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Review by icu_mark 
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 1.7 years, 8 visits, last login: 216 days ago
 Clemmons,Forsyth,NC
 $30 per month (12 month contract)
 about 7 days
 "Easy setup, Great Options, No problems"
 "none"
 "Beats the socks off any other VOIP."
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UPDATE 06/02/2008: Just wanted to let you know we've been on CallVantage since Oct 2007 and have had no problems at all. Every now and again we'll hear some echoing, but that's very rare. The website is fast, very functional, and provides a lot of options. Can't speak more highly of CallVantage. Still a happy customer!
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Our first VOIP provider was Earthlink TrueVoice and had problems with dropped calls, call waiting never working, etc. Spent countless hours with them and service still remained sub-par. After my year commitment, I switched to CV. Knowing that my internet connection was clean and consistent, I had hope that CV was going to be better. I can strongly state that my experience with CV has been wonderful. We've been CV users for over 6 months now and I often forget that it isn't a landline. Quality of the line is fantastic. Using their DLINK 1120M router, I've had zero problems with bandwidth issues. We use the internet a lot, both inbound and outbound, and have experienced no qos issues. I love the CV web portal, has some terrific options. The portal is very fast, responsive, and you can even change the incoming caller ID info on specific phone numbers! Sweet. Strongly recommend! We are using TimeWarner RoadRunner as our ISP (5M/384k).
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Review by kelceyjf
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 4.1 years, 56 visits, last login: 173 days ago
Brooklyn,Kings,NY
$25 per month
about 5 days
"Reliable, good quality, Competitive price."
"Porting numbers and making account changes can be a pain."
"Good service."
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Overall I am happy with callvantage, especially coming from VOIP.com which was a complete nightmare. I did run into a few minor hassles. When I started with callvantage, I signed up with a new number because my number was with VOIP.com and I wanted to port it to callvantage. I received the Dlink 5102S in two days and my service was working as soon as I plugged it in. I placed it in-front of the router because there's an issue with DD-WRT v23 and the dlink. It actually seems to handle PPOE better than the linksys so I'm happy with it, except that sometimes when playing xbox the service gets choppy, but I'm sure I could fix that by upgrading the linksys to DD-WRT v24 and enabling QOS. As far as the issues I ran into with the port, the port from VOIP.com was successful and happened in 10 days. The only issue was when I went to cancel my first line, I couldn't because that was my primary line and if I wanted to cancel I would have to port out my line to Verizon and then back to Callvantage. I didn't want to bother so I just cancelled the service completely and started a new account on a new line. The only downside to this was I had to pay a new activation fee, and Callvantage had a glitch in there mailing system for retrieving the ATA from the first account (they sent me a new ATA when I opened a new account and I had to return the old ATA). The glitch caused them to send out about 20 fedex envelopes that arrived daily, sometimes more than one a day, for the next three weeks.
Overall I am very satisified with callvantage. There could be more service features, but for the reliability and the ease of use, I am happy. I have no desire to experiment with another VOIP company after my miserable experience with VOIP.com. I highly recommend Callvantage to anyone who wants reliable VOIP without the hassle.
NOTES:
1) I placed the ATA on an UPS to avoid any interruptions due to power, especially because the 911 message is annoying after a power outage.
2) Fax/Modem actually works. I have my Dish receiver wired to callout with the line and it has no problem. I keep my line on the Fax setting and it does not degrade the voice quality.
3) 10-digit dialing, but that does not bother me. I live in NYC and I prefer dialing 10 digits for everything because there are many area codes locally.
UPDATE: I changed my configuration and placed the Dlink 5102S behind the WRT-54GL router with Tomato fw running QoS and I am not getting anymore chopping while playing Xbox Live. It took a while to tweak the QoS settings, but now it is overall a better setup.
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Review by lengyelc
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 3.9 years, 282 visits, last login: 184 days ago
Alpharetta,Fulton,GA
$25 per month
about 17 days
"reliability, call quality, $5/mo discount for ATT Wireless users"
"Not all features included in price, activation and shipping fees extra"
"Solid company with a very competitive voip service"
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Ordered 4/4, got a confirmation email the next business day letting me know it would be about two weeks for them to port my number (switched from ViaTalk). Installation was a breeze, number was ported the exact day they said it would.
