What would be the best VoIP for no-commitment, infrequent long distance calls only? I cannot leave my PSTN (long history), but would like to avoid the LD fee of calling from my PSTN line or cellular service. I checked SkypeOut, but the offer of free calls to US does not apply to me. The price is good anyway compared to PSTN, but SkypeOut is not the only competitor in its category. Do you have any recomendations. I would be calling from Puerto Rico to US only.
IP Phone Service
- Thread starter Chakara
- Start date
Skibum said:
I've seriously considered an Asterisk box - even loaded one up as a VM and set up soft phones and what not on it. Very cool.
What has held me back is actually impimenting yet another box on my network. It is currently way more than I want to take care of so am hesitant.
I just got the Gizmo on friday and haven't hooked it up yet -- will probably do that monday evening.Steve said:
I ran the test skibaum noted and got a 4.3, so we will see..
To be fair, when I first had vonage, i had a lot of problems.. Several phone calls to tech support seemed to fix by opening up some ports on my firewall, etc.. Since then it has worked really well..
I probably use my phone about 50-100 minutes a month, I use my cell for most everything.. So for me the cheaper the better..
Anyways, once I get it up and running I will post my results..
Can I have my vonage IP phone and sunrocket on at the same time?
Well, so I got it setup this evening and it sounds great.. Little more "responsive" then my vonage phone -- still waiting for my number transfer before I spend a lot of time..jpkishere said:
The web site is pretty good, lots of features.. I really like the call blocking by number..
I'll post back if I have any problems, but for 8 and change a month I can only complain so much!!
jpk
AutomatedOutlet
Senior Member
In our office we use THREE different vendors for VOIP service.
We have Vonage, SunRocket, and ViaTalk.
Intially we only had Vonage but then started having issues once we added our 6th line. We then added a SunRocket line. The quality was good but the lack of features made it un-usuable when used behind a PBX. SunRocket does not allow you to take off call waiting or to forward when busy - big issue. Right now, we can only use that line for an outbound only line because of this.
Since then, we have also added a ViaTalk line. So far it seems to be working very well. I'm going to order a couple of more lines from them and continue the tests.
We have Vonage, SunRocket, and ViaTalk.
Intially we only had Vonage but then started having issues once we added our 6th line. We then added a SunRocket line. The quality was good but the lack of features made it un-usuable when used behind a PBX. SunRocket does not allow you to take off call waiting or to forward when busy - big issue. Right now, we can only use that line for an outbound only line because of this.
Since then, we have also added a ViaTalk line. So far it seems to be working very well. I'm going to order a couple of more lines from them and continue the tests.
Well, I promised to let you guys know how it was going. So far, good bang for the buck. After a little more than a year I can't imagine going back to giving MaBell $60+ a month.
I have to admit it is not the same reliability as a true voice line. I have had to reboot the ATA a couple of times and just in general it doesn't work sometimes. Observed unavailability is probably less than 5%.
I did have some issues before I put some form of QoS on the line. With just a cheap router, if I had bittorrent running it would make calls basically useless. I could solve that with the setting in UTorrent or other clients, but decided to try out QoS at the firewall. Did an Asus ($85 on NewEgg) firewall running X-WRT (OpenWRT with a web gui) and it works like a champ. Whatever I do, I can't seem to kill the VoIP quality. I have to assume that excessive requests from outside clients, even if refused, could in theory impact me - but it hasn't happened so far.
So, all said and done the switch was worth it. I saved $50/month over the last 12 months and the service, while not quite as good as before, is adequate for my needs.
Hope this helps someone....
<edit added PS>
PS: If you are concerned about 911 service be sure and test it. Call the non-emergency number, ask if now is a good time to do a test and then call 911. Ask the operator what line you came in on and if the information is displayed correctly. I've seen VoIP 911 calls come in on the non-emergency line and have useless address information. Test it.
I have to admit it is not the same reliability as a true voice line. I have had to reboot the ATA a couple of times and just in general it doesn't work sometimes. Observed unavailability is probably less than 5%.
I did have some issues before I put some form of QoS on the line. With just a cheap router, if I had bittorrent running it would make calls basically useless. I could solve that with the setting in UTorrent or other clients, but decided to try out QoS at the firewall. Did an Asus ($85 on NewEgg) firewall running X-WRT (OpenWRT with a web gui) and it works like a champ. Whatever I do, I can't seem to kill the VoIP quality. I have to assume that excessive requests from outside clients, even if refused, could in theory impact me - but it hasn't happened so far.
So, all said and done the switch was worth it. I saved $50/month over the last 12 months and the service, while not quite as good as before, is adequate for my needs.
Hope this helps someone....
<edit added PS>
PS: If you are concerned about 911 service be sure and test it. Call the non-emergency number, ask if now is a good time to do a test and then call 911. Ask the operator what line you came in on and if the information is displayed correctly. I've seen VoIP 911 calls come in on the non-emergency line and have useless address information. Test it.
