Review of Future Nine CorporationAll reviews of |  about |
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Though a small start-up, Future-Nine offers good prices, excellent call quality, and strong customer service. The online account management section of the Future Nine website is not the most user-friendly, but there is good functionality there, and the website is under constant development during the beta. Future Nine is among just a handful of providers who operate under a principle of price transparency--the prices they advertise are the prices you pay. Being a start-up, the owner is very much interested in meeting customer needs and feedback is not only valued, but also acted upon. UPDATED: FN is working on their website, and E911 is now up and running! UPDATED: FN continues to work on new features, such as a SIPBroker dial code and toll-free calling card access from the US and Canada. UPDATED: I recently got a second set of SIP credentials for my FN account so I can use my account over Wifi with my Nokia smartphone as well as via my ATA at home. It's working great! UPDATED: I got a dedicated DID to use for DID-based callback which I plan to use with an international SIM card. Followup comments:
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The customer portal is a bit slow and "clunky" for lack of a better term but it works. It doesn't have to be pretty but it would be nice. If it was really important then I'd go back to Callcentric and pay nearly twice as much per minute. The one feature I miss is the custom CNAM that would match incoming calls to the phone book and use the phone book entry label if it existed. I'd prefer to be able to see Aunt Margaret instead of WIRELESS CALLER but again its not that important, it would be nice but I'm not leaving the service over it. Overall I am very satisfied with the service and look forward to the servers being installed in California that will reduce the latency of calls and possibly reduce points of failure. Update 11/21/09: I forgot to mention how long it took to get my incoming number provisioned, it was probably 2-3 days I'm not sure since I didn't get the email telling me it was active, I found out later when I made an outbound test call and noticed the number on the caller id of the phone I called. I don't remember exactly but I think I asked support about it and was told it was active. Outbound calling was active the day after I ordered the service since the credit had to be processed manually as a first time user. The next time I funded my account the credit was added more or less instantly. Followup comments:
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They are one of them that use the fiber lines just for that reason, using the fiber lines makes all the difference, as it's not slowed down to make the sound Q bad at all. I also got a really good telephone, and ATA as fiber or not with bad gear your going to get bad sound Q. I've been with them for about a year now, I have never once had any need to call or write for tech support, nor have I ever try to use the phone and it failed to work. That is saying more about them then anything, they are taking care of everything before it becomes a problem. Followup comments:
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Ever since I signed up 5 months ago, I've received great service and support. My favorite part was that I was able to add a second line for $5/month to my existing plan and share the minutes! I went down from paying $30/month to $7/month! Followup comments:
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No problems with the service, and have even added it to my iPhone (iSip) client. A few price changes to some domestic places, but still a great value. F9 has been very reliable, and I have not had do anything. ********************* Great quality and reliability. I use future-nine as my primary outbound account. I have the others for backup and 911 service since it is not currently an option. I only call US numbers, so I cannot comment on international calling. They are also one of the lowest cost (cheapest) providers going. Customer support is very responsive, and can handle most any custom setup you may require. The website needs some updating, but the focus is mainly quality and reliability. I can live with the not so pretty website. The main webpage has been updated and looks significantly better than before. Followup comments:
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 I am an asterisk user and therefore tend to require somewhat different features from the typical user looking for plug-it-in-and-forget-it residential services. I am also a left-over beta tester, who was impressed with the quality and commitment to service, that I stayed on (perhaps somewhat as a thorn in Nitzan's hide ?!). Their stated intent is to serve the single family, residential market, and their products are tailored to that end.F9 is also a great source of good quality DIDs for most parts of the country ( I don't have any experience with F9 international numbers). Most U.S.A. DIDs come with at least 3000 inbound minutes included which can make them a bargain for heavier users. In country outbound service at only $.01/minute also makes them a bargain, as long as you do not need to set your own CID by the call. Unfortunately, F9 does not meet _my_ requirements there, so I basically can only use F9 outbound for my own home extensions! For the _vast majority_ of people, this should not be a problem! I disagree with F9 advertising as being a "Cheap VoIP Provider", although much of that has to do with differing connotations of the word 'cheap' around the world. Nitzan Kon has proven to be anything but cheap in his careful build-out of his system to provide _reliable_, _quality_ services economically! He has carefully built a geographically distributed network of servers to provide both excellent response times as well as redundancy of hardware and isolation from disruption at a single physical location. He continually is developing upgraded features to further enhance the _value_ of his services for his customers. 20091101 - It is hard to imagine that this 'small' company is actually one of my most reliable VoSPs, but it is! Nitzan Kon continues his methodical build out of his service, carefully implementing well-planned features. Everything seems oriented to enhancing reliability first, while continuing to improve services available. There is absolutely nothing 'cheap' about Future-Nine, but there sure is some of the best value for the money with this company!  Followup comments:
