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Review by sweetbabylee 
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.9 years, 16 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
 Murrieta,Riverside,CA
 $20 per month
 about 6 days
 "Dial tone with calling features & unlimited calls for $20 month!"
 "Technicial support, good luck! No faxing capabilities."
 "Da Bomb!!"
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I've had Packet8 since December 2003. I must say I was totally skeptical about VoIP because having retired from telecom, I had heard the many nightmares when implementing it for businesses. I am now a believer.
First off, for $20 a month, you cannot expect perfection! There are the occaisional dropped calls and voice drops, but common... we are talking $20.00!! My phone bill without toll was $35.00 and my toll charges were in the mid $100's monthly. I'll take a dropped call any day, but surprisingly they are few and far between!!
I have Comcast cable modem service. I received my box in approximately 6 days and was up and running in no time. The only issue was that voice mail did not pickup initially, and after contacting technical support that was repaired quickly. The quality is comparable to cellular service and at first I noticed the difference. But after using the service for the past three months, rarely noticed is the difference in quality.
My subsequent dealings with technical support were not satisfactory. Long, long hold times which eventually led to being dropped into a voice mail box and very poor response times to voice and e-mail (up to a week) help reinforce the need for backup telephone service in the form of a landline or cell phone. Fortunately, the latter issue was a billing question and perhaps that could account for the long response time. Also, remember if you have DirecTV or need to fax from your home, packet8 does not have that data capability so pots is required.
I happen to live in a remote bedroom community in Riverside County and my wife and my family are 60 miles to the south in San Diego County. We opted to get a San Diego telephone number since 90% of our incoming calls are from family down there and there's no charge for us to call locally anyways. We picked out a central office that was centrally located in San Diego so that the family in southern San Diego and the family in lower northern San Diego could call us toll free. It is so cool!!
Anyone who has medium to high phone bills with DSL or cable modem service who does not use this service has got to be rich or crazy (or both)! I am a true believer!
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Review by backhertz
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 22 visits, last login: 5.2 years ago
Mount Holly,Burlington,NJ
$20 per month (month by month)
about 10 days
"Price, quick response to e-mail questions, Price"
"Some echoing"
"Good value. Simple"
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My only problem was trying to configure a Dell 1184 wireless router to add the ATA with absolutely no luck. I called the Dell wireless tech support. Waited a very long time. Finally a wireless technician comes on line. I'm no networking expert or guru, but the technician hadn't a clue when it came to setting up the router. Anyhow a switch to a new auto-configuring Netgear router which was on sale reduced my install to a couple of minutes. I'm not ready yet to cut the copper umbilical wire to MaBell. The occassional dropouts are similar to my Cingular cellphone. The most attractive 'feature' will be the $500 savings compared to MaBell once the cord is cut.
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 Review by SteveOA
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 6.3 years, 1179 visits, last login: 291 days ago
Seattle,King,WA
$20 per month
about 10 days
"20 dollars a month for unlimited long distance"
"I had one time so far with no dial tone but it was cleared up in a minute"
"very smart buy"
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It took me a week and a half to get from the day it was ordered which isn't that bad, but the deliever guy(shipped through DHL) didn't even knock on my door he just put it on my porch and left so anyone really could have taken it. Hooked it up all the wires and at first it didn't work but then I power cycled it and it has worked fine since. While talking it sounds just like a regular phone, definatly worth the costs.
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Review by kabi24
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.8 years, 21 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
Puyallup,Pierce,WA
$19 per month
about 5 days
"cheap service, reliability ok"
"busy signal dialing out sometimes, voicemail coming up instead of rings"
"great service to have if you keep a cell phone anyway"
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After a long review of all voip services i landed on packet8. I ordered the service on sunday night online, got the adapter the following friday, up and runingin 5 minutes after switching to dynamic ip on my linksys router.
I got this service at the unlimited package price wich is almost half price compared to vonage, the sound quality is good, when i get packet loss i just hear nothing (rare- about two 1 seconds in an hour and half call to the east coast). i got to choose my area code, unlimited calling, caller id without name, voicemail is ok but i had to disable it because, when people call me they get voicemail instead of the phone ringing,if they try a couple times it will go through so now i'm just going with my answering machine on the phone, it seems ok now. Service is somewhat similar to cell phones, furthermore some cell phone numbers (from t-mobile) appear as ip numbers on my bill.
Calling overseas, i had one lost call when the i just couldn't hear any phone rings at all. lost a minute of international calling there, emailed support service for credit, but didn't get an answer, it's been two weeks.
As long your internet connection is solid you should be fine (i am a cable guy), i had my old phone line disconnected, and used the soft tone for 911 purposes only.
Overall the service is ok so far. I still have to wonder about the customer service and dealing with the increasing number of customers.
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Review by Automate
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 8.4 years, 3201 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Atlanta,Fulton,GA
$20 per month
"?"
"?"
"Do not use any more"
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I am no longer using Packet8
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Review by barmstrong9
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 6.3 years, 255 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
Claremore,Rogers,OK
$20 per month
about 10 days
"Getting to fire Bell.. saved big $$$"
"No Modem capabilities (rules out Fax, Alarm Monitoring, DTV, Tivo)"
"Can't afford not to have it!"
