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jondavisct Review by jondavisct
Posted: 48 days ago
member for 48 days, 2 visits, last login: 45 days ago
 New Britain,Hartford,CT
 $13 per month (12 month contract)
 "Free 2nd line. Commitment to a quality product. VoipoTim"
 "Cannot get latest line up and running reliably"
 "Could be a good product. Just needs more tech support people."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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This is my 3rd Voipo line that I am installing. In addition to Voipo, I also have 3 ViaTalk lines and one Teleblend (leftover from Sunrocket crash) line.
I really want to like Voipo. I really do. However, this last line has been such a hassle. I bought this one line with the idea to get it setup at a new property and then add 2 more lines to it.
I setup the system with all the appropriate equipment and configured firewalls with DMZ etc. However, it did not work. I then ripped out all the equipment and plugged the voipo box (rt31p2) directly into the cable modem. This time I got the lights and I thought I was good to go. Alas, I can make outgoing calls but incoming callers cannot hear me. That is odd, that is the problem we see when we have a firewall incorrectly configured - But I don't have a firewall.
Then, back and forth via a trouble ticket with Voipo for 8 DAYS. Finally thinking it is working (based on 2 test calls) and then the next day, it is down again.
I am finally on the telephone with the Voipo people to get this resolved while I wait. It is too bad we have to do this but maybe we can get it up and running. I will post when we get this resolved.
The wife is even now wanting me to put in AT&T. She is not as patient as I am.
Followup comments: Forums »
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jlyskowinski Review by jlyskowinski
UPDATED: 125 days ago
member for 125 days, 2 visits, last login: 78 days ago
Lanesville,Harrison,IN
$18 per month (12 month contract)
"Nothing"
"I don't know where to begin"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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Back around mid June 2009, I ordered the VOIPo phone service from VOIPo (www.voipo.com) and a few days later received the adapter, I set everything up, however, I do not own a router and was not aware that I would need one, this is not listed anywhere that is visible to a potential customer on the site unless you visit their knowledge base, but who really ever does that???? Anyway, the adapter that I had worked fine, was able to make calls, etc, however, it was like using dialup, I could use the computer, but not the phone and vice versa. After speaking to the sales department, they told me that I was out of luck and I would have to send the device back, because in order for it work correctly I would need a router. Then I called and spoke to a new employee, I believe his name was Daniel, not sure though. He told me that Voipo was in the process of ordering new devices that were a combo adapter/router and it would take at least three weeks before they were received. They told me that they would have to test them before sending them out to make sure that they worked with their systems. I also spoke to their support team via online chat about this as well. So the wait begins.....
I received the new adapter/router on Friday July 17th, 2009. I hooked everything up, however, Voipo had not registered the device on their end, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and went through the process of registering everything, porting, provisioning, etc (whatever all of that means exactly). After much doing of this over several days, I still could not receive incoming calls, I could only make outbound calls. After much going over and over with this several times on 7/17 and Monday 7/20. The issue was still not resolved. After spending most of Monday 7/17 going over the motions again of my device continuing stating that it was not registered with VOIPo servers, off and on throughout the day, I became fed up and threatened to cancel the service by 6pm EST Monday July 20th if the service was not fully functioning. The staff I guess doesn't believe in customer retention or has never heard of it, as they kept encouraging me to cancel the service, WHAT COMPANY WANTS TO LOSE A PAYING CUSTOMER WHEN WE ARE THEIR PAYCHECK??????? Anyway, after support rep Justin said that he would help me he proceeded to do so and then when I had to reboot the device my internet, naturally was shut off for a few minutes, I went back online and then my computer locked up so I rebooted, once I was back online Justin asked for a new password to "look at my computer" using www.teamviewer.com. (this is a service for tech support to see what is happening with their product on your modem or computer). Anyway, I had already submitted a new password to him but he didn't see it, so I reset it up again, submitted the password to him via a support ticket as I had been doing this since Friday afternoon and he NEVER logged back in to teamviewer it was like he disappeared or went home for the night. A couple of other reps did this to me on Friday evening as we were trying to get the service established and working, since 6pm is their time to leave they left without making sure that everything was working properly, so basically I was left holding the bag until later that night when one of the reps or whoever it was assisted me after hours and couldn't find the user id and password to access my broadband modem. I was told that it would be escalated to a Tier II tech and taken care of first thing Monday morning and it was not, still at 8:00pm Monday evening July 20th the device was offline again and still not working. I decided to cancel as the rep had "left the building" once again. I have worked in customer service, sales and marketing since 1989 and I am almost 40 years old, you DO NOT treat a customer like this, it is very unethical and just not right period. You communicate with the customer and work with them not disappear on them twice in 72 hours.