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Setup is the biggest drawback of FutureNine. I am an experienced computer programmer with above-average knowledge of networking. Yet it took me over an hour to figure how to setup the VoIP device I bought online elsewhere. I could have bought a device directly from FutureNine to save the time, unfortunately they didn't sell one with the features that I wanted. As part of the setup process, FutureNine's web site also took a lot of time to figure out. Compare to other VoIP companies, FutureNine's web site is one of the least user friendly. While they saved money on web site design and passed the savings onto the customers, they probably went overboard. If they had invested in a better web site design, their customer base would grow quickly to recover the costs. Just my opinion... Once everything is setup, it should work without a hitch months after months. One only needs to remember to leave enough money in their account to cover monthly payments, or pay annually. Followup comments:
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The People with F9 are very conscientious and the leadership will help when they can even here at DSLR. I will return here with a deeper review after I have put more money into the payg account, or after I sign up for one of the plans, which is optional. Now consider: Right before ordering the ATA from Future Nine and buying just a few minutes to start with, I cancled my Vonage account a week or so ahead of the cut off date. Vonage's service to The Philippines was horrible, either the connection had many drop outs per minute, or the call wouldn't even go through. Sure, the price is good: 13 cents to call my family in Cebu, but what good is any price if you can't make a manageable call? Vonage tried to blame my ISP (AT&T), and indeed, it is true that the internet service I get from AT&T is so so, but if it was the fault with my ISP, why am I able to get good calls through with Future Nine! After I manage to afford buying a more substatial amount of minutes and I've used F9 for a few months I will report back. UPDATE: Anyone who complains about this provider, they must be crazy. F9 lets you choose between gray, white, and Premium, so if one doesn't go through, for a tiny bit more money you get white or even premium. This is fantastic because it lets you choose and saves having to contact them for support, because if Gray won't work (and for many it does, I can call my wife's cellphone using gray sometimes, she is in the Philippines) then you just choose white or premium. Using premium, which is competitively priced, my calls to my girl work very well, I can be watching internet streaming TV or torrents and still have the calls sound and work well at the same time, it's amazing! With Vonage calls never went through, I didn't have an option to try using a white or premium line, I had the huge monthly fee with Vonage, which made it no sense at all to keep the service since I have to keep my POTS provider since I get DSL from them and can't afford to go through the complex hassle of canceling my POTS line and then getting naked DSL, and it would only raise the rate that I pay for DSL with ATT. Because of the fact that I can use F9 without a huge monthly fee, and keep F9 for what *I* most need it for (calling The Philippines), it's a total no brainer that, along with how good the service is and how dedicated and kind the people who run the business are, I don't think I could find a better provider. I ordered a Linksys ATA from F9 and it shipped promptly, all set up and ready to go and it is a PAP2T-NA that seems to be a very good device. I even got a new one for cheap! Where else can you order a state of the art consumer class ATA for cheap, and fast shipping, all set up for the VOIP provider for a price very competitive to what's on eBay? Order and install were EASY. I think Nitzan and company are great folks. I am looking forward to a new webpage setup, that is the only thing I'd like to see more amped up. The webpage, the user console works, it's just not fancy. All the information you need, or at least most of it, is right there on the web console. The bottom line? 1: Courteous, cary people. 2: Fast support and service. 3: Competitive prices. 4: No huge monthly fee, in fact, no montly fee at all unless you want a phone number and a plan for USA calling. 5: The fabulous option of making calls via either Gray, White, or Premium lines. 6: Flexible service: Call card, call back, softphone, and ATA access. 7: Excellent call quality, even on a non competitive, lower bandwidth DSL provider and even while using the DSL for other things at the same time!!! 8: Price competitive ATA supplier that will pre configure the device for you then ship it! Followup comments:
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I first started using a softphone, but then ordered a PAP2T. It arrived in a few days and was already configured. All I needed to do was plug it in. This is great for someone that is new to VOIP, since it just worked right out of the box. So far I have been impressed with the quality of my calls. Having previously used a cell phone as my primary phone for the last several years, I had not realized how bad the call quality on cell phones was until I started using F9! The reliability has been excellent as well. Line 1 on my PAP2T is always green and I have always gotten a dial tone when I picked up the line. I am not sure what kind of infrastructure F9 uses, but they really are rock-solid. I have also been impressed with the support that F9 has. Usually I get a response back within a few hours. Also, Nitzan frequents the VOIP forum on this site and will often answer questions posted there as well. For international calls, F9 has three different quality levels (and three different rates). I do not call internationally, but it seems like their rates are reasonable and it is nice that they give you the option of which route you want to use. Really Good things about F9: -Excellent call quality -Excellent reliability -Quick response time on support -Cheap E911 service ($1/month) -Honest pricing -Free toll-free calls -incoming CNAM included in the price of a DID -calling rates are about as inexpensive as you can get while still being quality -F9 will send you a preconfigured PAP2T -free SIP calls -low minimum refill amount ($15) -account balance can be used towards a calling card -web callback service Things that could be improved: -The website. Often it is hard to navigate and hard to find information. -Call filters. It would be really nice to be able to block anonymous calls. Also to have some time/caller ID dependent filters. Overall, I am happy with the service. I do hope that more features will be added soon! Followup comments:
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Future Nine Corporation
(20)
undisclosed location
$12 per month (month by month)
about 1 days
"price, customer service, DID/porting coverage, all-inclusive prices, customizability"
"online account interface still a work-in-progress"
"An excellent choice for VoIP!"
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