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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 55 days ago
(review was emailed from domain energyadvisoryservice.com)
 Kennesaw,Cobb,GA
 $250 per month (12 month contract)
 "It appear as though the phone system has a lot of good features"
 "They need to learn to follow up, keep committments, and improve customer service"
 "Quick call a different provider"
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I wanted to help others from making the same mistake our company did. We
signed up for Primus Communication for our phone system and needed the
service by a specific date. The day before we called to ensure everything
was going well and because no one had called us. They have not even
submitted the order. 20 days later and we still do not have phone service
nor do we know how to use the phone system we purchased and no one at Primus
will return our telephone call, even after we sent a cancellation notice.
Hope this helps you!
Thanks
Rhonda
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Review by kbray 
Posted: 69 days ago
member for 3.5 years, 293 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Etobicoke,ON
$29 per month (month by month)
"LOADS of features, fairly good support and priced perfectly!"
"Level 1 Customer Service is sometimes not the best, Bell Thottle effects all VoIP.. even Primus"
"A Great Canadian VoIP service, with great value for the Money"
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I have had Primus Talkbroadband now for a few years and I can't tell me enough how happy I am with the service. It's been rock solid, with only a few bumps in the road. You can expect this with NEW technology.
My only major beef is SOME of the call centers are overseas... but not all are.. Communication within the company on brand new features/policy doesn't always get echoed to all reps on the phone right away, but overall nothing has been a big deal to work out.
IF you have DSL in Bell Canada's area, you may find their throttle effects talkbroadband and any voip service, especially if you have a high bandwidth codec set. I was able to fix this during throttle hours by setting the line to a low bandwidth setting, giving the same sound quality as a normal line vs better than normal at the high setting. This is not any fault of Primus or any other voip provider.
I personally have been very happy with the service they have... GREAT value for the money, especially when you get all calling features, unlimited 24/7 North American long distance, and an option to save 4 bucks a month by buying your ATA box (which I have).
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Review by Tig3
UPDATED: 110 days ago
member for 2 years, 25 visits, last login: 85 days ago
Greely,ON
$34 per month
 about 10 days
"Call Screening, Price and features of unlimited package."
"Online forums are hostile. Customer support can be awkward."
"Great if it works, otherwise you are on your own."
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I tried out Vonage but opted for the Primus because it was cheaper for the unlimited package.
I have been a Primus VoIP customer for three years.
This is a great product.
You can screen telemarketers and send their call to never never land. You can configure important callers to ring all your phones, cell, long distance. You never have to miss a call or take one you do not want. Unlimited North America long distance. Check primus.ca for other great features.
Bad points are the online forums, where users and administrators treat frustrated customers to personal attacks. It's disgusting.
Technical support is sketchy. If your equipment has died and the green light is off, you should be able to get reasonably prompt resolution. Otherwise you will have to live with what ever bugs you.
I opened a ticket for calls that were misdirected. eg; my phone shows I dialed one number but the call log shows that the numbers got jumbled and I was connected to a wrong number. This happens in spurts and is a real nuisance if you are calling long distance and wake someone up across time zones. The problem ticket was finally acknowledged and updated by Primus after 12 days. Comments were "Are you still having this problem" The problem ticket was closed 9 seconds later.
I keep checking with Vonage to see if they offer the call screening (blocking, forwarding etc..) via a web interface, They do not.
Update March 31/08
I tested my internet connect as per Primus. Scores came back very good as agreed by Primus. They have concluded that I must have an intermittent jitter problem. Their logic is that I will get a wrong number if "packets arrive out of sequence"
Makes me wonder why I even bother to ask them to fix anything.
Still checking for Vonage call screening.
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Review by ohmer
UPDATED: 111 days ago
member for 4.9 years, 652 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Quebec,QC
$15 per month (month by month)
about 15 days
"Great price, many functions"
"Level 1 Tech support/CS is horrible, cannot call 1-900 lines"
"It's cheap and it's just work. It's only what I want !"
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On a technical side, Primus TBB is an excellent service. It just works and many functions included for free (no fees for things like caller id display, call forwards, voicemail like at bell).