Was originally a Vonage customer in 2005, then switched in 2006 to SunRocket, then to ViaTalk after SunRocket collapsed. SunRocket was the best voip service for the price, though ATT is a very close second. If you are an ATT customer (Uverse or Wireless) they give you a $5/mo discount off the list price of $24.99/mo for the unlimited plan. The only downside is that ATT charges more upfront setup fees than other voip providers, and they charge extra monthly fees for "add-on's" that the others give you for free (e.g. call filtering/blocking is $1.99/mo, though well worth it to blacklist telemarketers.)
So far quality and reliability have been outstanding, especially compared to ViaTalk. In all fairness, I was using a BYOD on ViaTalk so perhaps my dissatisfaction with them was my own fault. But still, every day with ViaTalk we'd have a dropped call, a dialing problem, or a voice quality issue. Switched to CallVantage and it's been great ever since.
100% recommended.
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Review by Sinbad Sam
Posted: 1.5 years ago
member for 8 years, 290 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Arlington,Tarrant,TX
$20 per month
about 10 days
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Good Points:Very good price phone service went from $65.00 a month to $20.00 a month. Price is $5.00 cheaper due my having AT&T bundles ie ATT U-verse, ATT Internet, and ATT Cellular service.
Bad Points: during a power outage I have phone service as long as my UPS's last.
Bottom Line: Excellent Price, and value
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 Review by rsmith7
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 6.7 years, 812 visits, last login: a few hours ago
San Diego,San Diego,CA
$23 per month
about 19 days
"Name Brand"
"missing some services that are free with other VOIP vendors, 10 digit dialing."
"Great phone quality. You get to speak to American's!"
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After the demise of SunRocket, I wanted to go with a name brand company. I did not want to get on the Vonage train, so I tried CV. I was not able to port my number. I instead went to EarthLink and soon as they got my number ported, I turned around signed up with CV.
It took 19 days from the order to activating the service. I got my TA about 1 1/2 weeks later. I plugged it in and was up and running in about three minutes. I was able to make outbound calls only. Call quality was even better than EarthLink.
On 8-24-2007 my number was ported at 12:00 A.M..
I like the DLink TA and the Stream Engine technology that is built in. Too bad that I already have the DLink DGL-4300 router.
I really liked AT&T's email notifications that I got along the way. One of my complaints with EarthLink was the lack of notifications and where we were in the process.
I had one billing issue and customer service gave me one month free for my troubles. I was only trying to get the AT&T Wireless credit of $5.00 off my CV service.
There may be better options and better service out there but I am happy at last with my VOIP.
Update: March 25, 2008
It has been seven months since I started my ATT Callvantage service. I must say that this service ROCK's the competition. The quality of the VOIP service is top notch. In the seven months I have never experienced any outages attributed to ATT. I have experienced a few outages but this was due to a overload on my router. I was downloading too much stuff.
I would say that if you have the opportunity to get Callvantage I would recommend it in a heart beat.
Only thing missing is seven digit dialing and maybe a few other addons. I am now use to having to dial the area code and am not really missing any of the extra fluff that the others are offering.
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Review by pbp776
Posted: 1.7 years ago
member for 2.3 years, 496 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Piscataway,Middlesex,NJ
 Business customer
$30 per month (12 month contract)
about 365 days
"Good price, reliability, voice quality, and features"
"None so far"
"Half the price of land line and good service for business"
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Cost:
Place ordered on 01/01/07 from Business line, Activation Fee and S&H fee was free for our company. $25 + $3-5 fee = $28-30 a month. ATT offer Business or residential line.
I received the Dlink DVG 1120M ATA adapter in few days later.
Setup:
Optimum Online Modem Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router (with Tomato Firmware) Dlink DVG 1120M ATA.
Within a minute I was up with dial tone.
I don’t know what code AT&T use but the call quality is good to excellent. I would say it must be using G711 Codec.
Port Number:
Due to the business line number was already with AT&T the porting was quickly done.
