Review by ssavoy  - Location: Luzerne,Luzerne,PA
- Cost: $5 per month
- Install: about 4 days
Good "Fast port-in, free incoming calls, good call quality"
Bad "Calls blocked at random"
Overall "Can't really treat them as a true phone company"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Ported a family member into Anveo in early July which only took ~4 days from a Verizon landline. Call quality was good and calls were fine. However, we were blocked from dialing certain exchanges due to high interconnect charges from the local telco. Sometimes these calls went through, sometimes they were blocked. It was seemingly random when these calls would work. Anyone could call us, we couldn't always call them. It should either work 100% or fail 100% of the time. Randomness was annoying.
This issue I understand is not that uncommon in the VoIP world, but their only saving grace is in their Terms of Service which state they don't have to deliver all calls....or something of that nature. Regardless, I emailed customer service by opening a free ticket which had a 24-48 hour response window which they responded at hour 49 only because I nudged them after 48 hours. CS simply stated they can't deliver calls to those destinations. There was no offer to pass an extra fees along to us or any additional support. Then after a week I noticed they changed their free support window to 72+ hours.
I responded to their reply, including the fact that we were able to dial these numbers successfully at random times, to which I received no follow-up. I even asked what would be involved in using Anveo Direct, to which I received no response. After ~10 days or so I nudged the ticket again for some kind of answer, and it's been a month and still no response. The ticket is STILL open after 45+ days and I never got a reply after that initial response that basically said "We can't do it."
We just recently started having difficulty dialing certain toll-free numbers as well. We attempted dialing Comcast customer service along with another 1-888 number to which the call failed at being delivered. I tested all of these failed numbers on another Anveo account and had the same experience.
I hate to be that guy with the negative review, but the fact their customer service was satisfied with a "We can't do it" answer nor tried to save my business by offering migrating the account to Anveo Direct means I cannot really treat them as a real telephone company nor recommend them to anyone else after this experience. It's really a shame, because I'd be giving them a much better review if their customer service was at least better.
I am in the process of porting out the line to VoIP.ms which does not block any of our calls and customer service has responded to my inquiries within minutes.
Sorry Anveo, I really gave you more than enough opportunity here.
member for 6.1 years, 518 visits, last login: 2 days ago
updated 35 days ago
Comments:
 anveoPremium
join:2010-02-08
kudos:1 | Thank you for the review. I am sorry to hear about blocked calls. Indeed calls to some rural exchanges with high interconnect charges are blocked. We did not do it in the past but some users had started to abuse it and as a protective measure the block was implemented...
The good news is that we are working on the solution to address it.
As far as switching to Anveo Direct; Anveo Direct is wholesale service and you can not really connect IP phone or ATA device directly Anveo Direct as it does not support SIP Registration and uses IP authentication only. | |
|  | ssavoyPremium
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA Reviews:
 ·Anveo
| Re: Thank you for the review. Thank you for your quick response. I would be willing to use Anveo again after this was implemented in some way that would at least give the end-user control over what happens when a call would be blocked instead of the randomness that was experienced. I can only assume the call was being routed out different carriers each time and whatever had a rate below a specific threshold was allowed through.
Also I noticed your Anveo Direct rates are published online, and the numbers that were blocked seemed to have rates no higher than some other areas that we could call fine. Granted, Direct is a separate service but at some point I would assume the calls are still routed through the same carriers at the end of the day. | |
| | | anveoPremium
join:2010-02-08
kudos:1 | Re: Thank you for the review. Internally Anveo retail service uses Anveo Direct for all inbound and outbound calls.
As you probably know by now Anveo Direct has interconnects with multiple carriers and includes flexible LCR (Least Cost Routing) technology to deliver calls in the cost effective way.
I assume that you are quite technical person so I will provide in-depth technical answer to "random"(or what looks like "random") blocks that you've experienced.
Here is what happens when Anveo retail service sends a call to Anveo Direct
1) Anveo Retail sets a set of special Anveo Direct LCR headers to contol Anveo Direct LCR model (if you are curious you can find them on DSLR)
in particular: 'call rate cap' and carriers/routes to be used for the call and failover option.
2) then Anveo Direct finds which carriers/routes among specified in step 1 have the actual calling rate to a given destination number less than 'call rate cap' specified
3) next Anveo Direct orders the list of available carriers/routes by calling rate (lowest to highest)
4) finally Anveo Direct sends a call to the first carrier in order
5) if that carrier/route fails to accept the call (wholesale carrier are not oblidged to accept all calls) then Anveo Direct sends a call to the next one in order. It continues until the call is accepted by some carrier or no more carriers to try.
Because of the built-in failover capability Anveo (via Anveo Direct) provides exceptional reliability for outgoing calls (domestic and international).
However, in your case, because the call is made to a high cost area in US and Anveo retail sets 'call rate cap' the list of carriers which might deliver a call to the destination number is small (most likely it is 1 or maybe 2 carriers/routes). If that carrier occasionally declines to accept the call there is no really another route to failover to and the call is not getting through.
Obviously increasing the 'rate cap' will increase the list of carriers/routes but it will also increase how much we will get charged for the call.
We will not be exposing the same level of call control as Anveo Direct has because it will confuse majority of customers and the solution will allow user to select extended coverage within US at a higher per call rate.
BTW If you are looking at Anveo Direct rates then you need to use prices which show ALL Carrier/Routes as all other rates are based on strict LCR (only a single carrier with the lowest rate) without failover option. | |
| | | | | | | ssavoyPremium
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA Reviews:
·Anveo
| Re: Anveo Direct gives you full control Good to hear. As I said I set this up for a family member to be relatively "set-and-forget". Anveo Direct seems like a good service....and our Comcast IP addresses never change unless we change the MAC of the router so IP Authentication might have worked fine. I was primarily interested in it as a stop-gap until our Anveo balance was depleted to give them more time to look into the issue. But Customer Service not responding to any of my emails after the first one was still a second issue which kind of made the main issue worse. | |
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| | anveoPremium
join:2010-02-08
kudos:1 | Re: Thank you for the review. said by ssavoy:Thank you for your quick response. I would be willing to use Anveo again after this was implemented in some way that would at least give the end-user control over what happens ...
No more blocked calls! Please take a look at »[Anveo] New Features | |
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| | | | justsosoPremium
join:2013-08-19
united state | Re: Thank you for the review. To be fair, its not just the voip providers doing this. Being part of rural America, drop calls are very common from multiple cell phone providers as well as long distance carriers. Our small telco is getting beat up from calls on this very issue. | |
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Reviews:
·callwithus
·Callcentric
1 edit | Might be interesting.... Might be interesting to check some of the various rates to the rural areas by using the CallWithUs (CWU) rate checker.
Go to this page, then enter the phone number in the box which says [Enter the phone number]. You must use 11-digit format for US numbers (1+AC+number) and not use any hyphens etc.
»www.callwithus.com/showrates | |
| | ssavoyPremium
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA | Re: Might be interesting.... Thanks - this is a really handy tool! | |
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