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Review by Pyg 
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 8 years, 148 visits, last login: 114 days ago
 Decatur,Morgan,AL
 $20 per month
 about 3 days
 "My phone bill went from $100.00 per month to $20.00 per month"
 "I have to dial 1+ the area code for local calls."
 "I love it and will not go back to Bellsouth."
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** Since I've only had my Pack8 service a few hours, I am giving them neutrual marks on call reliability and Tech Support. I will adjust the scale as I use the service.
I researched several VOIP providers and settled on Vonage and Packet8. Packet8 was available in my area code so that was the main reason why I went with them instead of Vonage.
I think that Packet8 could improve the content of their web site. The Vonage web site seemed to have more information about VOIP in general.
Ordering was simple, my wife had the service ordered in 15 min.
The shipping was great. Even over the July 4th holiday weekend I had my device in 5 days or less.
The install was very easy. I hooked up the box to my switch and it went live in about five minutes. The first call was to activate the service and that took 30 seconds from the Packet8 line. I did not have to open ports on my router.
One feature that I would like to see added to Packet8 is Caller ID plus (displays name and number). The current caller ID only displays the phone number (a small price to pay for big savings) and while it's not a deal breaker, it's a feature that I would like to see added to Packet8.
The call quality is great. Nobody can even tell that we are using a VOIP instead of Bellsouth.
Order Time... 15 minutes
Install Time... 10 minutes
Being able to poke my finger in Bellsouth's eye... PRICELESS
I've shut off my POTS line and only use Packet8 and cell phones.
*********************************
07-31-04
**Packet8 update**
I've had the service for about a month now and I have been very impressed with Packet8. The firmware update went very well and they keep improving the quality of service. It's nice to see additional services being added in a short amount of time.
I haven't expereinced any outages. My wife did experience a slight echo (firmware 12.33) when she called Canada but they seem to have corrected the issue with later firmware updates.
I have not had to call tech support at all so I'm going to leave that category neutral.
**************
03/05/05
I'm still with P8 and I am still a big fan. There has only been a couple of outages in my area over the last few months and very few problems with call quality. The firmware upgrades have been coming out regularly and P8 is supporting more features now.
I have reccomended P8 to several of my friends in my area and they have all been pleased with the service. Most of them have canceled their Bellsouth land lines and are strictly on VOIP.
I moved the Tech Support rating up from neutral to 5 and the reason is that I have NEVER had to call tech support for anything. It's not a true rating of their tech support but I figure that if I have had the product this long and never even needed tech support then it deserves more than a netural rating.
While they have made some improvements to their website, I'd love to see them improve their FAQ.
*************
11-06-08
I happened by DSL Reports looking to see if any new services were in my area and stumbled across my P8 review and thought it needed an update.
I'm still using the same DTA that I started with and I've still never needed to contact P8 support. I'm still with them after all these years so that says something about their service.
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Review by slimmy
Posted: 1.1 years ago
member for 1.6 years, 418 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Idaho Falls,Bonneville,ID
$22 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Good customer service and great price."
"internet goes down so does phone"
"Much cheaper than pots."
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Signed up for Packet8 October of 2005. Was being charged 43'ish dollars for local landline from Qwest. So I decided to do some research and I was looking for something cheap, but reliable. So I sign up. I had some problems at first, but that was my cheap dlink routers fault. So I purchased a di-724u that had Qos in and only have had a few problems since.
I just signed up a friend from work. We will see how that goes.
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Review by david_albert
Posted: 1.1 years ago
member for 5.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
Columbia,Howard,MD
Contract price not specified.
"low cost"
"Service policies, outages, no fax or conference calls"
"Not worth the trouble"
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I frequently work from home and initially subscribed to Packet8 to add a home-office line. Eventually, I had 3 Packet8 VOIP lines; I tried to make them work for a couple of years (I'm stubborn) but I've given up and canceled two of them and am planning to cancel the third shortly.
As an early Packet8 subscriber, I was assured that fax support would be working within a month or two...it didn't arrive for years and when it did, it was at an extra cost.
Conference calls were unacceptable; after some time 5min, 10 min, sometimes 15 min, the line would develop excessive echo and become unusable. This problem alone made Packet8 unusable for home-office work.
Packet 8 outages were frequent and recovery was often not automatic (you had to notice the outage and then power cycle your SIP box...in the meanwhile, you were not receiving calls); friends also frequently reported that they could not call me.
