 Review by kyler13 
UPDATED: 340 days ago
member for 1.4 years, 350 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Arnold,Anne Arundel,MD
 $11 per month (12 month contract)
 about 9 days
 "Tons of features, good quality and reliability, super helpful user forums"
 "Be prepared to tweak a few settings but nothing major"
 "Trumps landline service on price and features. It's a no-brainer!"
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(ratings above consensus)
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Final update: 6/11/07
Might as well be a landline for all we can tell. I switched from DMZ to port forwarding for awhile and a few weeks later I noticed some echo returned. After investigating a little bit, went into the Actiontec router and found out that it had pulled a firmware update, effectively hosing up the forwarding settings. I tried to fix it with no success, so I switched back to DMZ and it's been perfect. I set up a password on the ATA to keep it secure. If you live in MD and have FIOS, VT is a perfect choice for replacing your landline.
Update: 3/20/07
Service has been flawless. Had to DMZ my ATA to fix a problem with the VM indicator, but I think that has only helped the quality since I did so. If you live in MD or VA and have FIOS, get this service. My ping time to the southeast server (Richmond, VA) for ViaTalk is 6ms consistently and I think this plays a huge factor in my reliability and quality.
Update: 2/18/07
A couple weeks ago I had decided it was reliable enough. I hadn't faced any major issues in my testing. The call quality is not landline, but it's pretty close for alot less. IMO, the small difference is not worth the steep premium of staying with the local telco. I have not experienced any outages and it seems like ViaTalk is keeping on top of things (just recently expanded their network capacity). This service isn't for the faint of heart as it will require some modifications and tweaking to get things right, but if you are willing or like to do those things (I do), this is a tremendous value for the features. I like that I can research the forums, test my ATA settings, and upon success, get ViaTalk to permanently apply the settings. I haven't had to rely heavily on tech support, but I will say the port process could have gone much smoother. After two weeks (10 business days) I inquired about my status and they told me they never received my port info I faxed in. (Because of this, I would recommend sending it via PDF file.) They promised to expedite the port and they did. I was ported 5 days later. However, they weren't responsive to my requests to confirm they received my info the second time around. Overall, I'd still highly recommend ViaTalk. It's pretty refreshing to be liberated from my "bare-minimum yet still expensive" landline service.
Initial review: 1/16/07
Finally bit the bullet and went with VoIP mostly because my CLEC is overcharging me and Verizon's landline via FIOS, although more reasonable than my current service, would cost me $60 just to switch. No way! Almost went with AT&T's Callvantage based on a friend's success for over a year, but was worried about incompatibility with Actiontec. A little advice and some research led me to Viatalk. Alot of good reviews and raves about tech support. CEO posts frequently here and on their own forum. Another clincher was a fellow FIOS customer in an adjacent county being satisfied with service.
Ordered two Sundays ago (9 days) for the $199/yr plus one year free. That's $8 and change per month over 24 months. Add $2.50 in monthly fees and it comes in just under $11/month. That's $19 less than my no features, 65 call allowance landline without long distance charges (another $5 there on average). $10 shipping and $30 activation were covered by a $40 coupon currently available so I started up at no additional cost. They say it takes 24 hours to process order, but I didn't see anything until 3 days later (Wed) and they completed the processing Thursday, shipping the adapter on Friday. I had submitted a ticket asking them about the delay and they claimed their current offer was bogging down sales, slowing things up a little. No biggie. I played a little bit with the softphone, but I'm not set up with a headset, so I had to wait to test things out. Thanks to the holiday, I didn't get the adapter until today (following Tuesday).
Plugged in the adapter this afternoon and initally, no dice. Chalk that up to low lighting in my basement and my inability to see what I was doing. Found the phone cord plugged into line 2 (doh). Swapped int line 1 and voila! Dialtone.
At first use, I already noticed some typical minor and fixable issues. There's almost a 10 second delay after dialing 10 digit numbers. I've read the ATA settings can be tweaked. Also, my ring is weak on my corded handset. I think this too is fixable. There was a barely (and only occasional) echo during one of my calls this evening. Again, thanks to the great info on the forums, this looks like it can be fixed via tweaking the settings. I have a ticket into support to look at these things.
Will update later about reliability and tech support. My plan is to evaluate service over the next 14 days and make a decision about staying on board. Unfortunately, Viatalk's cancellation policy after 14 days only returns 50% of your pro-rated balance. Based on my calculations, I'll need to stay on at least 4 full months such that my monthly cost basis dips below what I'm spending now.
Edit: Forgot to mention I'm porting my number. Fortunately, they gave me a temporary number in my area code.
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