I just switched this past month to Vonage. I had Sunrocket for over 2 years, however in February I started having a problem calling local numbers. It was mainly on local numbers, occasionally on an 800 or long distance call. At first it wasn't a big issue, but became one over time. Anyhow when I'd call my parents house, they'd say hello sometimes as many as 4-5 times before I'd hear them. Sometimes after awhile it got to the point where when I'd call, people would hang up, thinking they were being pranked. On my end it was still ringing. Sunrockets tech support was useless. Nobody knew the system, what they could do to fix it, what they couldn't do etc. This was the tier 2 support! I had my gizmo replaced, I had to take speed tests all the time, they blamed everything but my neighbor for it. Then they started telling me it was a vender issue, the vender routing the call wasn't using the best route etc. They needed to put a trace on the line to find out who it goes to etc. This was a joke. I had one say a 48 hour trace was put on, keep track of the numbers that do it. Called back, no trace was put on, and I was called a liar basically because they can't do 48 hour traces, only 24 hours. I had several 24 hour traces put on, only to find out the wrong Sunrocket number (one is your main number one a virtual) was traced. I had one call me a liar again, saying 24 hour traces are prohibited, they can only run 10 traces at a time, and that they can trace it have me call then call them back. 10? 10!? Long story short, eventually they started blaming my bandwidth again. I informed them it's only local calls, I can hang up call long distance it's fine. Thats when they replied bandwidth is funny, it can do that and I needed to call Charter to get it fixed.
I got switched over to billing, to get a credit for my time. The guy informed me they can only give credits for the time I'd had the problem, he asked when the problem started. I said February, he said well unfortunately I can't give a credit for that period of time, the system won't let me. I can only give you a 2 month credit, even our supervisors can't give more than 2 months. This was acceptable to me, I'd only asked for 1 month. 1 month later I was billed $20.52 on my card. This wasn't even a full months service! I called, they were going through upgrades, kept saying call tomorrow, call tomorrow. Finally it was done, I got through to someone who informed me I DID get my 2 months, and when I said I didn't rudely snapped SIR YOU'RE NOT LISTENING TO ME. So I let her finish. I then said when I pay I'm paying for the upcoming month, we pre-pay correct? She said yes. I said I was charged April 11th, then May 11th I was given a 2 month credit. June 11th I was charged $20.52. That's NOT 2 months, that's only one. I had to explain this to her 3 or 4 times because she knew what was right. Then she told me I was not being truthfull with her, that there's no way they can give 2 months credit, only one. Not even supervisors can give 2 month credits. Wait? I see a trend here, everyone uses the same lingo, but puts their own numbers in. I informed her the guys name, the date and time it was entered and even gave her his sunrocket ID. She then replied OH, I see what he did. He gave you 2 months credit, but gave you credit for the annual plan, you're on the monthly plan. She could only give me a credit on the following month. I switched. This was only part of the issues I had the last 2 months or so. Call quality was good, but I can't deal with incompetent people. Hell I get better from the overseas support!
I got switched over to billing, to get a credit for my time. The guy informed me they can only give credits for the time I'd had the problem, he asked when the problem started. I said February, he said well unfortunately I can't give a credit for that period of time, the system won't let me. I can only give you a 2 month credit, even our supervisors can't give more than 2 months. This was acceptable to me, I'd only asked for 1 month. 1 month later I was billed $20.52 on my card. This wasn't even a full months service! I called, they were going through upgrades, kept saying call tomorrow, call tomorrow. Finally it was done, I got through to someone who informed me I DID get my 2 months, and when I said I didn't rudely snapped SIR YOU'RE NOT LISTENING TO ME. So I let her finish. I then said when I pay I'm paying for the upcoming month, we pre-pay correct? She said yes. I said I was charged April 11th, then May 11th I was given a 2 month credit. June 11th I was charged $20.52. That's NOT 2 months, that's only one. I had to explain this to her 3 or 4 times because she knew what was right. Then she told me I was not being truthfull with her, that there's no way they can give 2 months credit, only one. Not even supervisors can give 2 month credits. Wait? I see a trend here, everyone uses the same lingo, but puts their own numbers in. I informed her the guys name, the date and time it was entered and even gave her his sunrocket ID. She then replied OH, I see what he did. He gave you 2 months credit, but gave you credit for the annual plan, you're on the monthly plan. She could only give me a credit on the following month. I switched. This was only part of the issues I had the last 2 months or so. Call quality was good, but I can't deal with incompetent people. Hell I get better from the overseas support!
BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
Man Tim, what a nightmare!
Yeah if I listed everything they'd said it would take me a long time, and a couple pages LOL It was quite the experience. They can't even get canceling my account correct! I keep hearing how they're hiring new people, but I'd rather wait on hold, than deal with incompetent people. With all the overseas support, it's great to see a company keeping jobs here, but while the with the overseas support I can't understand them, at least they understand english. LOL I'll never go back to Sunrocket, or at least until I hear they've changed their ways.
Similar threads
- Sticky
