing origination, termination and E911 then Bandwidth.com is perfect in that area. Coming from other carriers like VoIP Innovations and Telnyx, who offer many additional features that Bandwidth.com lacks.. Email to fax, and SMS to email to name a couple.. Bandwidth does offer SMS but you have use their API to implement it, so if you aren't a programmer, good luck. Due to the lack of features available, I still subscribe to a couple of other carriers for services that Bandwidth.com does not provide which is unfortunate.

Pros

It is so easy to find Telephone numbers using the portal especially now that it is updated. Ordering CNAM, DL are easy too. You won't be taken to so many steps. Navigating the portal won't need a formal training, you can simply tour your self and be able to see what you need.

Cons

Porting Telephone numbers, there is NO WAY to remove and add numbers. You will still need to cancel and re-key which is very time consuming. It's like starting from scratch. Also, since the portal had the update, the partial porting will really need you to supply information which I think are okay even without those, example the next BTN for the remaining numbers since other carriers do not need this. For off-net port, you really cannot choose the time of port. This is not good for customers who reschedule during the port date.

Pros

Bandwidth's services cover just about every telephony based need a customer could have, and are supported by a dedicated team of support staff.

Cons

The pricing of services could be more competitive.

Pros

Support is really great.

When porting on network they are fantastic

The provided API support is very powerful provided you know how to properly utilize it.

Really fast provisioning of new DID's, great searching abilities for finding new DID's.

While they don't advertise it they pass T38 signaling through their system without issue and without changing any headers.

Cons

Each part of the service is broken down into a separate login portal requiring the management of multiple logins for what should be 1 server.

When logging into any of the portals their website feels it needs to open a new tab with every step leaving the last page open..... "Tip no one wants this ever"

Searching DID's within your control is clunky and very slow due to the interface design. If you have to search and change the settings on multiple DID's it is very unintuitive and slow.

They do not support right-clicking and opening many elements in a new tab due to poor web coding.

If you know how to utilize their API you can work around a lot of their faults but if you are going to use their product as-is be aware it will take much longer to accomplish simple tasks like setting a line to call forward than it should.

Pros

Our delivery is very consistent and we hardly have issues with it. The support team and our account manager are also very easy to work with.

Cons

The dashboard has great reporting for SMS, however we're lacking in the Voice reporting. I would love to see a new system for the voice stats.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Bandwidth

Reasons for Switching to Bandwidth

Pros

We use Bandwidth as a provider because they are cost effective. The product is good when it is working

Cons

Toll Free Verifcation process is less than adequate. Waiting 23 days to get verified when they say 5 days is the norm. Getting a response or update is also lacking. It would be helpful if your group was pro-active in letting customers know about delays. We have to continually ask.
Also - for some of our customers, Bandwidth will randomly not deliver messages. This is a major pain point with our customers.

Pros

I like that you can request changes by adding notes to the existing port order or you can call into Bandwidth porting team and they can update the port request for you.

Cons

Although I am not sure if this is part of the software or if it is the losing carrier, i have notice several times that my customer requested date receives FOC, then the system supps the order and changes the date to something other than originally requested.

Pros

Perfect company, incredible customer service and competitive pricing.

Cons

Nothing so far. Bandwidth covers all our needs.

Pros

The ability to manage all of carrier specific assets from a single portal. Ability to reconcile numbers, records and service offering makes Bandwidth one of the best in its class

Cons

I would like to see more ability to trap the calls as and when the happen and driven from the portal for any particular number. Debugging wise this will avoid a support round trip.

Pros

The vast majority of the BW team goes the extra mile for their customers.
The customer-facing portal is clean and easy to navigate.

Cons

A dedicated Account Manager would be nice to have... or should I say if we have one, we're not aware of it.

I dislike how in many of the ticket replies we receive BW culture (I'm assuming) directs their employees to say "Team, we're...". Sometimes, it's not clear if the "team" is referring to BW's internal team... or if they're referring to us as a team all together. I understand this is kind of like going to Arby's restaurant and them calling you by name... "Susan, your order is ready"... trying to make the customer feel warm and fuzzy. It doesn't always translate well. I know this seems minor, but, it's an observation.

Would be nice if BW would request approval for all port-aways... like your competitors do. This could head off some slams and porting errors. Seems like it should be pretty easy to do.

