 Review by n1zuk 
UPDATED: 278 days ago
member for 8 years, 3131 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 South Burlington,Chittenden,VT
 $16 per month (24 month contract)
 about 10 days
 "Great sound quality, BYOD option, Low cost"
 "Excuses, no resolutions. Glad I've bailed out when my term was up."
 "Stay away. There are better options out there."
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(ratings below consensus)
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Update 2/16/2009
Today is a new day. One without ViaTalk. And the sun is shining.
My two year experiment with ViaTalk is over. The only reason I lived with it this long is that we (my family) just don't use the "home" line enough for it to become an unbearable problem. Just a constant nuisance.
On the plus side, the phone usually worked. Sometimes it would take a second try to get a connection to go through (be it inbound or outbound), but you could make and receive calls. The main problem was that *EVERY* call, over the past few months, would have a 5 second audio drop out. Very annoying.
Those who follow the VOIP forums here know me as a contributor, and I have a decent knowledge of how to make a home VOIP system work. I have watched, again and again, people come to the forums with similar problems, and I have tried all of the recommendations. But the problems never get fully resolved. But then, why should a working system need constant attention?
ViaTalk seems to make too many changes on their end. Some work, some don't. But many seem to break things while fixing others. Knowledgeable people point out problems, yet the feedback from ViaTalk seems to remind me of my 10 year old son. "Well, it is not our fault." Always quick to defend their position, instead of looking to find what really is going on.
To paraphrase what I said in an earlier update: It is a phone. It should work.
It doesn't. Well sometimes. But not as it should. The "Maybe Phone"
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Update 10/22/2007 --
OK, everyone by now knows of the Sunrocket collapse, and the problems ViaTalk had handling the large number of new subscribers that flocked over from them.
As my service was up and running, I never had any issues that needed resolving. It just keeps on running. My service has remained rock solid, I have had little or no problems with system reliability. Most of my earlier issues were self inflicted, but switching from DD-WRT to Tomato firmware on my router has eliminated 99.9% of my problems (even with Comcast as my ISP).
It's a telephone. It is cheap, and it works.
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Original review 3/2007
I signed up on one of the last days the $199/yr with the second year free pricing was available. I initially went with the VT supplied PAP2T, as I could not tell from their web site if the 2-for-1 was also valid for BYOD. I've since decided that my needs for using a SPA-1001 instead are too great, so the PAP2T that I paid $40+ to get is sitting in the box under the desk.
I had hoped that the DSLREPORT coupon would had offset the expense of the VT supplied PAP2T, but found out after ordering that the coupon does not apply, due to the poor storefront interface that doesn't show your billed amount (and allow you to confirm) before charging your credit card. Several emails with billing support people gave conflicting (and sometimes incorrect) responses.
My dealings with the actual technical support folks have been great -- fast and knowledgeable.
My current setup is a BYOD SPA-1001, with VT on line 1. Sound quality is excellent, especially after coming from Packet8. I'm on a 4000/386 Comcast line (Adelphia legacy), and a WRT54GL w/DD-WRT firmware. So far, my wife is happy...
I'll report again in a few months to update any reliability issue.
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