Call Quality:
Due to my business required lots of call and conference I have yet since any quality issue with my line. Call always has been excellent. Out of whole year only three times I may have really poor call quality. When I do have poor quality I have done test by ping the SIP address and trace the route to see if the latency where high or not. Some times poor quality can be by ISP routing and some time it can be related to VOIP servers.
Reliability:
I would say reliability of the service is 99% excellent. The connection is always there. I don’t have to reboot the ATA, Router or Linksys every day. However, I always recycle my stuff at every 30 days from my Modem to PC. The other 1% you can figure it out nothing is perfect in this world.
Support Person:
I didn’t had to call for any support so I can’t review on their support staff.
There are many other VOIP companies. I would recommend AT&T CallVantage to anyone who would like to save money from the land line. This review is on my own experience with AT&T CallVantage almost 1 yr. It has been smooth ride since I got the service.
Other VOIP I currently have account with:
Lingo - I used mainly for residential Line.
VoiceStick – I used mainly for I2bridge feature and cheap rate for international rate.
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Review by mprindle
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 210 visits, last login: 114 days ago
Sugar Land,Fort Bend,TX
$26 per month
about 14 days
"Great customer service and price"
"911 info has to be verifed after the ATA is reset to have outbound calls"
"Great service"
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Update 2/26/2008
My number was ported a few days after I posted the review. So far I am very satisfied with CallVantage. We havn't had any outages and the voice quality has been very good. I like the way the website is layed out. The only option that I added on to my service that's not included with the standard package is call blocking. This is a very handy feature to block those annoying companies that just can't take the hint not to call you.
Orginal Review
I'm a SunRocket refugee that decided to switch over to AT&T CallVantage. So far it's been a great decision. When signing up I found that existing AT&T/Cingular customers get a $5 discount on the service making there unlimited plan $20/month + Fees. I called and got my service setup. The customer service rep was very helpful and walked me through the whole process. I left for vacation and when I got back I still had not received my ATA adapter so I called them. This customer service rep looked at my account and was unable to figure out why I had not received it so he ordered a new adapter and had it send next day service. I got it and hooked it up. After a few issues with my router I got it setup and working with out a hitch. The only outstanding issue is my number port from SunRocket. It keeps keeping pushed back, but this doesn't surprise me.
The only aggravating thing I have found with CallVantage is if my ATA loses power or is rebooted then I have to log on to my AT&T account and verify my 911 info. Now that I have the ATA setup and running this shouldn't be much of an issue. The up side is that when you try to make a call before verifying the info you are giving a message that it needs to be done. Even with out verifying the 911 info inbound calling still works.
Followup comments:  Lenagainster
join:2005-01-07
Silver Spring, MD | back it up When I had CV, I found that even a blink on the power line caused the system to ask for the 911 re-verification. It was getting annoying until I plugged the ATA into a small UPS. Problem solved. | |
| | mprindle
join:2002-03-14
Sugar Land, TX | Re: back it up I have ATA and my router on a UPS. I'm good for about 20 mins run time.  Thanks for the comments... | |
| Fisamo
Premium
join:2004-02-20
Apex, NC
 ·VOIPo
·AT&T CallVantage
| 911 verification and UPS If your ATA loses power and reboots, you will have to confirm your location, and I agree that it's an annoyance. However, you can do that on the phone, as well. Make an outbound call, and when the announcement is finished, you can press "1" to indicate you've not moved, or "8" to indicate that you have moved. You do not have to log in to your user portal to un-block outbound calls.
That being said, I will strongly confirm Lenagainster 's advice of putting your ATA on a UPS. Even the least expensive one you can buy will keep your ATA up during the really short power blips that are most common. If you get a slightly higher capacity one that has at least 3 outlets, you can connect your cable (or DSL) modem and your router, and you'll maintain phone service during the power interruptions, as well... | |
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Review by kevm
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 2.7 years, 41 visits, last login: 128 days ago
undisclosed location
$25 per month
about 5 days
"quick turnaround on order, Live tech support"
"none initially"
"seems good in the early going"
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I just started with ATT CallVantage VOIP and wanted others that are considering it to know my experience so far. First off, these support forums are very valuable to VOIP newbies like myself. Although I do have a considerable amount of computer experience this type of service is new to me and the support here has been great.
