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Plus, if you cancel, there is $49.95 early termination fee, and they charge you $50 for the router. So you will lose another $100 when you cancel. They automatically charge your credit card when your service ends for another year of service. On top of that, they charged me tax for a whole year, but then it comes to time to refund, they did not include the tax amounnt at all. I had to bring it up three times, before they finally admit there was a tax refund. It appeared that they would scam for every penny when possible, even if it means violating tax laws. Do not even get me started on the quality of service. Let's just say for the last 1 year and half, I wish I never switched from Vonage. Now that was really depressing if you read about Vonage quality of service. Pros: None Con: Hidden Fees Early termination Fees VoIP device fee if you cancell (not free as advertised) Over charge Tax fee and do not refund when they should 2 hour wait time to talk to support Constant outages Poor line quality on over 50% of the calls Frequent dropped calls Followup comments:
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However, on October 16, 2007, a mysterious invoice appeared for a $2.50 "E-911 & Regulatory Recovery Fee." This fee has been invoiced monthly since and attempted to be debited as an unauthorized charge. It leaves a very sour taste in the mouth as an obvious tactic to pad the bill and not in the agreement I made with Viatalk. Luckily, the credit card I signed up with is no longer active and the accumulating charges have been declined. By continuing to bill, Viatalk has declined to perform on the contract; I plan on testing the arbitration clause at this point. When service was used, it performed well. Rarely a complaint, although without a provisioned adapter I had to bump servers around occasionally to keep stable service. Based on this, I wouldn't recommend nor would I sign up with Viatalk as BYOD again (or at least, I would let them provision it). I assume stability would be better that way. I've contacted support twice-- On 7/30/06, I asked about Viatalk provisioning the adapter. A complete response was received 5.5 hours later. On 10/16/07, I contacted them regarding the mysterious invoice. A canned response was received 672 hours later (that's 28 days). In the year, the level of support obviously went south. About the ratings-- Web-site: The control panel is decently designed and covers all the features. I do find myself going in circles every once in a while between billing, support, and call feature management. Due to the daily morning outage and its current unavailability, as well as the too-frequently changing deals on the front page that make shopping the service difficult (and can't be trusted to be honored, anyway), I award 3 out of 5 stars. Ease of Installation: Within 15 minutes, I had the necessary credentials to begin using the BYOD service. Top rating, here. Call quality: Not perfect, but far better than a mobile phone. Probably deserving of a 4+, I'm giving it a 4 of 5 as the closest available mark. Reliability: I'm giving 3 of 5 here due to a couple of outages that I've noticed with Viatalk. Often, changing servers gets it back quickly, but that's a hassle. Again, I think a provisioned device might offer a little better reliability, but I'm rating the service as sold and received. Tech support: 28 days to answer a billing question is excessive, pure & simple. And, tickets are not answered in the order they were received. 2 out of 5. Value for money: This is a hard one to rate. Assigning value purely on service and price, Viatalk is probably a 4. However, I'm bundling in the bumbled ethics of changing contract prices here. And, being an honor question, it weights heavily. I am giving 3 of 5, and stretching to do that. 2 of 5 after a second junk fee increase announced three months later. ***6/18/2008 Update*** Nothing's changed, except I can confirm that service is suspended due to disputing the E911 and "Regulatory Recovery" fees. Real telecom companies don't suspend service while hashing out a dispute. Adjusting "value" accordingly. Luckily, I can't use Viatalk, as I'm sure I'd notice, based on the forum complaints, sub-par reliability and call quality. Since I'm not, I can't reduce the ratings on those components. I cannot recommend this service. ***7/22/2008 Update*** I've had a pretty simple request in with support. They aren't responding. That's "worst." I've also lowered the web-site rating, as the information in the most important page, the Terms of Service, is pretty bad. You'll want to read it before signing up, especially the part about "ViaTalk LLC may update this agreement at any time without notice and you are agreeing to such changes in advance." Followup comments:
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My sense of VT, based on the recent threads and posts in the VT Forum, is that they are making sincere efforts to make their product better while improving support. The frequent presence of several VT staffers, not just the CEO, responding quickly to posters' issues is heartening. I can't speak to their financial viability ... but I am still monitoring their progress out of a sense of curiosity. And my satisfaction with my current providers negates a need to return to VT. And I can't change or remove my Review Ratings because once one sets each rating, there is no way to clear them. I wish VT success ... for the sake of their current and future customers. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 4/3/09 - Oh well! ..... ........ My ViaTalk experiment is finally over. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Followup comments:
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They keep dumping money to attract new customers and not a second to keep existing ones. I am a very light user and VT did not work when i needed it so i am not going to miss them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------- My contract at SR was ending and found the VT BOGO sale (this is before SR imploded). After sign there was no confirmation for days, until I called to inquire about my BYOD order. SIP info came the same day, then SR went under and there is no real CS unless you have hours to wait on phone. When Eric (seems like there a 2-3 CS people at VT) does answer he is rude. I hadly use my phone so I will keep them until my 24 months are up or they go under. P.S: Don't expect 911 to work, mine did not. There's also 50/50 chance of calls going thru. Followup comments:
