 Review by ymhee_bcex 
member for 7.1 years, 736 visits, last login: 2 days ago
updated 238 days ago
 Tarzana,Los Angeles,CA
 $8 per month- (24 month contract)
 about 10 days "Good call quality, quick install, knowledgeable support" "24-month contract, website can be confusing" "So far so good"
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Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Update October 23, 2012.
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Apparently, voice quality problem cannot be resolved. Well, it looks like I will have to move this one problematic account. Tier II tech was noticeably embarrassed: "Yes, I can see that other Voipo phone number rings your adapter without any problems, and yes I can see that 5 other VSPs work fine with your router; but I was told by my superiors to tell you that it is your bandwidth - and the fact that another Voipo number works fine is just a fluke. No, I am not saying that it makes sense, but that's what I was told to tell you".
For now, I forwarded Voipo number to Google Voice and plugged the phone into Obi. Everything works fine. We need to decide whether switch phone number completely and use Google Voice; go through the pain of porting the number through Sprint pre-paid to Google Voice; or switch to some other provider like Future Nine. But at least my parents are happy with the voice quality - which is more than they can say about Voipo.
Update September 7, 2012. Voice quality problems continue; and the support is surprisingly bad from both technical and organizational perspective. The ticket gets passed from one tech to another without any notes, so the next one starts with the same script that it is probably a router or ISP, or Southern California heat. Then it gets escalated to level 2; and level 2 person turns out to be looking at the wrong account and gives a bunch of advice that doesn't apply. I first thought that he is an idiot - but then it was simply he was looking at the wrong account.
Update July 4, 2012: Voice quality is occasionally unacceptable. Then it seems to be working fine again. A good overview of people having problems (including me) is here: »forums.voipo.com/showthread.php/···n-issues. Tech support is knowledgeable, but their only troubleshooting tool seem to be ping. I was going to switch another line to Voipo, but now I think I will try CallCentric instead.
Update December 20, 2011: I got number ported in 10 days. As soon as I emailed them authorization letter, they created a ticket, and sent me periodical status updates. Specifically, they informed me in a day or two about the expected transfer day, and it happened right when they said.
VOIPo indeed resets adapter user password every time it reboots. When I contacted support about it, I encountered the first clueless tech (first three or four were top-notch). The problem wasn't that he wasn't knowledgeable; the problem is that he wasn't willing to accept that he doesn't know the answer and was trying to BS his way out of the situation. Finally, he contacted level 2, and they set the password to something that I specified. OK - but PhonePower somehow figured out the way to not touch user password on the same Grandstream model.
It's nice that both VOIPo and Phone Power include 60 minutes of international calls. However, regular international rates are notably higher than, say, Call With Us or VoipDiscount.
Now, please - do something about this freaking website of yours. If you don't have budget for it, at least set up a customer forum - you will get a lot of ideas "for free".
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December 9, 2011. I switched one of my three accounts from VoicePulse to VOIPo, and I've had Phone Power for several months. So, I will compare these as much as I can.
I've had VOIPo service for less than a week; so I put quality and reliability to "best" (no complaints so far), but may come later and change if the problems arise.
Ordering / delivery / installation was completely seamless. I got adapter the next day (well, I live within driving distance from their Irvine office, but it's still nice surprise). The adapter is obviously used - but so is the DVR from the cable company, not a big deal. It got initialized in 10 minutes (as instructions say), and it works - what else do you need!
Voice quality is quite good. I made both domestic and international calls (haven't tried incoming calls yet, since old number still rings on the old phone, and nobody knows my new temporary number).
I absolutely love "cloned line". Essentially, you have two phones for the price of one. Both Phone Power and VOIPo have it; and VoicePulse doesn't. VOIPo has "Scheduling" feature. My PhonePower line needs it, but PP doesn't have it. On the other hand, phone power has incoming fax support. VOIPo has it only as an add-on feature for $36/yr.
It's very easy to get SIP credentials (Phone Power requires to open a ticket, but they included a "MagicJack-like" USB phone, so I never got a chance to do it). VOIPo accomplishes the same in one click; so I already successfully set up my PIAF pbx to dial through them.
Price-wise, VOIPo is the cheapest ($185 for 2 year contract) without any compromise on functionality. PP is $260 for two years (would be more if I ordered the adapter from them).
The biggest annoyance is VOIPo website. For starters, feature pages have CSS of "-moz-user-select=none". In other words, you can't cut and paste from the page. Don't know what they tried to accomplish (it's not that difficult to remove this style in Firefox), but the only thing they *did* accomplish was customer dissatisfaction.
Control panel is terrible. Some options don't work (for example, SMS control is advertised, but doesn't work); others lack any explanation ("speed dial" which is called "outbound routing" is very non-intuitive to set up).
One other odd thing. It looks like user password on the Grandstream adapter cannot be changed. When I change it, the adapter says that it requires reboot - but when I reboot, the password gets reset to the default ("123"). I wanted to be able to look at the adapter from the office, but obviously, I am not going to open firewall port if I can't change the password.
Comments:
 | | GREAT feedback Im a Web Designer... perhaps they will allow me to improve on their Website. Thank you for your stellar REVIEW! | |
| VOIPoTimVOIPo.comPremium,VIP
join:2006-06-06
Newport Beach, CA
kudos:2 | Info Hello,
I'm the owner of VOIPo and saw this.
Could you PM or e-mail your ticket numbers for the 10/23 update to tim @ voipo.com so I can take a look.
The response you got from our support sounds odd and I'd like to look into it and see if we can't get it resolved for you.
If one of your numbers works well and the other doesn't, something seems wrong there.
Please send me info so I can take a look and see what we can do about this. I'm not 100% sure that response from support is accurate without looking into it.
Thanks!
Timothy Dick
Founder/CEO
VOIPo.com | |
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