The web ordering was easy and the equipment arrived in about 5 days via federal express. The basic installation took less than 15 minutes to dial tone.
The web site is very intuitive and options are easy to find and set up. The features you get for the money are numerous, helpful and convenient.
The tech support seems to answer quickly, I placed a couple of test calls before ordering and was happy with the responsiveness. The tech support staff appears to be U.S. English based.
The call quality is good. I do have my ATA behind my router as many suggest here. I have excellent upload speed via cable ISP which helps. I also purchased a Dlink QoS router , DIR 625 as part of the switchover to VOIP, and it matches well with the 5102S ATA that ATTCV provides. I have not set up any specific QoS priority yet, mainly because I initially did not totally understand how to do so, and because I haven't had the time to mess with the settings. I hope that doing so when I get around to it will make things even better.
As I said earlier, the ATT CallVantage forum here has helped me a lot during startup.
I plan to update this review regularly
Updated on 2/25/08
I continue to be impressed with CallVanatge. I use the service primarily now, although I have not switched over my landline main number. I used the service for about 5 hours the other day on several long calls and the quality was very good.
I did get some static and intermittent clicking on one call late in the day, but I am not totally sure it was not the other person’s connection.
I still have not set up any specific prioritized QoS rules, but the built in shaping engine on my router may be prioritizing traffic generally by type already.
I am going to wait a bit to see if custom prioritization rules are even necessary.
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 Review by EGeezer
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 7.3 years, 3425 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Mount Sterling,Madison,OH
$35 per month
about 6 days
"Order ease, time to live, uptime"
"Firewall/router config, support docs not up-to-date, Voicemail retrieval"
"So far, so good."
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ATT CV over Time Warner Road Runner
Update 10/16/2005- Clarification on contract price - $33 includes;
$29.99 Base price for Callvantage Service plan
Federal tax .91
State tax 1.65
Local tax .37
Total $32.92
Prechecking, my RR speed is 3 Mbps down, 420Kbps up, so plenty of bandwidth available both ways for VoIP.
Ordered ATT CV Sept 2, installed Sept 8 on my existing time Warner Road Runner broadband. I did not port my POTS phone number, although it was available for porting.
I need reliability, so went with ATT CV based on the feedback from a business in my town who has been using it with success.
The Centillium TA set up nicely, but when I put my Netgear FVS318 on the LAN side of it, I started encountering DNS lookup errors and delays. manually entering the RR DNS at all devices and PCs did not help. Knowing that double NAT can cause problems occasionally, I didn't call ATT CV on this issue.
I saw in ATT's web pages that Safe Forwarding was not supported with the Centillium. It worked, but documentation said it was not supported, so I called ATT CV support to resolve this issue because a backup in case of a service outage is important to me.
Their customer service is in Kansas City MO per their tech. Wait time was a 2-3 minutes, largely due to getting through the lengthy greeting. Tech support was friendly, fairly knowledgeable, helpful and responsive. The level one tech hot-transferred me to level 2, staying on the line to be sure I had the correct person on the transfer. Level 2 sent out a D-LINK via FedEx along with prepaid UPS return label.
It arrived in three days, over weekend. I installed it, the D-LINK seems more configurable than the centillium. Safe Forward works and it also resolved the DNS issue I had. I am now able to run my FVS318 behind the D-LINK so I have QoS control to segment the TA from my LAN and prevent dropouts due to bandwidth contention between the TA and LAN PCs. File transfers while on the phone do not seem to affect calls. I have experienced only one dropout, which was to a cellphone that was in a questionable signal area, so it was likely the cellphone that lost me.
For those who may want to use their own system, I notice you can't disable VoiceMail.
ATT CV has a feature that allows you to have audio files of voicemails sent to the user as emails. My test emailed voicemails were cut off at the end. Maybe a glitch. We'll see.
Voice quality is good. Callers/callees don't notice any difference between it and my POTS line.
911 setup was already done by ATT by the time I checked on it. ATT had the correct name and address in the ATT system. I have alternative 911 - tested it and it went to the call center, but not as a 911 call and my name and number don't show up on their system, so I will have to give the 911 dispatcher our name, address, town when I call. Since my ATT CV number is not in my location's rate center, that's to be expected I guess.