Also, I was owed a refund as my billing account had been suspended, due to the new adapter arriving and the $18 initially paid when the account was purchased was to be applied to the July payment, however, the account was being paid via Paypal subscription and July's payment was taken out on Wednesday 7/15. The June payment was going to be applied for the July payment when I received the new device and the payment taken out on July 15 was NOT to be taken out, I was to start paying again on the account on 8/15. I called to let them know and also submitted a support ticket, never received a refund even though I was told several times by the sup5port staff that I would receive one. Once I canceled the service I wanted my refund as I had still not received it and was told by the owner Timothy Dick, that I could not receive a refund based on the cancellation terms, there were numerous tickets issued on the refund, but apparently he did not read all of the tickets and refused. Finally after much going back and forth a few times via support tickets he issued the refund making an "exception" because his employees told me wrong, which is not true, they suspended the billing account because I needed the router/adapter and had to wait on it to arrive in three weeks or so.
DO NOT do business with this company, as I have a feeling they were the ones taking the device off of the servers intentionally and then making excuses as it was my Verizon broadband and the Linksy's adapter, which to me is just a lame excuse. Also, any company that has employees that choose to leave because it is "time to go on a Friday evening-party time) or they just feel they can leave and ignore a paying customer who is their paycheck is not going to get ANY business from me period!
Followup comments:  VOIPoTim
VOIPo.com
Premium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Houston, TX
4 edits | Cancellation TOS. Jeri,
It's nice to hear from you again.
Per our TOS, users must return our device in order to receive a refund.
---
Cancellations
All cancellations must be made online at www.voipo.com/cancel
For more information regarding cancellation procedure, please email support@voipo.com.
Before a cancellation can be processed, users must return the provided VOIPo phone adapter. If a user wishes to cancel without returning the VOIPo phone adapter, they may purchase the adapter for $49.95.
---
Per our discussion, I did make an exception and issued it early since I saw that a new employee had told you your billing account would be "suspended" last month which is not the case. That was definitely misinformed provided by us. Our system does not even have the ability to "suspend" billing for an account or place them on hold. We sometimes do issue service credits, but there is no such thing as putting an account "on hold" so the employee that told you this was misinformed. Again, given that misinformation, I did make an exception and issued a refund prior to the device being returned. Our cancellation policy is spelled out in the terms of service.
We are sorry that we could not get things working well for you, but sometimes there are some modem/router combos that just do not work well with our service. In this case, your modem/router combination was simply not letting calls through to our device.
We wish you the best of luck with a future provider and a great week. | |
|  | jlyskowinski
join:2009-07-20
 ·VOIPo
1 edit | Re: Cancellation TOS. Tim,
It is funny that you post this information from the exact email that you just sent to me a few hours ago as if I have never read that before and you want anyone who reads this to think that you are doing me a favor and trying to make yourself look good, GOT NEWS FOR YA! You don't look good and by the looks of your picture (VOIPO website forum) I guess you are just another twenty something who thinks they know EVERYTHING about life and all that comes with it.