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The packet8.net experience so far has been great. Every once in a while I can hear myself echo but other than that.. the quality seems great. The only major outstanding issues with this service that need to be worked out are the ability to make a modem connection over the line even if it is a low speed connection and the ability to dial 911. As of now, you can't make a data connection from any device that uses a modem including Fax, Alarm systems, DirectTV, Tivo, etc. I would also like to see 7 digit dialing at some point, doesn't seem like it would be too hard for them to enable. Overall it has been great and saved me money!
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Review by pmckay
Posted: 5.8 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 276 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Brooklyn,Kings,NY
$20 per month
"It works. Call forwarding to the cell phone is great!"
"occasional outages in the past. MUCH Better now!"
"Great Value - Service gets noticeably better and better every month"
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Installation is a piece of cake - plug the DTE into your router at home and then plug the phone into the DTE. No need to open up ports. Works fine with dynamic addresses. DTE is very small, allowing you to take your local phone number to anyplace in the world - not tied to the cable modem like CableVision is.
They had some phone quality problems in the past... but it works fine now.
You can see your bill immediately on the web site, and update anything you want, which is great - no need to call customer support.
Why anyone would stick with a phone company, or even pay double to get someone elses service is beyond me.
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Review by Ikarasu
Posted: 5.9 years ago
member for 5.9 years, 1590 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Port Coquitlam,BC
$20 per month (month by month)
about 6 days
"Cheap, great long distance rates, excelent reliability, good sound quality."
"No virtual #'s."
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I ordered the item around X-mas time... I was told it'd be here faster... costed me around $90 USD shipping to canada (Not the cheapest,, but in the long run, I will be saving! I hope  ). Shipping took about a week... had to pay custom duties, since they put a Price on the value of the DTA...not saying it was a subscription. Shipping/getting it here... wasn't so great, but it gets better.
I opened the box.. got the DTA's Mac addy... Entered it into my Internets acceptance, Plugged an ethernet wire into the cable, Plugged in the phone.. clicked on(Didn't even have to wait!) And I made a phone call. Sound was excelent... And still is.
I hear many people complaining about packet8's Reliability... About it being echoing, ect. I have never had a problem... If I am downloading at max speed, then of course it cuts out once in awhile. I limit my speed to 250 KB/s on all 3 comps, and use the other 20 K for packet 8, when I pick up the phone... no static , no cutouts.... perfect sound. The other users... have not had a problem hearing me, or understanding me so far.
I am a heavy phone user... I've used the service for: 109 calls, or 500 minutes. (probably 50-60 of the calls, were to pagers to leave my #... have them call me back.. works great, I've talked on it for hours at a time.. easy, and it didn't cut out once). Two of the calls.. .are still in use. One time...when packet8 went down, another... when I unplugged my DTA. If you want a high phone bill... call vietnam, And unplug your DTA, it'll go on for days (Might be a way to talk for hours... unplug DTA, call them and say you aint calling overseas... you did for 5 mins, but it's still on calling after 4-5 hours... but exploting them is bad they just need to fix this.)
Overall.. I am VERY happy with the service. It has everything I want.. except for virtual phone #'s... which I wouldn't even need...just a nice option to have. I love the service, and I recommend it to everyone.
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Review by dreamer101
Posted: 5.9 years ago
member for 7.2 years, 1797 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Malaysia
$20 per month (month by month)
about 3 days
"Best VoIP service to be used from Asia"
"Minimal features"
"Best if you travel frequently to Asia or somewhere with low BW"
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I frequently travel between USA and Asia. And, when in Asia, I need to call to USA a lot (thousands of minutes). So, I was looking for a basic VoIP service that allow people in USA to call me as a local call and I can call out from Asia to USA for free. I tested Vonage by pinging their gateway from Malaysia and it is 300ms and make it unlikely to work. I ping Packet 8 and it is 250ms. Packet 8 DTA is small and the AC to DC power adapter is design to handle all range of AC. The power cord can be pull out and replace with local power cord. It is easy to carry and travel with. Packet 8 use G.723.1 and it only needs 11Kbps. It shipped to over-sea too...
In general, Packet 8 is the best choice if you need to use it in over-sea where bandwidth is constraint and latency is quite high. Pakcet8 seem to have better gateway to Asia than Vonage. If you using VoIP in Europe, than it may not matter whether it is Vonage or Packet8.
The only problem with Packet 8 is lack of feature. I wish they would support something like Fax to E-mail with the Packet 8 and support Fax.
Dreamer
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Review by youngmoore
Posted: 5.9 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 3091 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Marietta,Cobb,GA
$20 per month
"CHEAP, Call forwarding in the way it works"
"Wonder sometimes if you will get a dialtone"
"if your looking for cheap this is the one"
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I bit into the P8 line of VOIP somewhere last summer when I wanted to reduce my cost at home. At the time I had Vonage at work and home. I couldn't really justify 40 at home so
I changed over to P8. Now coming from Vonage where my line almost ALWAYS works to P8 where "most" of the time it works was as they say you get what you pay for. But as of late is been pretty good. The one REALLY great thing about P8 is their call forwarding.
The way it works is say you call me on my P8 line which is also forwarded to my cell.
Both will ring at the same time. For me this is what I wanted. There are times when I don't want to pick up the VOIP line but want to go to cell. Maybe I'm walking out the door or even not home or in the car. The really great part about this is that the caller doesn't get a million rings before someone picks up.
ym
No longer with P8. Only VON now.
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