Finally, when I disconnected service, they continued billing me long after I had ported the numbers to another carrier. I am still working to resolve this, but their customer "service" indicated that they keep billing whether or not they are providing service until they receive an explicit request to cancel service...and that their terms of service allow this...this seems unethical at best.
On the whole, I found 8x8 networks not worth the trouble...as a company, they are not ethical and their service is marginal.
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Review by speed_phreak
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 3.6 years, 253 visits, last login: 112 days ago
Culver,Jefferson,OR
$21 per month (12 month contract)
"199 a year for unlimited calling and long distance. fairly reliable given the reliability of VOIP"
"$5/ month in extra fees. no faxing without more $$$"
"what can i say? it is what it is... I don't feel that i will loose money with packet 8 like i did with sunrocket"
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this is my first review of packet 8 and i am going on my second year of service.
I don't always know how i feel about g.729, but it seems to require less bandwidth, not as picky with latency, and it doesn't sound that bad.
My service has been fairly reliable. I do need to power-cycle my bpg510 gizmo every 3 month or so, because i will loose dial tone and miss calls.
packet 8 has been around much longer than any other REAL VOIP company. like many people, i got burned by sunrocket. i am willing to pay a little more for a stable service from a stable company. this is important now more than ever with the tough economic times ahead.
packet 8 does seem to trail other VOIP providers in features. this can also be seen as a good thing though, because as other providers are constantly adding new features and destabilizing their networks, packet 8 just plugs along... like a trusty old diesel.
packet 8 also limits you to their proprietary gizmo ata device. some may see this as a limitation, but i see it as controlled environment with many constants. this is what allows for packet 8's reliability...
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Review by lifeform
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 6.4 years, 736 visits, last login: 10 days ago
Santa Clara,Santa Clara,CA
$25 per month
about 2 days
"Works, reliable, stable co."
"website seems clunky"
"I recommend it"
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I was the first paying customer of Packet8 when they launched. I know that because my CC crashed their billing system. Given that I have been using their service for a long time now, I must say I have been pleased all these years. It works for me with admittedly low call volume per month but having LD from AT&T before was a waste of time and money. I like 8x8's product since they have a good stable backbone that extends to their MobileTalk offering that I use on an iPhone. Also, I have the original DTA, it works very well for me and has traveled with me to Japan and other parts of the world. Back 5+ years ago, it was hard to get a soln to LD @ a hotel on the road in another country that was cheap and reliable.
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Review by tony72
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 127 visits, last login: 156 days ago
Rochester,Olmsted,MN
$27 per month
about 5 days
"better than most"
"poor sound quality/connections"
"You can find better for the money"
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History: I have tested several VOIP carriers in the past: packet8.net, voip.com and a few others that no longer exist during June of 2005. These were side-by-side tests, taking advantage of their 30-day trials. Of those tested, I settled for packet8.net, did not test vonage at the time as they did not have service in my area.
The packet8.net service was much more stable than the other providers, but not as good as current analog service. Reasons for checking again on other VOIP carriers was the packet8.net service, I had been experiencing frequent problems, which seem to be increasing: bad connections, dropped calls, fish tank calls, fail to connect calls, and fail to receive calls. I used packet8.net from July 2005 until Aug 2008.
I did submit a support ticket to packet 8, but only received a long list of trouble-shooting steps. It was faster to order a 30 day trial of Vonage, which worked seemlessly. Using both packet8.net and Vonage side-by-side, Vonage completely out-performed packet8.
I have now switched both of my lines from packet8 and qwest to vonage.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 1.3 years ago
(review was emailed from domain comcast.net)
Naples,Collier,FL
$80 per month
"Great technical support"
"Sometimes internet echo"
"Solved my problem, something else not to worry about."
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My overall experience with Packet-8 has been excellent and the system delivers everything as advertised. It is the technical support service, yes technical support that made me a believer. I have been an art and personal property appraiser in Florida for 26 years and added a second office appraising exotic automobiles. My needs were simple; call my local or 800 number, press 1 or 2 to ring either office. Unfortunately my local telephone company did not have a clue as to how this could be accomplished. I stumbled upon the Packet 8 system at my local office supply store, purchased two Packet 8 phones and by the end of the day both offices were linked. It is simple plug and play technology, configuring the system is complicated until you speak with Packet 8 technical support. Their training is superb and they stayed with me until I was satisfied. I find it impossible now to live without the message feature that sends a copy of the messages to my email. I can replay that message on my cell phone anywhere. When the internet is down it automatically transfers the call to another number and you can even keep your phone from ringing in the middle of the night, yet take a message. I know that I have omitted something but it is a good product backed by a first class technical support team. When was the last time you actually spoke to one?