Cannot think of anything else to post? Too bad and you call yourself a CEO! | |
| | 
ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
clubs: | What is the modem, router combo? That would be good information to post as a "stay awy from this combo" bit of information. | |
| | | jlyskowinski
join:2009-07-20
·VOIPo
1 edit | Re: Cancellation TOS. It is basically a Linksys adapter with a built-in router, to use if you do not have a router for VOIP services. These were new that VOIPO had just ordered around mid June, I truly do not believe they did any quality testing on them at all. To send something like that out to a customer is just wrong, the QA/QC is terrible if you ask me. | |
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ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
clubs: | Re: Cancellation TOS. No, I meant what modem and router were you using before signing up with Voipo? | |
| | | | | dcm
join:2008-09-12
Pennsylvania
1 edit | Re: Cancellation TOS. said by ptrowski :
No, I meant what modem and router were you using before signing up with Voipo?
Not sure about the modem, but in the first sentence, he states that he does not own a router. It appears that VOIPo shipped him an ATA with a built in router (after initially shipping him a PAP2T). | |
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ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
clubs:
·VOIPo
 ·Metrocast Communic..
 ·AT&T DSL Service
·ViaTalk
| Re: Cancellation TOS. said by dcm :said by ptrowski :
No, I meant what modem and router were you using before signing up with Voipo?
Not sure about the modem, but in the first sentence, he states that he does not own a router. It appears that VOIPo shipped him an ATA with a built in router (after initially shipping him a PAP2T). That's what I thought also, but I noticed Tim said that some modem/router combo's don't work sometimes so I thought there was a piece of the puzzle missing.
"We are sorry that we could not get things working well for you, but sometimes there are some modem/router combos that just do not work well with our service."
--
"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage? »www.venganza.org | |
| | | | | | jlyskowinski
join:2009-07-20
·VOIPo
| said by dcm :said by ptrowski :
No, I meant what modem and router were you using before signing up with Voipo?
Not sure about the modem, but in the first sentence, he states that he does not own a router. It appears that VOIPo shipped him an ATA with a built in router (after initially shipping him a PAP2T). It appears that VOIPo shipped him an ATA with a built in router (after initially shipping him a PAP2T).
Jeri is a SHE not a HE. Just wanted to clear that up! | |
| | | jlyskowinski
join:2009-07-20 | Re: Pathetic review. This is a TRUE STATEMENT WORD FOR WORD and if you don't believe then that is YOUR problem and own arrogance | |
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gtx260 Review by gtx260
UPDATED: 178 days ago
member for 214 days, 2 visits, last login: 178 days ago
Miami,Miami-Dade,FL
$16 per month
 about 14 days
"Excellent Customer Service"
"Unreliable Service, Horrible Call Quality, Always a new problem, Shoddy Packaging"
"Don't be fooled by the smoke and mirrors VOIPO provides poor service"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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I recently switched from a previous VoIP provider where I was able to work things directly out of the box. I decided to try VOIPO from all the positive reviews on here.
My switch to VOIPO was terrible from the get go. My package took 2 weeks to arrive because "there were some problems with shipping!" When I finally got it and tried to set up I ran into some problems. It may have just been me, but It shouldn't be a hassle out of the box. I called tech support to help, and they were great.
I EVENTUALLY got it set up, but ran into intermittent problems with voice quality, dead air, and other parties having trouble hearing me. I called tech support multiple times, and my ticket would be open for days. They eventually said it was a problem with me since no one else was having problems, but if you look on their support forum everyone has problems!
Do not be fooled by the smoke and mirrors, and all the positive reviews on this site. VOIPO has great customer support, but why does one need to constantly contact customer support? Things should just work with ease as soon as you set things up.
Followup comments: VOIPoTim
VOIPo.com
Premium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Houston, TX
3 edits | Ticket Numbers? Sorry to hear you had trouble. Do you have some ticket numbers I could review?
Dead air and not hearing/people not hearing you are generally caused by routers not allowing the audio/media connections through.
I'd like to take a look at your tickets to see what troubleshooting our staff did because that can easily be resolved with port forwarding 99% of the time so it should have been a pretty quick fix.
Typically when we determine port forwarding is needed, we provide the information or offer to use our TeamViewer (remote control) software to login and make the changes for customers.
