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Certain female voices seem to cause the service to falsely detect a DTMF tone and thus you hear a loud DTMF tone on your end. The other party doesn't hear the tone, so thats a good thing. I have called tech support and they are aware its a problem but say that it affects everyone and there is nothing they can do. I have had this problem with other VoIP providers, so it's not a deal breaker... especially considering the fantastic feature set that Voicepulse offers. I would recommend Voicepulse over any and all other VoIP companies hands down. They are fantastic. member for 19.7 years, 1687 visits, last login: 3 years ago lodged 16.8 years ago
I signed up for VoicePulse last week, and thus far everything has been great. I bought a Linksys PAP2T VoIP adapter from a third party to use with the service. Had a minor issue getting the adapter to synchronize with the new settings. A call to their tech support resolved the issue quickly and effectively. A few days later, I had a minor issue with my phone adapter's time zone was set incorrectly, thus causing my caller-id display to display GMT instead of EST. This time I contacted them Friday by e-mail, and I was surprised to have it resolved by Saturday. They even called me on Monday to make sure everything was working the way it was supposed to. That being said, so far, their support has been surprisingly fantastic. No outsourced Indian tech support here. Also, the call quality has been top notch so far. If you're looking for a local calling plan with some long distance minutes included per month, their $14.99/mo plan for Local Unlimited +200 LD minutes is not a bad deal at all. member for 21.8 years, 574 visits, last login: 10.4 years ago lodged 17 years ago
I have had VoicePulse for a couple weeks now, and just initiated the process to port my number over from Verizon. I ordered it to replace the Verizon Freedom package which was just increased $5 to around $58 a month after taxes / fees. Call quality is very good, and reliability has not been an issue either. So far I am very happy with the service. All the features I have used have worked as advertised. The Call Waiting Caller ID that never worked with Verizon POTS, works with VoicePulse. Pretty much everything about the service is either equal to or better than the old land line. Install was a breeze. They sent me the Linksys PAP2T-NA box. I literally took it out of the box, plugged it into my router, phone, and power, and made a phone call immediately. No configuration of the Linksys device or my FIOS provided Actiontec router was needed. Time from order to live was just the amount of time it took UPS to deliver the package - they had it shipped the day after I ordered. Tech support has not been needed other than to begin the porting of my phone number, but I did call once and received a message that phone support was not available at that time. The porting was handled through email. UPDATE (3/9/07) - My phone number has been ported to VoicePulse as of today. I began that process on 2/15, so it took about 3 weeks. Everything went smoothly, and I received a phone call and email from VoicePulse when it was complete. member for 22.5 years, 1090 visits, last login: 11.5 years ago updated 17 years ago
I'm still minutely troubled by the idea of "power out, phone out", since the phone lines around here are almost all completely buried. But I have a prepaid cell phone, so who cares? BellSouth had me by the short and curlies - only phone operator in town, and $56/mo after fees and taxes for local calling, voice mail, caller ID, etc - NO long distance! I also had dialup at the time, so of course, I needed the phone line. Once Cox HSI speeds went up and prices came down (was $50/mo for 3Mbps down!), I ran to them for cable service (now $42/mo for 7Mbps down). That, of course, opened up the world of VoIP to me. VoicePulse took a little longer than light-speed to get me set up, because of the 911 address verification issue. However, my customer support rep at VoicePulse - yes, you get your OWN rep, who handles all your issues! Not a call center in another country! - was with me the whole way. A couple times, I got phone calls after sending in emails, to explain what's going on, see if I had any other questions, and so on. Heck, I even got an email response on a Sunday afternoon, before I was signed up. How cool is that? So I didn't chew my nails in worry over the address issue. Set up was too easy. Cable modem, router, phone adapter, telephone... ring ring, Hi, I'm on my new VoIP line, how are you? So long as you don't use USB to connect to your router, you don't even need to run any software at all during the whole setup. I'm borrowing the phone adapter from VoicePulse, a Linksys PAP2T, which was a $30 one-time fee. It was that, or buy my own for $70-80. I can live with sending it back when I'm done. If you want to keep your old phone number, you have to get it ported, and that - I'm told - will take at a bare minimum 30 days, so start the port ASAP. This isn't anything specific to VoicePulse, though. They'll send you a PDF that you print out, fill in, and fax to them with a portion of your regular phone service's bill - so don't cancel your landline yet, if you want to save the number! I've got 200 minutes of free long distance every month, with each minute extra at $0.039, a steal compared to Cox's digital telephone - $30+ for 100 minutes, $0.12/min after. Fun and cool features come with VoicePulse, too. Within just minutes of opening up the digital phone adapter, I was making and receiving calls, with EXCELLENT voice quality. I'm loving it! Oh, and did I mention you get a personal support rep who handles all your issues? Sweet. member for 17.1 years, 11 visits, last login: 16.7 years ago lodged 17.1 years ago