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 Review by Subaru
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 4243 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Greenwich,Fairfield,CT
$24 per month
about 4 days
"Very Easy to Set up, Decent Call Quality"
"had lots of issues with Outtages on Packet 8's end"
"Good if you can Deal with some tiny issues"
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About 2 months ago I signed up for the Packet 8 VOIP service, I wanted something Cheap but good call quality. A few people Recommended that I get Packet8, So Ordered the stuff I needed from the site and in about 4 days my package arrived in a white box; very easy to set up only took about 15 min. worked Great however about a month later Packet 8 had some servers fail which caused the service to go out in a large area, it would come and go, Lucky for me I did not need to make a call into the Job at the time.
I know some of this cant be avoided but it would really help if Packet 8 sends out emails to the customers letting us know if they are going to do any work or anything like that.
Also The Packet 8 Website was updated since I've been with them, the new site is MUCH better then the old.
I will try and keep this updated on how the service is going.
5/10/07
Service is still good still some issues on my end due to my ISP I tend to get a lot of dropped packets indicated by the flashing Line light on the ATA.
Some odd issues like my password wont work the first time when trying to check the voicemail but trying it again works.
Update 2 years later no major issue still
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Review by jokerz99
Posted: 1.4 years ago
member for 7.9 years, 129 visits, last login: 125 days ago
Chicago,Cook,IL
 Business customer
Contract price not specified.
"Quick order processing"
"QOS issue, call routing errors, random drops"
"I would say those looking to get packet8 to save cash ... its not worth it look at another VOIP system"
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Where does one begin.
Packet8 was quick to process my order I had all my phones in the office pretty fast. The website to setup the extensions is pretty easy to use and user friendly. After that I have nothing good to do say about it. Calls would randomly drop. Also right before a MAJOR client phone conference we hear there voice as if they are robots. We ended up talking on the speakerphone of my CFO's CELL PHONE!!. For those IT savy people... QOS is enabled on my network, the UDP and TCP port packet8 use's has priority on my network. Its even on its own dedicated switch with static IP's and static route to gateway... still major issues. It is also on its own network so there is no PC plugged into there little switch.
And tech support !! HA dont make me laugh I have been playing phone tag with there tech support.. who has still let to call me. Honestly the money you think you save you would probably lose is sales or client due to crappy voice service. I am currently looking at coredial to replace them I will post a review on them once I get there equipment.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 1.5 years ago
(review was emailed from domain candw.ky)
Fort Lauderdale,Broward,FL
$100 per month
"Good quality, good service,"
"Some improvements could usefully be made on documentation."
"We have used domestic and business systems extensively and both continue to work well for us."
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We run a small firm that registers companies, yachts, ships and aircraft in
different parts of the world together with insurance and fund administration
For our international communications, we have been
using the Packet 8 system for a number of years with great success.
By establishing virtual extensions in different capitals, our clients need
only make a local call and this links to our physical office on the other
side of the world. For typical businesses where local calls are allowed but
long distance calls have to be charged out, this greatly facilitates
communication and the business that emanates from it. So, it is good for us
and good for the client.
System setup is nearly all done online and is relatively easy. For
beginners with the business system, a simple descriptive overview of the
component parts, together with example configurations would be helpful to
get up to speed. Once having understood the way the system works, then the
documentation is fine.
Technical support has been great. We have never had to wait more than a few
minutes to speak to someone and always got sensible answers from courteous
people. Compared to other service centres, this is a real breath of fresh
air and a major plus for busy people who simply want to reach the right
person and get on with sorting the problem.
Over the last five years, system quality and reliability has improved
considerably. Devices rarely need rebooting and sound quality is clear as a
bell. Our system is in use every day and delivers consistently good
results. Tip: if sound quality suddenly goes off, check your microwave
oven. Some of the older units [or perhaps older ovens] seem to be
susceptible to microwave interference giving rise to the hallowed cry, "turn
off the microwave, I'm on the phone"!
One recommendation I would make is an option for a user-defined time zone.
Not all countries operate daylight saving time and not all countries are
listed. So if, for example, one could set "GMT-4", this would fix time at
Greenwich Mean Time minus four hours all year round.
If the receptionist is in the powder room when her extension rings and I
want to pick up from my extension rather than walking across the office, can
it be done? The answer is, "yes" but we found no indication in the manual
as to how. However, we posed the question by email and received an answer
overnight.
All in all we are very happy with Packet 8. We have used residential and
business systems extensively and both continue to work well for us.
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