We have had virtually no support volume this month due to things working so well. While earlier this year, there were some issues, our support forums don't show many issues at all recently with the exception of beta features.
So overall, I'd just like to take a look since there's no reason for someone to have those issues unless port forwarding wasn't setup. | |
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mujibur Review by mujibur
UPDATED: 216 days ago
member for 6.4 years, 1 visits, last login: 215 days ago
Jacksonville,Duval,FL
$11 per month (12 month contract)
"Cheap"
"No Fax support"
"DO NOT sign up if you intend to Fax"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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I fax about 2-3 pages each month and have never had problems on Vonage. So before signing up for Voipo, I asked customer support whether I can fax on Voipo. Their response: While it's not a feature of Voipo, faxes can be sent.
So I signed up and tried several test faxes which went fine. I sent about 6 faxes successfully since signing up in Feb 2009. Then they had the Network issues that interrupted service for many customers. Well, whatever they did to fix the network issues, I now get echos on voice and CANNOT send a single FAX. The echos I can tolerate, but no fax is very inconvenient for me.
So I called tech support and was told that while it's not supported, if I open a ticket, someone can at least take a look to see if the settings on my device is optimized. This seemed reasonable to me. I send the ticket and here's the response:
> Hello,
> Since we do not fully support fax and we do not recommend that our customers to use our service for anything except voice service, there's no troubleshooting we can offer for your faxing issue. Faxing is pretty much hit or miss on VoIP service due to the communication over the internet and up time is never guaranteed. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you.
So not only do they not support fax, they won't help you in any way to troubleshoot. And their recommendation to only use it for voice seems inconsistent with the information that I received before signing up. I guess it's not worth their time anymore to help out their customers. So anyone considering faxing on Voipo, don't repeat my mistake and go with another provider. I plan on changing as soon as the contract is up.
Followup comments: VOIPoTim
VOIPo.com
Premium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Houston, TX
1 edit | Faxing Unfortunately, faxing over VoIP will never be fully reliable so that's why we don't officially support it.
In ideal situations with a clean connection, slow fax machine speed, etc, it'll work, but since VoIP was not designed for faxing and we can't guarantee it won't work, we just don't support it officially.
Many users have found faxing works for them unofficially though and may be able to offer some advice.
Sorry if there was confusion about this, but if we can't guarantee something will work, we just don't support it.
From TOS:
---
Service Limitations
Due to the nature of all VoIP services, VOIPo service is not designed to be used for data connections with modems, home security systems, fax machines and related devices. It is optimized for voice only and you may experience issues and inconsistencies when using VOIPo service in non-voice scenarios.
--- | |
| | mujibur
join:2003-06-25
Jacksonville, FL
·VOIPo
1 edit | Re: Faxing If this is your policy to never even troubleshoot a fax problem, then all your sales staff should explain this when prospective customers ask. I was never told this when I specifically asked if faxes can be sent on your service.
While I understand that you don't guarantee fax reliability, it is obvious from the timing of my fax problems that it's from something your company changed to fix your network problems that plagued your system. Since I can't access the ATA device to view settings, and I don't know what changes you made, I have absolutely no way to troubleshoot something your company changed. All I asked is for someone to just take a look to see if any of those changes can affect a fax transmission. I would be completely fine with taking a look but still finding no fix. But I guess spending the few minutes to take a look is too much of a burden on your staff. Or you may be too busy spending time finding and replying to all the similar posts that I made to warn others on other forums to have time left over to actually try to help one of your customers. | |
| | | VOIPoTim
VOIPo.com
Premium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Houston, TX
| Re: Faxing What happens is once we start "tweaking" and making custom changes for customers knowing they may or may not work, it usually turns into a bad cycle of the customer expecting us to fix it again if it doesn't work.
Since faxing is so hit or miss, it could easily turn into a situation where we make a tweak to help with it that "may" work, but then it would stop later and the customer would be upset again.
Based on that happening over and over in the past, support is only able to help with services we directly support and can guarnatee consistent results for.