But... hope you will not need to call 611. First, you will wait for at least 45 minutes before to be online with a technician. Second, you will receive averages answers. If you have a non-standard problem, many months can pass before Primus fix it (example : my 911 service is reduced to basic since September because I moved... they say my number/address cannot support E911, but Bell and my city say this is not true...)
EDIT March 2008: Tech support is better when you call directly a level 2 technician 
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Review by sirius
UPDATED: 141 days ago
member for 149 days, 6 visits, last login: 141 days ago
undisclosed location
Contract price not specified.
about 90 days
"fast shipping of the router"
"porting the phone number take a LONG time, mostly due to ALLSTREAM"
"sometimes they are clueless and just tell you anything to get out of trouble"
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Everything is in order now, the problem was not Primus but ALLSTREAM who is in charge of transferring the phone number to primus..
it can take up to 45 days to port a number be patient
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Review by daboom
Posted: 143 days ago
member for 6.5 years, 724 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Oshawa,ON
$29 per month
about 7 days
"Great Service overall"
"Takes a while to get numbers ported couple weeks in my experience."
"Overall great service for the Value. No complaints here."
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Ordering was a bit slow but once I got the device a Linksys Adaptor I was up and running within minutes. I was using Vonage service prior and found Primus to be more CDN and better price ie much cheaper for the same service and more Features. Vonage's call quality degraded considerably I even canceled before the year was up it was so bad. Only thing they can't control is the speed of which to port numbers over. Takes a good couple of weeks. So be patient.
Talkbroadband does have actual real call blocking etc... you can even route certain numbers to others anytime of the day etc.
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Review by IamGimli
UPDATED: 150 days ago
member for 4.3 years, 808 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Canada
$20 per month
"Cheap"
"No QoS, Service down for days (weeks) at a time, no support"
"Use only if you can live without the service being available."
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Primus, although trying to fix the shortcomings of their mediocre hardware through firmware updates, also end up screwing up said hardware to a point where it's not usable anymore. After they do that, leaving you with only email to contact their support department, they will ignore any attempt you make to actually get support to fix their screw-up.
Unless you don't mind paying for a service you don't receive and you like being ignored stay as far away from Primus as you can.
In this case, you don't even get what you pay for.
UPDATE: The service has been somewhat more reliable for the last year or so but there is still no QoS whatsoever provided on the DLink gateways they provide.
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 Review by Styvas
UPDATED: 231 days ago
member for 3.8 years, 1994 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Edmonton,AB
$30 per month
about 7 days
"Decent call quality, AirMiles reward miles, good value for money"
"Calls into tech support or customer service often a long wait; ISP problems can sometimes hit Primus service hard"
"The service and price are excellent, and Primus takes performance/quality issues seriously"
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My Other Reviews ·Shaw
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I have the Unlimited bundle at $29.95. This includes all calling features and unlimited long distance within Canada and the US. International long distance rates with this bundle are competitive, but not drastically so (ironically, Primus' rate for the country I call the most is the highest of the various Canadian VoIP companies). Other similar Canadian services charge on average a bit more for the same package but some of these offer more calling features. However, they do not give AirMiles.
Currently Primus provides customers with a D-Link DVG-1120M MGCP VoIP gateway, or a Linksys SPA2100/2102 that operates on the SIP protocol (I believe all new signups receive the Linksys). The D-Link is adequate but it lacks many of the functions available on even the cheapest routers. It is also supposed to do LAN-based QoS in order to maintain call quality, but this function seldom (if ever) seems to kick in. The Linksys offers slightly better router functionality, however call quality does not appear to differ significantly from the D-Link. Call quality for the Primus service in general is good as long as the local ISP is not experiencing problems. Primus uses the G.711 and G.729 codecs, the choice of which is user configurable.
My only other significant complaint is to do with call centre wait times. It is fairly typical to wait for 40-60 minutes or more to reach a customer support rep. Tech support wait times, however, have significantly improved in the past months. If you are calling on your cell phone because your VoIP phone is not working, that can be extremely frustrating and expensive. The free SkypeOut to toll-free numbers may solve this problem for those without a cell phone to call Customer Service or Tech Support.
