Review by baltcpa 
member for 5.5 years, 2 visits, last login: 5.2 years ago
updated 5.2 years ago
 Burtonsville,Montgomery,MD
 $24 per month "Best priced service for all the features you get" "Huge upfront costs; bad advice, lack of response, & mild rudeness from CSRs; connection issues that I never had w/Lingo" "I wish I had stayed with Lingo for $5 more/month."
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I've attached an email sent to Broadvoice and their response. This pretty much says it all. I think given that I'm the customer that Broadvoice's response was a tad abrasive. A normal customer isn't going to know upfront the intricacies involved in porting a number, and I think their response could have been a little more understanding & professional. I also want to add that I had a CSR refute (as if I was lying) that another CSR told me if I bought an after-market phone adapter that I could avoid the activation fee. They refused to waive the fee. I guess at Broadvoice that the customer isn't always right.
I will also concur with the other reviews on the often lengthy hold times waiting for a CSR.
To go into detail on my connection, sometimes people say I’m cutting out, or there is a voice delay. Sometimes when I take my cordless phone off the hook to make a call or scroll through the caller ID list, the display goes blank. I have tried this on all extension handsets and get the same thing. The only way to get the phone to reset is to take the battery out and put it back in, which is a hassle. I never had these problems when I had Lingo. Also, I can no longer access my answering machine remotely since the touch tones sound distorted when they reach the machine.
I will give them one thing - They did respond to my second email regarding the porting of my number but not my first, which was the cause of rewriting them. This email was my third although I have made numerous phone calls. So, my sentence saying they ignored emails was a little overstated.
UPDATE 11/05/06: After waiting on hold for 25 minutes, a CSR tells me that they do not support faxing and that they can't help me with my problem. I was able to fax one other time before, and Lingo supported faxing. Also, my callers tell me I cut in and out sometimes, but I have no problem hearing them. Also, my caller and I can't talk at the same time on some calls due to some sort of voice activation feature that occasionally appears. The signal from Broadvoice does something weird to my phone half the time when I turn on one of my handsets. I wind up having to take the battery out to reset the line, which is a major inconvenience. The display on my phone will lock up when I scroll through my CID list. This only started after I switched from Lingo to Broadvoice. I still can't call into my answering machine to get my messages due to distorted touch tones. I can't call Broadvoice CS from my Broadvoice line since their system doesn't recognize the touch tones, and their automated menu hangs up on me. Long hold times, and after I reach someone, they almost act as if they don't want to or can't help me. My problems never get resolved. I would switch back to Lingo if it wasn't such a hassle to transfer numbers back and I hadn't made an investment in equipment. Please heed my warning: Don't walk, RUN!!!!!!! You get what you pay for. I wish I had stayed with Lingo.
UPDATE 11/29/06: Just got an email from Lingo giving me a $50 bonus and $4/month off the service price. Guess who's going back to Lingo? BYE, BYE, BROADVOICE!!!!!!!!!!
UPDATE LATER THAT SAME DAY: Broadvoice wants to charge me a $39.95 cancellation fee even though I brought my own device. Looks like I won't be moving now. I also forgot to note that there are several phone numbers that I can't call, and I wind up having to use my cell phone to call them. Two numbers that come to mind are 800-987-5521 (one of my credit card companies) and 859-431-0300 (the cable company at my Grandmother's house). I get recordings saying that the calls can't be completed. Additionally, I noticed that the calls cutting in and out, the problem where my caller and I can't talk at the same time, and the voice delay tend to occur on calls where the other person is on a cell phone.
Email to Broadvoice:
After receiving less than confident sounding confirmations from Broadvoice customer service that this number is in the process of being ported from Lingo to Broadvoice and not getting responses to my emails from you, I decided to call Lingo today to see if they are processing this request. Lingo says they have never received anything from Broadvoice.
The idea behind coming to Broadvoice was to save money. However, it has wound up being a money sink and a headache. In addition to the items mentioned above, one of you CSRs recommended that I buy an after market phone adapter and that the activation fee would be eliminated, and that turned out to be false. Then, I find out that I also needed a router with that adapter since one wasn't built into it. Then, he neglected to tell me that there were two versions of the phone adapter, and I got the one locked for Vonage, had to send it back, had to eat the shipping cost back and forth, and had to pay more for the correct one. I also continue to have connection issues despite several calls to your customer service center......all of this in addition to paying for two phone services. Your CSRs say they have no assess to the part of the system responsbile for porting, and they won't give me a phone number to directly connect to you.
I'm ready to throw my arms up in the air, dispute the credit card charges from Broadvoice, and go back to Lingo. Are you willing to do anything for me at this point, or are you just going to ignore this email too?
Broadvoice's response:
We have responded to all emails and questions you have asked of us. When
you continue to ask the same questions and receive the same answers this
does not mean we are being unresponsive. We honestly do not have better
answers for you. So, in turn, you have prompted me to write you the best
answer I can possibly give you. I will say that our common porting time is
roughly 30-50 days. Your port has been pending for 3 weeks.
Broadvoice is a service provider (just like Lingo), not a local carrier,
aka: CLECs. Unfortunately, we have no control over the porting process
after we've received the request. We forward this information to our
carrier partner who then in turn must complete the necessary steps on their
side. Then they must contact your current carrier, whomever Lingo uses in
your region, who then will have to contact Lingo. Lingo will authorize or
deny the request, and then both carrier partners will need to work together
to complete and disconnect the configurations that allow that particular
number to ring to your phone. Lingo will never receive the request to port
directly from Broadvoice. It will come from our carrier partner. The
notification will not be sent directly to Lingo, but Lingo's carrier
partner. Each carrier partner has thousands of transfers going in and out
of their service and they have set up a system to organize this process.
Although porting seems simple, it takes the work of many, many people along
the way working for at a minimum three to four different companies to make
it happen.
For your own personal benefit I highly recommend you read this post in a
popular Broadband forum:
»Porting Rules
Since we are only a service provider we are not governed by the FCC about
carrier Porting issues. We cannot promise a certain time-frame to complete
the transfer, but can only offer an estimate of the length of time that the
typical transfer takes. We have outliers on each side, some that take far
more time, or far less.
We gladly offer to transfer our customer's previous phone numbers as a
bonus for being a Broadvoice customer. We do this free of charge, even
though the transfer costs our company money. Of course, we hope that is
not the main reason for being a customer. We pride ourselves on our
quality VoIP service and outstanding affordability. If you feel one of the
above reasons is not compelling you to stay with us, than you will need to
do what is best for you. Ultimately we would like to maintain this
relationship, but the decision is yours.
If you feel that this email has not been as educational as you had hoped, I
can only steer you in the direction of the internet. Do some searches,
look things up. Find out the difference between Voip porting and ILEC
porting. There is nothing more that I can tell you to help you feel more
at ease.
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