I know you're frustrated, but by keeping everything standardized, the service will be much more stable for all customers than it would be if we start adjusting things on an individual basis.
Some customers having custom "tweaks" and fixes applied outside of the norm caused a ton of problems in the past and prevented us from making a lot of system changes (since it would likely disrupt service for those customers).
There are pros and cons, but at this point, VOIPo is out of the "tweaking" business and we're focusing on delivering consistent, stable, reliable service across the board. | |
| | | | nitzan
Premium,VIP
join:2008-02-27
·ViaTalk
·Comcast
| Re: Faxing Tim, have your techs and the customer take a look at: »www.future-nine.com/faq/index.ph···tlang=en
Just switch this customer's 2nd port on the PAP2 to these settings. If it works - you get a happy customer. If it doesn't - well, at least you tried. 
We have a pretty good track record with faxes, so I'm confident these settings do help. | |
| | | | mujibur
join:2003-06-25
Jacksonville, FL
·VOIPo
| Tim,
This "tweaking" excuse is just that, an excuse not to bother even trying to help troubleshoot. This is the first and only time I ever asked for help to troubleshoot an issue, so its not "a situation where we make a tweak to help with it that "may" work, but then it would stop later and the customer would be upset again"
And your "no tweak" policy is not written anywhere in the TOS, and is completely invalid since you allow BYOD. So if anyone bought their own PAP2 and use it on your service, like I read on many other posts, they can't tweak their device? Of course they can, and from the posts I've read, most of them do. So just be upfront and just say you don't want to bother with helping a customer out instead of coming up with lame excuses that aren't written anywhere and don't even make sense with your own BYOD policies.
Here's a novel idea - why not be upfront about your "absolutely no troubleshooting policy" when people ask about faxing before they sign up for your service. I specifically asked and was never told about this policy. Of course you run the risk of customers not signing up, but at least that would be honest. Instead, your rep told me that many customers send faxes on your service without issues, which may be half true, since they're the ones probably with their own devices that they can "tweak". | |
| | | 
mddg99
@bellsouth.net
| re: inexpensive fax solution
mujibur,
I know this response does not resolve your fax issue with VOIPo, but for a reliable and low cost fax solution consider »www.maxemail.com. For $14.95/year and $.05 or $.10 per page you can have solid inbound and outbound fax solution via email. This group is the same group that authored eFax; the product has been solid over two-2 years for me; I'm a low volume fax user, so this solution worked for me verses struggling with FOIP. | |
| | | | mujibur
join:2003-06-25
Jacksonville, FL | Re: Faxing mddg99,
Thanks for the info. I'll look into it.
It's nice to see some people offer some help rather than one excuse after another not to even look into the issue from Voipo's tech support. | |
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Eat Me Review by Eat Me
UPDATED: 230 days ago
member for 7.1 years, 998 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Sussex,Sussex,NJ
$18 per month
about 7 days
"Excellent customer support"
"They're a DISCO company who doesn't like routers"
"Great for people who aren't really tech savvy"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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Update 3/16/09: I sent them back their ATA, and after 3 weeks they hadn't refunded my account, so I contacted them. They said it wasn't checked in. I had to give them the tracking number for them to find the ATA. Unbelievable. Well, at least I got my account refunded.
Original review:
Disclaimer: I can't really give a full review of them since I never got them to work properly.
Got the service ordered at the end of January. Linksys PAP2T device arrived a week later. I had really no choice in the matter. That's what they sent. They were sending out grandstream devices with built in NAT routers before, but I guess they ran out.
Set it up initially, made a test call, worked fine. I put it behind my pfSense BSD firewall.
However, a day after is when I started having no audio on incoming calls (outgoing were fine). The registration also disappeared. Connected to the cable modem directly it seemed to work sometimes. It may seem like a problem with my firewall but I am not sure.
The plus is that support did try to work it out with me. I give them an A for effort.
The minus is that I never got it working properly.