NOTE - People with POTS level 911 requirements need to know that alternative 911 typically routes to an administrative phone number at the call center, and not to the 911 dispatchers directly. The initial conversation may be with someone who is not a trained 911 call taker.
As a backup I have our local dispatcher's phone number and speeddial in my VoIP telephone and in my cellphone, so I can call the locals directly (Nice thing about small towns, you can do that!). Your requirements may be different, so consider them carefully.
FYI, I am using a Uniden TRU 8866 2-line system, it works just fine in handling my POTS and ATT CV connections.
To retrieve voicemail externally, I have to dial a different number and use a PIN and enter my phone number and password. This is an inconvenience of having to remember yet another number and PIN.
So far, after 40 days or so, I haven't had any outages as far as I can determine. After returning form a trip (the equipment was powered off) I had an instance of a callee indicating poor connection. Since I had not booted the equipment in order, I shut down and rebooted the Modem, TA, Router in order and had no problems after that.
I will update this review as I evaluate the service.
****************
UPDATE 31 AUG 2006:
Had an issue a few months ago where I was experiencing call drops, one-way loss of audio etc. the ATT people worked with me to adjust buckets, troubleshoot, replaced the TA, but the problem still existed. A week or so later, I experienced internet loss. Time Warner sent out a tech who recabled from the distribution box ot the modem, and replaced the modem. after he left, I started losing connection every half hour or so, so called TW and got a new modem. Problems fixed. the internet and ATT have been rock solid to date.
A pleasant surprise, I learned ATT CV's price has dropped $5 per month to $24.99 per month for my package of one line plus unlimited US/Canada long distance. Per the support rep, I had to go the the web site to change the plan to get the new price. Did so, showed up on the next bill.
*****************
Update 3 MAR 2007
Service still good, callees can't tell I'm using VoIP service.
Called 3 MAR 2007 to support on a FAX question and the truncated voicemail, I observed the call center is in Missouri, Phone connection excellent, service rep was knowledgeable, friendly and articulate and answered my question.
RE: the truncated voicemail problem - The support rep verified the voicemail WAV files were complete and suggested I check media player settings, buffer may be too small. On inspection, Quicktime was opening the WAV file. I removed Quicktime completely, updated WINAMP and the voicemail problem was resolved. I can now retrieve full voicemails over the web.
Putting the D-Link behind the Netgear router has worked well to eliminate those phone rings and 911 reconfirmation nags after momentary internet drops.
I have a 1.5 KVA UPS to power modem, router, TA and phone. Lost power for about 3 1/2 hours recently, the system stayed up just fine, since my internet connection didn't drop during the outage.
Bill is now
Basic service charge 24.99
Universal connectivity charge 1.57
State tax 1.45
Local tax .32
total 28.33
UPDATE 11 DEC 2007 -
Service and call quality still excellent, price the same.
ATTCV changed the call log page, I can lo longer copy and paste into a spreadsheet, since it's trashed with icons. I suggested to tech support that they provide an export to CSV function, but that went in one ear and out the other.
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 Review by Bell System
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 3.9 years, 1525 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Strongsville,Cuyahoga,OH
$19 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
"Great call quality. Fair Price. Great Product for me."
"Takes a few hours after setup to stablize."
"Good product. Good price."
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After ordering dry loop DSL, I still wanted a land line. So after doing some research I came to the conclusion CallVantage was for me.
Being an employee, I leaned toward that solution but after finding out simply by virtue of being an at&t wireless customer I can get $5 off per month. So for $19.99 a month I get the unlimited plan.
When I got the TA (telephone adapter) via FedEx I opened the package, plugged it in and within 3 minutes of my doorbell ringing I was placing a call! It seems the TA adapts to the internet connection it is using, so the first few hours worth of calls had some audio abnormalities but has since stabilized and is working beautifully.
If the few limitations of VoIP service is acceptable for your use, it seems this is a good choice.
Internet: AT&T DSL PRO (3/512) Dry Circuit $24.99/mo
Wireless: AT&T Nation450 w/rollover $39.99/mo
Phone: AT&T CallVantage Unlimited $19.99/mo
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