how-to block ads
|
»next review in page
Review by scoff 
Posted: 5.4 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 100 visits, last login: 301 days ago
 Dallas,Dallas,TX
 $20 per month (month by month)
 about 8 days
 "Call plan includes Western Europe, low cost."
 "Support is non-existent. No documentation, pieces of service out"
 "OK for personal call addition if you make LOTS of calls to Europe."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Looked forward to this as a great service. Very disappointed. When connected the call quality was OK, but in just the first day of service:
1. Voicemail "that service is not available now" message multiple times.
2. Could not access or retrieve voicemails over the phone. It worked fine sending the message to my email.
3. System busy signals. (worked fine when calling from normal POTS and cell).
4. Tech support...they admit to "never having used the phone..it does not work in India." Cannot answer even most basic questions, they simply type in your problem and "someone will call you or email your answer". 12 hours later..neither has happened. Why don't they at least have a manual available online, so you can look up your own answer?
5. Web service had non-functioning areas that repeatedly asked for a login...and would not recognize my correct login. Multiple tries and it would sometimes work. Very strange.
Some warble in voice noticed by people I called. I was successful in calling friend in Italy (after 3 tries, and one disconnect...but this could have been on the Italy side). He commented that the call quality was great.
Overall....could not recommend except to those that want to add an auxiliary service to call overseas for a fairly low $19.95 per month.
It looks like they just brought this product out WAY too early without testing. I will return it and try Vonage.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of LINGO |
 | »next review in page (previous review)
Review by captain_k
Posted: 5.4 years ago
member for 5.5 years, 546 visits, last login: 3.6 years ago
Atlanta,Fulton,GA
$19 per month
about 3 days
"Cheap. Worked out of the box. Fee virtual number."
"Caller-ID doesn't work. Poor documentation. Voice quality doesn't match Vonage"
"Tolerable if you need extra-chep service or make lots of calls to Western Europe."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I've been a Vonage customer for several months, and have had my POTS line ported over. When Lingo announced its unlimited $19.99 plan, I thought I'd give it a try and compare the too.
Besides the cost, Lingo offered another advantage: it offered a free virtual number in Knoxville, TN, a city not served by Vonage.
As soon as a plugged in the adapted, it worked. Calls to the virtual rang through with a distinctive ring, as promised. The quality of the calls, however, is definitely below Vonage and someone where between a cell phone and a POTS line.
Caller-ID also doesn't work. When I call other people, my call generally comes up as "unknown." When they call me, I only get their number. Also, the time of the call on caller-ID is wrong because the adapter does not properly sync its time settings.
Unless things get better quickly, I will probably cancel before my trial period is over. I am not sure desparate for cheap calls that the cost savings over Vonage will matter to me.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of LINGO |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by jeje
Posted: 5.4 years ago
member for 5.9 years, 375 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Huntsville,Madison,AL
$20 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
"Very cheap plan with unlimited calls to US, Canada and Western Europe"
"New service with CS not yet up to speed, and some features not yet working good."
"Incredible deal if you call Western Europe"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
First, let's start with the financial info on the current deal: If you select the $20 a month unlimited plan for US/Canada/Western Europe, you get the 3 months free. You still have to pay $30 for the sign up, and $10 for the equipment to be shipped to you.
If you cancel the service within the 1st month (and if you did not use more than 500 minutes), you will get the $30 registration fees back if you return the hardware in its original packing. After the first month, you are entered in a one year contract automatically. If you want to break the contract, you will have to pay lingo $40. Not sure if you still need to ship back the hardware or not.
They have a referal offer. If a new customer sign up while being refered from an existing customer, both the new customer, and the referer get $25 in credit after 1 month. If you would like to be refered, please IM me with your name and email and I'll send you an invitation email. Any other dslreports members would be glad, I'm sure, to refer you if you'd rather pick someone else.