Not really their fault, and the CEO who posts in DSLR VoIP forums did say that they aren't really router friendly and that they'd prefer to use their devices as the router where they are inline. Not an acceptable solution for me because I have devices on my network such as slingbox which need to be accessible from outside. I also prefer to run my own router.
I switched to callcentric with my old Sunrocket gizmo (Telco systems AC-211) and it's been fine. Vonage with my Cisco ATA186 also had no problems up until I canceled.
I can only guess that they have some sort of config that will cause problems with pfSense or other BSD based routers. Best to either stay away if you have one of those, or prepare to use the device inline.
The good part is that you get 30 days money back so if you want to try the service you can without worrying whether you lose money if it works or not.
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Gbhanot Review by Gbhanot
UPDATED: 256 days ago
member for 350 days, 61 visits, last login: 193 days ago
Wilmington,New Castle,DE
$18 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Responsive Customer Service"
"Unreliable service, unprofessional, un-ethical company"
"Don't go by just Good reviews, Check the tech forum for their problems."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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The only good thing I can say about VOIPo is that their Customer service is very responsive. You get reply of your tickets within few hours. But how much they can maintain it once customer base is UP is ???
I signed up for Voipo in December, 2008, when they launched the service. The service worked good for one week and then never worked properly. I used the serive when it worked but I really don't consider a service working properly, if every day morning you have to restart the adaptor 2-3 time to get it registered and call a number many times to get it connected.
Before this, I used Lingo, Sunrocket, Net2Phone, Joip, Tmobile@home, but never had so many issues with any service. Lingo had some problems initially, but it was nothing compared to VOIPo. I was part of each and every outage VOIPo had. ( It was always quoted by VOIPo that Outage is affecting only a small number of customers, but strangely, I was always part of every outage they had ).
So finally I sent back adapter in first week of March. I paid $135 for a year. VOIPo charged me for three months @ $18/month for the service which had so many issues in past three months and were accepted by their CEO also. I was expecting 11.25 per month calculated from 135/year, 'cuz while joining, when I asked CSR about cancellation, I was told that they will refund pro-rated amount for unused period. I have posted the chat transcript with their serive rep, which clearly says that they will refund pro-rated amount.
When I posted my experience on the Voip Tech Chat forum on this site, Company's CEO did put some cooked up figures saying my usage figures on the site saying that I am lying and service worked very well. I was totally taken by surprise, how a company can be so unprofessional, unethical that they can got to the extent of posting customer's personal data on the public forum, just to prove their point.
When I Posted the actual figures for a month, Company CEO replied that, that is just for a month and given me method of calculating the calls which was adding current calls to all the previous calls. I don't know if he didn't know about his own site or he tried to look ignorant. But Anyone who has serive with VOIPo, can check on their site that we can not see 3 month old calls in the current log and can not see new calls in the old call log.
Finally in a personal message, CEO of the company agreed that he got the transcript of CHAT with the CSR and is crediting me that amount because the information was conveyed in-correctly.
So Guys, decide yourself, Can you trust this kind of company? They called me liar on a public forum whereas all their claims were wrong.
Now, look at the forum of Voip Tech chat and decide how many problems VOIPo had from December to March. The problem was upto the extent that they had to recall the adaptor for masses. Even if they say serive is fine, will you really trust them?.
Anyway I am glad that I am out and not wasting any more money and time.
Followup comments: Lenagainster
join:2005-01-07
Silver Spring, MD | Honest assessment Finally, an honest assessment and corresponding rating. | |
| kevinj
join:2009-04-30
·VOIPo
| not the Voipo that I know This is entirely contrary to anything in my experience with Voipo, and I have read a lot on the Voipo internal forums ... their issues (growing pains) seem largely resolved.
I guess perfection is elusive and "you can't please everyone" ... heck, some people don't like chocolate! I can't understand THAT either.  | |
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havahava Review by havahava
UPDATED: 274 days ago
member for 274 days, 4 visits, last login: 266 days ago
Fairfax,Fairfax,VA
$13 per month (12 month contract)
about 55 days
"Great Support Stuff , courteous and willing to help"
"You need too much help from the support staff to make this work , mine is still not resolved"
"VOIPO not ready for prime time or has too many issues that still needs to be ironed out"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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I have been with VOIPO for 2 months now and haven't had a week of trouble free service. The only time I did not have to interact with support was when I was on vacation for 10 days.