We have the VoicePulse Local Unlimited + 200 plan ($14.99/month), which gives us unlimited calling in our local area, plus 200 minutes of outbound calls per month outside of that area. The local calling area is defined as our entire local area code, plus the adjacent area codes in our state. This effectively covers the entire state for us, which is fantastic. We also have a virtual number ($4.99/month) that is local to our families in another state, allowing them to call us for free as well. All of that for $21 per month (including tax) with no long-term commitment seems like a great deal to me. We've had the service since early December, and for the first month or so, everything was great. Unfortunately, we've been experiencing a lot of intermittent call quality issues and partial or complete outages over the past few weeks. Those have included being unable to hear the calling party on incoming calls, static or even loud roaring on some calls, and periods in which either incoming calls or both incoming and outgoing calls could not be completed. The most recent outage was yesterday afternoon, and lasted for about 4 hours. That one was blamed on a problem with an upstream provider. They really do seem to be trying to troubleshoot and figure out the quality issues, and I'm still holding out hope that they will, because I really like the calling package and features. A just-completed call today was crystal clear, so they certainly are capable of POTS quality or better. I just need it to be more consistent in order to stay with them for the long term. member for 20.8 years, 153 visits, last login: 16.4 years ago lodged 17.1 years ago
I've had Voicepulse for about a year now and I've been mostly pleased with the service. I was a Vonage refugee and VoicePulse is a major departure from that poor product. Their website isn't flashy and needs to be updated to remain competitive. The install process went smoothly and simply, though it took a long time for my adapter to ship. Call quality has been excellent and the offered features are great. I have not personally ported over a land line number to VP, but relatives have from BellSouth with success. One feature that has never worked for me is free User to User calls. Calls show up as long distance minutes, forcing you to either call support every month for a credit or to get the unlimited LD plan. This supposedly will be fixed in early 2007. Tech support is mixed. The best feature is that you get to speak with a helpful person at their New Jersey headquarters every time you call. However, issues (like the above) sometimes never get resolved fully even after multiple requests over months. Overall, I've had a good experience with their service. However, I cannot fully recommend it until all advertised features are operational. member for 17.2 years, 9 visits, last login: 15 years ago lodged 17.2 years ago
We want to replace Bellsouth. They charge almost $50 per month and calls to the west side of town are considered long distance in a city of 26,000 people. I complained to Bellsouth about the extremely limited area and got no response. We received the "kit" from Voicepulse in about 5 days UPS. It consisted of a Sipura 2000 box (2 phone ports, one ethernet port, electronic plug in). Instructions are on one page with your phone number voice mail etc. Voicepulse local unlimited calling area is basically the southeastern 1/4 of Florida, Orlando to Key West. :>)) I spent about 10 minutes connecting, checked wireless router for DHCP address provided to the Sipura, checked dial tone, and called a buddy in KC. EASY. This maiden call had a little echo that only I could hear. Not bad, but slightly distracting. My wife then made call to Iowa. I also talked in the conversation and there was absolutely no echo, clarity greater than or equal to standard phone line. I have not set up any of the additional features of this service yet. We don't make a lot of long distance calls. This $14.95 service should be perfect for us. If we go over the limit, it's 3.9 cents per minute as I recall. I can deal with that. I hope the Voicepulse service continues this well. I have not yet tried calling card calls overseas with this service yet either. I will report back. Update - So far I am very pleased with the service. The calls have been perfect only a slight echo on the first call. ALL others crystal clear. Updated call quality rating based on use. I tested it with a "local call" to Key West and it worked fine, just dialed the number with area code, verified it was billed as a local call. No confusion how to dial locals, I just used the area code plus number and it worked fine. My wife has used it to make a calling card calls to Thailand and it worked fine also. No different than regular phone line. Update 12/26/2007 We have had VoicePulse for a couple years now. Their service has been extremely good. The only failures we have incurred were (a) entended power outages from hurricanes (b) user error when knocking the power supply partially out of the power strip without realizing it (c) the splitter coming out of the SIP box had become unplugged somehow by the users. We make a fair amount of calls to the west coast, many to Thailand, and they always are clear. We have gone over the alloted 200 minutes a few times, the recent bill was $19.50 instead of the normal $14.99ish. Not a big deal though, auto billing has been ok. member for 19.2 years, 26 visits, last login: 11.6 years ago updated 17.2 years ago
December 15, 2006 update. Still very good service. We are pleased with VP. Some initial trouble with E911 service, but it is working now. I highly recommend you place a test call to 911. You have to identify that you are doing a test or call the non-emergency number first and ask them if it is ok for you to make the test 911 call. I've got my Linksys adapter in a DMZ and it works fine. Original review: I ordered through the website and it was pretty easy. The online form could not verify my address for 911, but was processed a day or two later once my address was verified. I got the unlimited local, 200 long distance plan. Can't beat 15 bucks a month. Lots of features, I like having the voicemail emailed. You do get large files, but that's ok. Being able to listen to the voicemail through the website would be a nice feature. I got the Linksys phone adapter and it setup fine. Just plugged it in. The call quality has been good, so far. I was also able to port my local number so that was a nice touch. Nothing like calling ATT and telling them I don't need phone service. I've found the customer support to be very helpful. Heck, they even call you. How's that for service. Bottom line: I'm very happy with VP. They have lots of features that make it a very good value. member for 20.7 years, 38 visits, last login: 11.2 years ago updated 17.2 years ago