So, money wise, if you stay at least one year with lingo, the current offer really gives you one month free, and $20 per month, which is the best offer on the market for an unlimited plan including western Europe in addition to US/Canada. If you are refered, this would end up being even a better deal!
On the technical side of Lingo, things have been working great for me. I plugged the Lingo box (an Azatel Azacall 200 with a Primus customized firmware) in my old Linksys BEFSR41 router. I did not have to change anything in my router. I did not use the box to receive incoming call yet. At this point, my Lingo phone line is only for outgoing calls. They did not offer numbers in my local calling area at the time I signed up. I noticed yesterday that my city and area code are listed in the sign up form, so I might ask to have my Lingo number changed... maybe. I still like to have my real POTS line at home. I like it for the real E911 service (Lingo does NOT offer a real E911 service, but will route a call to 911 to a emergency call center in the local area you specified). In addition to that, my Internet connection is not realiable enough to rely 100% on it for my phone calls. As I mentioned before, my Lingo phone line is dedicated to outgoing calls at this point. I even configured the line to forward all the incoming calls to the voice mail, so that I don't get bothered by a "sorry, wrong number" on a second line  .
The voice quality of the Lingo line is good. It sounds as good as my regular phone line when calling Europe. When calling in the US, I believe my regular phone line sounds a little bit better. I did not place enough calls within the US to really tell though.
Before using Lingo, I was using the VoIP services from Nikotel. I do not hear much difference of call quality between the 2 VoIP providers.
I had a few issues with Lingo in the first few days. For instance, calls to my local area code (256) from my Lingo line was adding "out of plan" charges on my account, which is not right as I have an unlimited US, Canada and Europe plan. A week later, this problem has been corrected, and my "out of plan" balance was set back to $0. I placed some more phone calls in the same area code, and I did not have new "out of plan" charge.
I experienced a few call dropped in the first week. Now, things seems to be working better. On a long phone call, I can still experience a drop from time to time (I would say that at this point, I have less than a drop for 150 minute of call on average). It is always difficult to tell if calls are dropping because of the HSI provider, or because of the VoIP provider though... But anyway, when I experience a call dropped, I was able to redial right away, so I barely lost 10 seconds. This might be an issue for a business. As a residential customer, I find it acceptable, and I hope to get this fully resolved at some point.
As I only place outgoing call, I don't use the caller ID, and other of the many features offered by the Lingo service. My Lingo phone number shows fine on the caller ID of people I call.
I can't wait to have the 3 way calling feature activated though... still coming soon as far as they say.
I did not have to deal with the CS over the phone yet. I emailed them 2 times, and each time, I received an timely answer, but the answer was of no use. The email reply was very polite, but it could not have helped less... As you will read here, and on the VoIP forum, the quality of Lingo customer support people is not good at all. The people working in the call center in India are polite, but not very knoledgeable of the service. Most of the time, they do not seem to be very helpful. We can only hope that things will improve, as they get better at knowning the service.
To summarize my experience, I can only say this has been rather positive so far:
- the rate for unlimited calls to US/Canada/Western Europe is just incredible
- the sound quality is as good, or almost as good, as POTS while calling Europe
- lingo shipped the box in a timely manner, and it was plug and talk for me, extremelly easy setup
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of LINGO |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by csbadboyz
Posted: 5.4 years ago
member for 6 years, 492 visits, last login: 2.7 years ago
Clermont,Lake,FL
$19 per month
about 3 days
"excellent web interface, 7/24 tech. support & customer care"
"while signing up their server choked, and my order was inactivated."
"excellent audio, most excellent voice mail system,"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I was a Packet 8 customer for 8 months, and loved their offering. They needed to improve on customer care, then came along Lingo. They had a kick @$$ website, with excellent user interfaces, and the easiest voice mail system to use.
With this and the quality of their audio, I am sold. Thanks Primus for a great service. The 7/24 Tech support rep. David is an asset to your company..He has helped me twice thru some issues, others in the customer care area, just blew off.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of LINGO |
|
|
LINGO
(11)