Issues :
1) Static on my phone , after some tweaking yesterday seems like one way. I could barely hear the other side but my voice was loud and clear.
2) Sometimes the phone rings and I pickup the phone and it's dead air, sometimes the phone doesn't ring at all and fails over to my cell phone.
3) Interestingly I have found that rebooting Grandstream ATA fixes the problem ( everytime) . I even tried one of those timers that switches off/on the adapter every night but not much help. So now before making a call I reboot my ATA and then call people.
4) Support has moved me around to different servers but of no avail. They addressed the STUN server issue but of no avail.
5) Support shipped me Linksys PAPT2 , it didn't work but support was able to identify DNS issues. After it got resolved it worked for 3 hrs and it stopped registering. Support says it is some wierd issue .
If I were to charge minimum pay for the amount of time I have spent with customer support this service turns out to be far more expensive than Vonage which by the way worked just fine behind the very same ISP and router for 5 years.
I am sure this service will improve given the quality of support folks but I really like a service where you don't even need to call support. As regards Vonage I had 1 call to customer service in 5 yrs I was with them.
Followup comments: VOIPoTim
VOIPo.com
Premium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Houston, TX
| Adapter From Review:
"3) Interestingly I have found that rebooting Grandstream ATA fixes the problem ( everytime) . I even tried one of those timers that switches off/on the adapter every night but not much help. So now before making a call I reboot my ATA and then call people."
Since your call quality problems go away every time you reboot the adapter, that definitely leads me to believe that it was adapter related for you.
I suspect that once the PAP2 is up and running fully (sometimes initial setup requires a few tweaks), it'll solve a lot of your issues.
PM me your number and I can have a Senior Engineer give you a call Monday to get you situated. | |
| | havahava
join:2009-02-21
·VOIPo
| Re: Adapter Tim,
Thanks , Justin did give me a call and unfortunately we are at a complete loss in trying to fix PAP2T.
Grandstream ATA seems to be showing "Loosing registration problem" that others have described.
I have updated the #BPW-314388 to see if there is something that can be done to fix Grandstream ATA . | |
| brodster
join:2009-01-20
Lake Worth, FL | Similar story... Yes, we do have similar sounding experiences. I hope that once your Linksys ATA is up and running, you'll have smooth sailing like I've had lately! | |
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yahig Review by yahig
UPDATED: 314 days ago
member for 8.1 years, 167 visits, last login: 110 days ago
North Adams,Berkshire,MA
$13 per month (12 month contract)
"Good Price"
"Couldn't port my number then dropped the ball on my refund"
"Pain in the neck !"
| Ease of Installation:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
BEWARE OF VOIPo ... I read all the good reviews so I signed up in early December. I expected to receive equipment after paying $164.00 for year 1 and sending in my porting request. 2 weeks passed and they said sorry can't port your number (which I had ported to Vonage from Verizon years ago). O.K. refund please ! Then the long silence began............ I hate disputing transactions on my credit card. Now VOIPo keeps saying to return equipment, I keep saying" I didn't recieve it , give me a tracking number". Their response," return equipment " Good customer service ? These guys don't read their mail ! It's like talking to a wall . BEWARE..If I didn't know of DSL reports high standards I'd suspect VOIPo had some cheaky monkey locked in their basement typing out all those positive reviews ! Thought I had escaped but, guess it"s another month of "International customer service abuse" ( May I call you by your first name ?) courtesy of Vonage for me.
Followup comments: Lenagainster
join:2005-01-07
Silver Spring, MD
·VoicePulse
 ·DIRECTV
·magicjack.com
| Porting is a mess It's not surprising that you ran into problems with the porting. My number, originally Verizon, was ported to a CLEC, then I wanted to port it to CallVantage, but had to port it back to Verizon for a month, then to CV. Later I ported it to VoicePulse and was told by CV that they could not port it back from VP. Strange rules, complicated mess.