12/12/06 Update So far continued smooth sailing for the most part. The only problem I am having is if I am on the internet, there is a degradation of call quality at times. Still trying to troubleshoot that one. I am told that the best option is a router that has a quality of service feature on it to manage my bandwidth. I have FIOS internet with bandwidth to spare but my internet apps may be trying to hog all they can get. The commenter right before me has had problems with incoming calls. I think it has to do with the number he was assigned. I have no problems because my number was ported over from my previous VOIP provider which was ported over from Verizon. So It's been my number for 6+ years. 12/1/06 Update So far I am very impressed. The call quality is excellent and none of the problems I had with Quantumvoice. I like the distinctive ring option. Now I know when my mother is calling without even having to look at caller id. Also to clarify. 30 days was time from order to existing number port. I could have been live in 24 hours if I used the number assigned by Voicepulse. Original Post I've been a VOIP user for about a year and a half. Until yesterday my only experience was with Quantumvoice. Overall QV's service was okay but I did have some issues that would not go away and their switch to new ownership was lead to a major decline in customer service. My major complaints were occasional echoes in calls, unexplained failures to receive incoming calls, and random phone ringing when a voicemail was left. This last was most annoying. Orignally, QV's tech support was very personal and quite attentive, even if they could not solve the problem but under new ownership, that personal attention disappeared. Due to this, the ongoing problems, and the truly atrocious web portal, I decided to switch to a new provider. Checking this site's ratings, I first called ATT because they have a rich feature set and a really good web portal. But ATT could not port my phone number from another VOIP provider. I then read up about Voicepulse. They had the features I needed, a good price (less than QV), and good ratings. They could also port over my number. I signed up a month ago and my number ported over yesterday. The delay was QV's fault. There database did not have my correct address (somehow they had it correct for billing). I swapped out the ata and everything worked fine. The call quality seems great and I really like the features such as distinctive ring so I know when my mother is calling without even having to look at caller id. The web portal is great but could use some improvements (click to dial, phone book, voicemail access and management on the web). Hope these features will be added but they are far from deal breakers. Anyway, I just wanted to give my first impression which is very positive. I will try to remember and update in a month. member for 20.2 years, 187 visits, last login: 13 years ago updated 17.3 years ago
--02/18/07-- The best part about VoicePulse is that I don't even have to think about it. It just works all the time. Great features, great price, great quality = Highly recommended! --12/27/06-- I'm still very happy with VP. I continue to be impressed at the quick response time whenever there is an issue. Unfortunately, and to no fault of VP's but FCC has required an added tax onto the service of 6% per month. --11/15/06-- VP has been fantastic! Flat rate fee with all these features and best reliability record of all the competition. I'm very happy! --10/16/06-- No news is good news, as the saying goes. Smooth sailing since my last entry. Everything just works! Love this service! --8/26/06-- My port completed earlier this week, that makes it just 2 weeks from filling out the paperwork to completion! However, earlier this week there was an outage which caused busy signals or no dial tone on outgoing calls. Also noticed some calls were choppy. I'm hoping this is resolved and I can continue enjoying great quality voice from VP. --8/10/06-- Just an update, VoicePulse called to let me know that they fixed my callerid timestamp. It was a fix that the engineers had to do because although it was correct on the website account edit screen it was wrong on the adapter interface screen. I am absolutely THRILLED that this has been resolved and everything is going smoothly. I'm very happy with VP and would highly recommend it to anyone considering them! I have started the process this week of porting my QV number to VP. I'll update when that is complete. --7/27/06-- I had VP before for a day and my old review is below. However, after waiting for a second phone line from QV for two weeks I decided to give VP a second chance (especially since I've read so many good reviews for them). Second time around has been a charm. I am very happy, and I think my previous issues were due to the ATA they sent me. Voice quality has been great, just as good as QV this time around. The only issue I had was the long wait time for my ATA to be delivered which was odd because I only waited 2 days the previous time. I found out it was due to problems with setting up the E911. Also I noticed that on my phone callerid timestamp is off (displays GMT time). The call logs show the correct time. I put in a trouble ticket, engineers are working to resolve this. I love the ability to get tech support so quickly and how they follow up on everything. Everyone at VP is pleasant to deal with. I will give it a couple weeks and then probably moving my QV number over too. --Old Review-- 6/06 After getting frustrated about the lack of features/upgrades with Quantum Voice I decided to try out Voice Pulse. I ordered my new phone line via their website but noticed after running the phone number (reverse phone lookup) they gave me that it belonged to someone else! I called their support line and was told to call back when the ATA arrived and request a new number. The ATA arrived today, I called and received my new number, no problem. What I noticed immediately was that the voice quality was poor and my callers noticed this as well. There was echoing, and static and these are things that I never experienced with QV. It was a no brainer for me, I want quality over features so I called up VP and asked them to cancel my account. Unfortunately for me I will have to eat the shipping costs to send the ATA back. However, I must say that the VP support was friendly and when I called to cancel there was no pressure involved, which to me is a big stress relief! member for 18.6 years, 223 visits, last login: 16.3 years ago updated 17.3 years ago
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