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Review by dcurrey See Profile

  • Location: Mason, Warren, OH, USA
  • Cost: $13 per month (24 month contract)
  • Install: about 10 days
Very reliable low cost service.
Have to keep an eye out for renewal specials.
Blows POTS service out of water.
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

1-4-2017 Final Review.

After about 10 years with Viatalk it time to move on. About mid-December I ported my number over to Callcentric. Viatalk line did remain active for outbound calls in case anyone was wondering. I was kind of planning on this.

About a week or so later I received an email from Viatalk informing me my number had ported out and wanted to know if I wanted to cancel or add a new number back in. I did have some questions about cancellation procedure so I just responded to ticket.

According to the ToS It seems you have to cancel within a 14 day window of your contract or you get slapped with a $49.95 early term penalty. They do prorate the rest of the term back to you. They informed me that since I was in my free year this didn’t apply. They did have me send my Pap2T back before they would close the account. This is different than the procedure in the TOS. You cancel then they charge your card $50 and credit it back once the ata is received. Oh well no worries sent the ATA back and a few days later I was informed they received everything and my account was officially closed.

As far as the service goes it remained solid. Still would recommend them to anyone that has moderate to high usage.

I am in the process of phasing out my landline and Callcentric with the free NY number + my ported line and the 120 minutes outbound seem to be what I need.

11-28-14 Just grabbed another 2 year deal.

Pap2 is starting to show its age. Line one has failed moved credentials to line two.

01-02-13

Recently was offered the $189 for 2 years deal. Looks like I am good until 2015.

Nothing else new to report.

05-02-11

April 25th was my 5 year point service continues to perform excellently.

12-31-10

Just recently renewed for another 2 years for $189 BOGO sale.

Nothing else really new to report everything just works.

Total monthly cost now shows included taxes.

10-29-09

Service continues to run smoothly.

Viatalk keeps adding new features such as Callerid Name block. The ability to set forwards, DND, simultaneous ring, etc directly from the phone without having to log into the Control Panel. Outgoing number routing. Now have international plans! The list goes on and on!

Went ahead and upped the value for money. I am done complaining about bogus fees since this is now becoming the norm with voip. Its still not right but what can you do?

02-16-09

Not much has changed since last review.

Service for me is still stable. Tech support is responsive if I do have a trouble ticket issued. Usually 2 a year when time changes. Once in awhile something odd may come up.

Billing is still crazy. Prepay is not truly prepay, prices are not locked in for term, you get almost random taxes and fees billed monthly. Taxes varies greatly depending on location, time of day, phase of moon, weather, mood of CEO, who knows what else they take into account.


11-20-07

As far a reliability goes for the past couple months things have been running very smoothly.

They did update the TOS. VT now has a $49.95 early termination fee. This is an improvement over the %50 early termination fee.

They also from time to time offer current users special 1 year deals. Not as good as the Buy One Get One deal for $199+ but not bad for another years service if you want to risk it.

Due to the massive complaints and bad PR about the fees being added to contracts that have already been paid for the company has been crediting the accounts if you complain about it. And only if you complain about it.

10-16-07
It appears the CEO (VTBrendan) has lied to us. He promised after the bogus fees where added to new accounts that all existing contracts will be honored. (Original thread.»[ViaTalk] ViaTalk TOS Change October 4 2006) We find out today that is not so. They are now only waiving the fees for 1 year.

10-6-06
Viatalk recently added extra fees to cover the cost of doing business expenses.

We already had e-911 as a standard feature. Now we need to pay extra per month for it.

Also added the Regulatory Recover Fee. A total BS fee so they can make more profit and still advertise a lower rate.

People on prepay still have to keep a credit card on file so Viatalk can bill you monthly for the additional fees. This also gives them the ability to raise the rates mid term. Since you are locked in for the term you have no options unless you want to pay a 50% early termination fee.

Its an interesting concept don't you think? A prepay plan that is not prepaid nor locked in.

09-15-06

Signed up on April 25, 2006 during one of the $199 buy 1 year get 1 year free deals. Took longer than usual to get the adapter but once it arrived it was plug and play.

Service for the most part has been pretty good. Sound quality is excellent. Some interruptions when they tried to get server fallover working correctly. For the most part we seem past that, I hope.

Viatalk will give you the admin password for the furnished pap2 if you ask. Great for testing different settings, and general troubleshooting. When you get them they way you like simple submit a trouble ticket and they make the changes permanent. At most trouble tickets have only taken a couple hours. (As far as remember anyway.)

Never had to call customer service so no comment on that. The CEO does post in the voip forum that is a big plus.

They seem interested on what customers have to say. Implement new features all the time. Sometimes without adequately testing them it seems.

Website Control Panel. Layout is a little clumsy. Some feature sets should be combined into single area. Custom Callerid, Call Routing, and Whitelist to name a few.

I will continue to update as needed.

member for 19.7 years, 8759 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 7.2 years ago


b-ellis
@220.165.x.x

b-ellis

Anon

Fees

I think these fees were implemented by congress on Oct.1 and are being charged to every VoIP customer now. Check it out for yourself, but you might want to contact your congressman instead of the phone company.