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Updated 03/28/2009 at 22:30 Eastern Cust service rep did reply the evening of my post that they were sorry and the charge would be reversed. I will update again when I get a response from their billing or when my money is refunded! For details see »ViaTalk Rescinds On Second Year Free After $199 Up Front Followup comments:
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Signed up with ViaTalk. Waiting for order to be processed and shipped. July 19 2007 - Day 4: Started porting process with ViaTalk. Credit card has been charged. Still waiting for account to be setup. July 22 2007 - Day 7: Number has been acquired according to ViaTalk's status page. After using the lost password feature I was able to get into account management. Seems the account is not fully setup. I can not change any settings, the number is not in service nor does it have a password listed for a soft-phone. I also sent a ticket for contract buyout with a PDF of my SR invoice. Still waiting on the account to be fully setup and shipping. July 24 2007 - Day 9: Called ViaTalk about my account. After waiting 80 mins on hold, support fully setup my account so that I can temporary use my SR gizmo. Support did not know when my adapter would be shipped nor have an update on my port. July 26 2007 - Day 11: Number ported from Sunrocket to ViaTalk. 6 days, easiest port ever! July 28 2007 - Day 13: Adapter shipped. July 30 2007- Day 15: Adapter arrived. Easy install. Simply connected power, Ethernet, and phone. Was up and running (with ViaTalk adapter) within seconds. After using the service for a few days the only feature I find lacking is voicemail. Messages are not time stamped nor stamped with number. SMS notification is totally lacking, just a simple message telling you have a new voicemail, but not detail of from whom, when, or length of message. Update - March 05 2009: While I have not experienced any technical problems with Viatalk; I decided to switch to a pay-per-usage provider because of my low usage. Another deciding factor in switching providers is the ever increasing taxes / fees and Viatalk's billing practices. Update - March 24 2009: ATA was shipped back to Viatalk (at my expense) along with a letter informing Viatalk I do not wish to renew my contract. Followup comments:
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Today is a new day. One without ViaTalk. And the sun is shining. My two year experiment with ViaTalk is over. The only reason I lived with it this long is that we (my family) just don't use the "home" line enough for it to become an unbearable problem. Just a constant nuisance. On the plus side, the phone usually worked. Sometimes it would take a second try to get a connection to go through (be it inbound or outbound), but you could make and receive calls. The main problem was that *EVERY* call, over the past few months, would have a 5 second audio drop out. Very annoying. Those who follow the VOIP forums here know me as a contributor, and I have a decent knowledge of how to make a home VOIP system work. I have watched, again and again, people come to the forums with similar problems, and I have tried all of the recommendations. But the problems never get fully resolved. But then, why should a working system need constant attention? ViaTalk seems to make too many changes on their end. Some work, some don't. But many seem to break things while fixing others. Knowledgeable people point out problems, yet the feedback from ViaTalk seems to remind me of my 10 year old son. "Well, it is not our fault." Always quick to defend their position, instead of looking to find what really is going on. To paraphrase what I said in an earlier update: It is a phone. It should work. It doesn't. Well sometimes. But not as it should. The "Maybe Phone" ------------------------------------------------------------------ Update 10/22/2007 -- OK, everyone by now knows of the Sunrocket collapse, and the problems ViaTalk had handling the large number of new subscribers that flocked over from them. As my service was up and running, I never had any issues that needed resolving. It just keeps on running. My service has remained rock solid, I have had little or no problems with system reliability. Most of my earlier issues were self inflicted, but switching from DD-WRT to Tomato firmware on my router has eliminated 99.9% of my problems (even with Comcast as my ISP). It's a telephone. It is cheap, and it works. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Original review 3/2007 I signed up on one of the last days the $199/yr with the second year free pricing was available. I initially went with the VT supplied PAP2T, as I could not tell from their web site if the 2-for-1 was also valid for BYOD. I've since decided that my needs for using a SPA-1001 instead are too great, so the PAP2T that I paid $40+ to get is sitting in the box under the desk. I had hoped that the DSLREPORT coupon would had offset the expense of the VT supplied PAP2T, but found out after ordering that the coupon does not apply, due to the poor storefront interface that doesn't show your billed amount (and allow you to confirm) before charging your credit card. Several emails with billing support people gave conflicting (and sometimes incorrect) responses. My dealings with the actual technical support folks have been great -- fast and knowledgeable. My current setup is a BYOD SPA-1001, with VT on line 1. Sound quality is excellent, especially after coming from Packet8. I'm on a 4000/386 Comcast line (Adelphia legacy), and a WRT54GL w/DD-WRT firmware. So far, my wife is happy... I'll report again in a few months to update any reliability issue. Followup comments:
