No Caller ID on outbound calls

[stevech]

The issues you raised all related. If you take an in-depth analysis of what transpires from the time you get a dial tone to the time the call connects...in or out, I think you would be amazed at the sheer complexity of the stream.
Stuff does happen. We, many years ago, contracted a number of circuits with ATT because they owned virtually all the pipes at the time...they charged whatever they wanted...they also went down on occasion..so no one is immune.

This may be hard to believe, but most of the network monitoring is done by the customers. They will report immediately when something isn't working and then the process begins to get it fixed.

with all due respect - all I need is a phone that works to 3 nines for call completion. Due to telemarketers, we all must have CID now. I can pay more for 5 nines from ma bell. I pay less, expect less, in terms of QoS. But try to explain to family members why they can't get through on calls to friends and family with anonymous call block -which many/most of us have now. Believe me, my family does not want to mess with far-too-often VoIP trouble reports. So your assertion that VoIP customers are the QA department is so flawed as to be absurd.