Not having tried any of the other Canadian VoIP services (Vonage, Yak, Spectravoice, etc.) I can not recommend any of the others. However, I would say that the Primus offering is worth giving it a try. Barring some serious degradation in the service, or an increase in pricing, I will be continuing as a Primus customer for the foreseeable future.
For more information you can check out Primus' website (»www.primustel.ca) or the »Primus TalkBroadband VoIP FAQ.
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Review by dsm122
Posted: 232 days ago
member for 4.9 years, 1501 visits, last login: 232 days ago
Vancouver,BC
$25 per month
about 60 days
"N/A"
"Terrible, clueless customer service"
"Stay Away."
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I have had Primus Talkbroadband on two different occasions at two different locations for approximately 2 years. The first time it was relatively painless although I had poor call quality at time which was blamed on my internet provider. My second and current experience has been nothing but problem plagued and highlights the real problem with Primus Talkbroadband and that is they are incompetent. My problems started with the port of my number it took over 60 days and was all because someone at Primus made a typo on my address. This has created a spiral of problems which includes them turning off my service twice for no apparent reason other than that I requested they correct the address mistake. I have now been without phone service for 17 days and counting even though they are billing my credit card every month. Many hours on hold and talking with tech support have not led to my service being restored. I have had enough the minute they restore my service I will be porting back to Telus. Be warned don't be fooled by the low cost its not worth it if you have problems.
Followup comments: 
Styvas
Go Canucks Go
Premium
join:2004-09-15
Edmonton, AB
 ·Primus Talkbroadband
·Shaw
| Believe it or not, it really is the ISP causing poor quality There's no excuse for incompetence when it comes to customer service and billing practices, but it should be pointed out that 99.9% of the time poor call quality has to do with the local internet connection and absolutely nothing to do with Primus, Vonage, or whomever.
People who cancel their service because of poor call quality are more than within their right to do that (I wouldn't stick with a phone service with poor call quality either, no matter how much I liked the company and/or the price), but to blame the VoIP provider for the poor call quality is simply useless. It's just not their fault (99.9% of the time).
The ISP (particularly if they have their own VoIP product--e.g. Shaw, Rogers, etc.) will be unmotivated to fix the problem and will likely just blame the VoIP provider; but even so, they are still delivering the packets from point A to point B, which is what their terms of service demands. Beyond that they have little interest. If you want solid call quality on telephone over their network, they'll be happy to sell you their own product.
Steve
--
Check out the »Primus TalkBroadband VoIP FAQ. | |
| | sirius
join:2008-02-21
·Primus Talkbroadband
| Re: Believe it or not, it really is the ISP causing poor quality Same here, I am waiting since 3 months now for my number to be ported... they sent their linksys VOIP router very quickly and started charging me immediately, even if the service was not fully functional yet. The technical dept is clueless, they don't know much since they are subjected to the mood of Allstream to port the phone number, they have no control over the porting of a phone number and they really don't know if it will be done and when, they will tell you a lot of things but in reality they don't know anything.... I was given multiple dates as to when everything would work but they never made it happen... they are very lame and now i am stuck with their $70.00 LOCKED linksys VOip router that can't be used with another provider..
3 months now and they haven't been able to port my number to a land phone line neither, they say that they did a mistake , I say they are super incompetent and totally clueless.. | |
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 Review by joshb
UPDATED: 261 days ago
member for 2.3 years, 853 visits, last login: 152 days ago
Calgary,AB
$32 per month (30 month contract)
about 6 days
"Solid platform, support"
"customer service"
"excellant bang for buck."
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after getting sick of Telus and all the extra charges on my bill and wanting cheap long distance I decided to try primus.
The first phone to give them all the information was very long.
They got my portal to me within 4 days. (not bad using Canada post)
When the day came to port the line over they had a few little issues. They had all solved with in a couple hours. Haven't had any issues since.
Very happy over all.
Two weeks ago they had a portal die on me. The tech agent got the right people on the case and got me a new portal within 2 days. Not bad.
Still very happy over all. Very good bang for the bunk so far.
Still going strong no reason at all to contact them.....Overall good bang for buck
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Worst Service EVER