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1/14/08 I've had it. On the heels of being delisted from the BBB and all the outages, they take a hefty increase in junk fees. This is exactly the same reason I cancelled Vonage. These latest increases amount to a 20% increase in my bill which was already high compared to other VOIP providers. Thanks for no thanks. If I want to be ripped off I can go back to Verizon which gave me at least 4 9's reliability if not more, plus superior call quality of Cu. Customer service during the call was quick and polite. No confirmation number but said I'll get an email later on with HW return instructions. We'll see if the email actually shows up. -- After being sick of endless new junk fees with Verizon and the fact that I don't make a lot of calls (this is for my other house) I decided to try VoIP. First I tried Vonage which was a nightmare of downtime, calls not completing, calls getting dropped and horrible, rude, actually the worst customer service in the history of the planet. Before going back to Verizon I decided to try ViaTalk (500 min limited plan) who at the time was highly rated. Web-site (4): The website has quite a few features including how to handle annoying incoming numbers. The only reason it doesn't get a 5 is because it has some quirks like not keeping my chosen time zone and the lame way the do-not-disturb schedule is laid out. Other than that, it's very nice. Ease of install (5): Just plugged the ATA in and within seconds I had a dial-tone. Can't ask for much more than that. Call quality (2): Compared to POTS it sucks, it's tinny, fades in and out, but it's certainly good enough for ordering a pizza. To give you an idea of how back the call quality is, people I'm talking to with it can easily tell it's VoIP. It sounds to them like old analog cellular calls on the verge of dropping. Reliability (2): My POTS was up 24/7/365 as I had a fax machine that would register an error if it ever lost a dial tone. Literally in the 6 years I had it, not a single time did I lose dialtone. ViaTalk is not the same, far from it. It goes down for minutes at a time on occasion and like today 1-11-08 it was down for a while. It seems to have gotten significantly worse lately. Tech support (1): Would have rated them higher if you could actually get a hold of someone. Value for money (2): I'm paying a bit more than 1/2 the price I paid for POTS and in exchange for it being cheap I get lower call quality and mildly spotty reliability. The mediocre value is made worse by bullcrap junk fees. You expect the bullcrap bill itemizing from the whores at Vonage or Verizon, but oh well. With the junk fees and given this level of poor quality, I consider it still a bit over priced. For $10 sure, but not almost $20. Overall I wouldn't recommend ViaTalk to someone who uses their phone alot as they seem to be headed in the wrong direction. I would recommend sticking with POTS or a cable VoIP provider that has higher reliability. ViaTalk is going through a lot of pains right now and isn't the value it used to be. If it gets any worse I'll jump ship for a triple play cable promo. At least for the first year they'll match the price considering the lower prices of CATV and HSI I would get. Followup comments:
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Update on 12/15/2008 On 12/8/2008, I somehow got through to Tech Support, spent almost an hour and a half on the phone. I can get into the Grandstream device that was sent when it is not registered, but not when the phones register. I was told to change the dsl router to bridge mode, which I did, and gave the username and password to the grandstream, but everytime it came up, the 9 character password was changed to 8 characters. On 12/9/2008, I was told that is hardcoded on their end, and had it changed, then told I have to contact them everytime it changes. Mine is set up to need to be changed every 3 months. This is a problem, whenever the password changes, I will spend several days without service until someone changes it in the system? Once this was corrected, I tried the device right after my DSL modem. It came up, gave me phone service, but the internet would not pass through. I unplugged everything, started with the dsl first, then the grandstream, got phone service, then tried plugging my computer directly into the grandstream. I rebooted twice, but could not get internet service. I plugged my computer to the router, then the router to the grandstream, no internet service. The router would not even get an IP address. I unplugged everything again, plugged the grandstream in, then the router, then the computer, and I was able to get an IP address for the router and able to get into the grandstream. I plugged the dsl back up, and as soon as the phones were registered, lost the ip address with the router. I tried calling in, it said 20 people were in the que, I waited, and after 5 minutes, the grandstream rebooted and the call dropped. I let it come back up, after the lights were solid for several minutes, I tried calling in again, it dropped the call after 5 minutes and the grandstream rebooted itself. I took the grandstream from between the dsl and router and put it behind my router. If I don't have internet access in order to have phone service, it is not worth it to me. I definitely can not recommend Viatalk to anyone. Update on 1/22/2009 I sent the equipment back in via USPS Priority Mail. As soon as I had confirmation that the equipment had been received, I put a ticket in to not renew the service. Received two responses, one from a ticket that was several months old telling me to call in, that the wait time was less than 5 minutes. The other that came 2 minutes later said that the account was cancelled per my request. I am not upset with that, the service had not worked for several months, and I have to agree with PTrowski, the Grandstream was either a faulty one that I had, or the config file was set up incorrectly for my service, or something like that. I do believe the service could have worked, but after spending so much time trying to get through, and then the times that I did get through, if that is all that is counted, then I would say I was on the phone with Tech Support for almost 40 hours, and all we were able to do is get the device to work once in a while for up to 5 minutes. Had we changed out the device, that may have solved the problem, provided it was not the problem with the config file, which would have transferred to any device we had there. 5 months without working service, even the 40 hours with Tech support, that was too much for me. Followup comments:
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ViaTalk
(41)
(39)
(105)
(60)
Hoffman Estates,Cook,IL
$28 per month (36 month contract)
about 25 days
"Cheap without fees, but there are cheaper"
"Hidden Fees, Early termination Fees, Constant outages, 2 hour wait to talk to support, too many to name"
"Looks cheap, but not really"
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Spot On.
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What did they say.
idiot.