Pros

The best thing is how quickly the turn around time is for the number ordering and updating

Cons

The spreadsheets for emergency Services and the lack of help when asking questions to support

Pros

BW is very user friendly the Support response time is very efficient the staff are personable and knowledgeable

Cons

Only 3 things I can think of as Cons but are not deal breakers.. You can't submit a trouble ticket from your original sign in. You have to sign into the support portal instead of being able to submit a ticket durectly from the original dashboard & when setting up campaigns there is, BW doesn't give notice if a clients number becomes removed as when they may change carriers & there is mo way to sort or search for a client w/o having to scroll through all setups to find the Brand.

Pros

-Great customer service!
-Easy to understand
-Portal is user friendly
-Easy to Submit Ports and order New Numbers

Cons

- Unable to edit comments or delete attachments in orders
-Availability of numbers in some rate centers slim or none available.

Pros

Incredible UI that's easy to use and navigate, from provisioning, to porting, to reporting and seeing the status of all active (and aging) numbers along with features. Out of all the carriers we use, this is the benchmark for excellence.

Cons

Not much, everything is easily accessible from the start. The only thing I would like is a better way to handle certain tasks en masse, but their customer service is great and can handle any request.

Pros

The customer service team are very friendly and professional. Dealing with Bandwidth is a breeze and that makes my life easier.

Cons

Response to critical issues is sometimes lacking which delays our ability to service our customers. Overall, great service and experience!!

Pros

They do a great job with responding to tickets and providing support.

Ports through bandwidth easier than other providers by far, which I really appreciate. Support team for porting is good as well.

Cons

I have to use 3 portals to manage Bandwidth, the main portal for hosting; a seperate portal for tickets; and a 3rd portal for e911. I don't mind that their are 3 seperate portals, it just managing login and for 3 accounts is annoying, especially when they have separate parameters.

Ideally I would like to be able to login once and also get from one portal to another through links. Even just providing links for the other portals on each of the portals would probably be helpful.

Pros

Rarely any service issues, especially for domestic calling. Pricing is good especially if you do a decent amount of volume.

Cons

Nothing really. Any issues we've had have been minor and support was good about addressing them quickly.

Pros

I like the feature ability on individual numbers, I also like the number porting and the ability to go back and retrieve old records. I particularly like the way we are able to set up our sub-accounts with the appropriate locations, and the ease of access to locate numbers associated with each location.

Cons

That I have 4 login locations. Also, when removing numbers from a location, I have found that I can only remove/disconnect 1 number at a time.

Pros

Bandwidth's system is simple to use and order numbers from. Their support team is exceptional and very quick to reply with personalize answers that resolve our questions and issues. They do a solid job notifying us of changes, even if they're changes being made by others such as phone carriers.

Cons

We aren't always able to purchase the numbers we want, which is due to their somewhat limited inventory. This isn't too widespread an issue, but numbers in certain areas can be challenging and even impossible to get.

Pros

Hands on real time updates, ordering and processing. We have been using several Bandwidth products and services for several years now and our business success depends on their services.

Cons

Sometimes the portal is hard to navigate to find what you are looking for but that's probably because I don 't work in it every day like my team does. Occasionally need to call in and request some porting assistance with an order.

Pros

Great customer service and ease of use. Very responsive on all issues. Order submission and tracking is simple

Cons

911 is a separate module and requires you to add the numbers a second time. Cannot get CSR data readily.

Pros

The layout is nice as well as the ease-of -use. For porting I really like the ability to set to auto port time or manual port times based on my customer criteria. Number ordering is fairly simple and straight forward. Would recommend reviewing their self-paced video on how to order DIDs in their portal. Excellent CSR search capability as well.

Cons

When going to confirm a DID order if you do not have your browser set to full size you can miss the button to submit the order. Would like to see this page scale to browser size and show the submit button for DID orders

Pros

Other than how simple the software is to navigate, the best part about Bandwidth is their customer service. I can submit a ticket and more times than not there is a resolution within the hour. They are extremely prompt as well as informative in their responses, making them very easy to work with.

Cons

The only negative experience I have had with Bandwidth has actually been resolved. Ordering numbers used to not be straight forward. However, Bandwidth recently updated their system making it much easier to search for numbers specifically.