# Bandwidth Voice API + MCP vs LiveKit Telephony

> LiveKit Telephony scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Bandwidth Voice API + MCP's 63.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do voice calls. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bandwidth-voice-vs-livekit-telephony
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bandwidth-voice-vs-livekit-telephony.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bandwidth-voice-vs-livekit-telephony.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bandwidth-voice-vs-livekit-telephony.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

LiveKit Telephony scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Bandwidth Voice API + MCP's 63.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do voice calls.

- Bandwidth Voice API + MCP: grade B, 63.7/100, rank #338 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bandwidth-voice.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bandwidth-voice.json
- LiveKit Telephony: grade B, 67.5/100, rank #234 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/livekit-telephony.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/livekit-telephony.json

## Which one, for what

### Bandwidth Voice API + MCP (B)

Good for: US and Canada outbound voice agents that need capacity from day one and a carrier-owned network.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Number rental and SIP trunking prices aren't published

### LiveKit Telephony (B)

Good for: Teams that already run voice agents on LiveKit and want phone calls to arrive in the same rooms, bringing their own carrier for outbound and international calls.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 65 against 58
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 78
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 63

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: LiveKit Phone Numbers are US only and inbound only, and `TransferSIPParticipant` does not work on them yet


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Bandwidth Voice API + MCP | LiveKit Telephony | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 58 | 65 | LiveKit Telephony +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 84 | Bandwidth Voice API + MCP +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 66 | LiveKit Telephony +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 60 | 61 | LiveKit Telephony +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 40 | LiveKit Telephony +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 90 | LiveKit Telephony +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 75 | LiveKit Telephony +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.7 · B** | **67.5 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Bandwidth Voice API + MCP | LiveKit Telephony |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Bandwidth | LiveKit Incorporated |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://voice.bandwidth.com/api/v2` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary cloud service under LiveKit's Terms of Service. The SIP service (livekit/sip), the protocol definitions, the CLI and the server SDKs are Apache 2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-22 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-11 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-25 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 2 stars, 13k npm/wk, 39k PyPI/wk | 480 stars, 2.9M npm/wk, 1.7M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Bandwidth Voice API + MCP.** 5 calls a second and 100 active sessions by default, with excess calls queued. Number rental and SIP trunking prices aren't published.

**LiveKit Telephony.** Signed tokens separate the right to dial (`sip.call`) from the right to manage trunks (`sip.admin`), and per-minute prices are public with a free plan that needs no card. LiveKit's own phone numbers are US only and inbound only, so outbound calls need a third-party SIP trunk, and no 429 or retry guidance was found.

## Before you call either

### Bandwidth Voice API + MCP

1. Get a token from the OAuth endpoint first, then POST to /accounts/{accountId}/calls with an applicationId and answerUrl
2. Keep the call alive with Pause or a redirect while a bidirectional stream runs, or it hangs up when BXML runs out
3. Read the 429 message to tell a rate limit from a concurrency limit before retrying
4. Load the MCP server with BW_MCP_PROFILE=voice to keep the tool list short

### LiveKit Telephony

1. Ask the operator for a short-lived token with only the `sip.call` grant to dial or transfer. Trunk, dispatch rule and number changes need `sip.admin`
2. Use a third-party outbound trunk for outbound calls. LiveKit Phone Numbers only receive calls
3. Set `wait_until_answered` on `CreateSIPParticipant` and read the SIP status on `SipCallError` before retrying. Voicemail answers with 200 OK
4. Send every request as a JSON POST to `/twirp/livekit.SIP/<Method>` or `/twirp/livekit.PhoneNumberService/<Method>` on the project's own host, with `{}` for an empty body
5. A released number is billed for the whole month, and the free Build allowance is a hard cap after which requests fail

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Bandwidth Voice API + MCP or LiveKit Telephony?

LiveKit Telephony scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Bandwidth Voice API + MCP's 63.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Bandwidth Voice API + MCP and LiveKit Telephony need an API key?

Bandwidth Voice API + MCP uses an OAuth sign-in. LiveKit Telephony needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Bandwidth Voice API + MCP and LiveKit Telephony without installing anything?

Bandwidth Voice API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://voice.bandwidth.com/api/v2. No hosted endpoint is listed for LiveKit Telephony.

### Are Bandwidth Voice API + MCP and LiveKit Telephony open source?

No open-source release is listed for Bandwidth Voice API + MCP. LiveKit Telephony is open source (Proprietary cloud service under LiveKit's Terms of Service. The SIP service (livekit/sip), the protocol definitions, the CLI and the server SDKs are Apache 2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bandwidth-voice-vs-livekit-telephony.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bandwidth-voice-vs-livekit-telephony.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "bandwidth-voice", "b": "livekit-telephony"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare bandwidth-voice livekit-telephony`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bandwidth-voice.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/livekit-telephony.json

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