Did you get your equipment from VOIPo? A temporary number to try out the service? Seems that VOIPo should have a search tool on their website to determine if a given number can be ported before signing up. | |
| | VOIPoTim
VOIPo.com
Premium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Houston, TX
4 edits | Re: Porting is a mess Edit: See my 2nd post below. | |
| | | VOIPoTim
VOIPo.com
Premium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Houston, TX
2 edits | Re: Porting is a mess I've looked into this more and see what happened. You are correct...this is a problem on our end.
It looks like that a porting rep had e-mailed you on 12/22 about the port being denied to see if you wanted to cancel or get a new number and there was some dialog between the two of you back and forth in that e-mail.
Since he sent this from his VOIPo e-mail account and not by ticket, it was not tracked. Company policy is to only use tickets and not to be e-mailing directly since no one else can see e-mails from their individual e-mail accounts.
I see in that e-mail you did ask to cancel several times but were continuously asked about returning the device. The rep should have immediately explained the cancellation process.
So a few things happened here:
1) Our employee used e-mail directly with you which was not visible in helpdesk to other employees.
2) Company policy in relation to processing cancellations only via helpdesk e-mail/ticket was not followed so a cancellation request was never actually documented.
As I said, we've issued a refund and since based on the e-mail history I just reviewed we definitely dropped the ball in not communicating well with you, I'm going to send you a check for $25 to cover a month of service at an alternative provider.
In terms of porting, there will always be some cases where numbers just can't be ported depending on the providers involved. Some won't release numbers (even though the FCC says they have to) and sometimes there are other issues like a lack of E911 coverage, etc.
I apologize for this and will definitely be addressing it internally to make sure everyone is following policy. | |
| | | | 
motoracer
join:2003-09-15
Valencia, CA | Re: Porting is a mess Wow, talk about awesome customer service - enough so that I just signed up for VoipO! Keep up the awesome work Tim. | |
| | | | | VOIPoTim
VOIPo.com
Premium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Houston, TX
| Re: Porting is a mess said by motoracer :
Wow, talk about awesome customer service - enough so that I just signed up for VoipO! Keep up the awesome work Tim.
Ultimately no company will ever be perfect as long as people and computers are involved. We can't control that, but we can control how we react to issues we do have and try to limit those situations as much as possible.
That's really the basic philosophy behind how we operate. | |
| | | | | | nitzan
Premium,VIP
join:2008-02-27
·ViaTalk
·Comcast
| Re: Porting is a mess said by VOIPoTim :
Ultimately no company will ever be perfect as long as people and computers are involved. We can't control that, but we can control how we react to issues we do have and try to limit those situations as much as possible. I concur completely. Good job Tim. | |
| | | | | | | format
join:2001-01-02
Tulsa, OK
·Cox HSI
·AT&T DSL Service
·Vonage
·VOIPo
| Re: Porting is a mess said by nitzan :said by VOIPoTim :
Ultimately no company will ever be perfect as long as people and computers are involved. We can't control that, but we can control how we react to issues we do have and try to limit those situations as much as possible. I concur completely. Good job Tim. I agree Tim you did a great job of handling this customer. Yahig's comments about beware are little far out there. Everyone makes mistakes. Every company makes mistakes.
It is sad Yahig has not bothered to come back and update his review. He was obviously upset and wanted to draw as much attention to his post as possible. His suggesting that the reviews of the service are bogus is unjustified and it does not take much work to figure out the people who have posted the reviews are not new to this web site. | |
| | | | | | 
zevin
Premium
join:2008-11-11
Texas | That's what I like, the CEO, admitting mistake and taking action to make it right. | |
| | | | | | | beatbox32
join:2001-05-10
Irvine, CA | Re: Porting is a mess Agreed! Don't see that often enough. | |
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Review of VOIPo
(45)
(19)
Pathetic review.