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Review by chas3 
UPDATED: 57 days ago
member for 5 years, 787 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Dallastown,York,PA
 $14 per month (12 month contract)
 about 6 days
 "good tech help, good call quality, great value"
 "your router can make or break your experience, see update 12/27"
 "get it.. company is stable unlike the big guy."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
|
Only had the adapter one day so far, but going good so far. Will update when I have more talk time, but here's my experience so far....
Researched various providers for a few days during which I contacted VT a couple times by email (ticket) and once by phone. First email ticket was answered in just 4 minutes on a Sunday night. Second ticket took 4 hours. I did mark these as low priority. My phone call was answered in about 2 minutes. The responses were intelligent and the person on the phone could give real answers.
I signed up for the service Friday morning 12/8 for the $199/year + free year, with activation/shipping total bill about $239. [update: On 12/16 I got billed for E911 fee and reg fee $2.50 addition/month.] I wasn't ready to trust to port my number yet, so I asked for a new number. They don't offer new numbers in my area, so I signed up for a number out of my area for now. I will be able to port my number for free later, then that will give me "local" service in my city. (note for VT...I initially wrote you off because your site said you don't offer service in my area, which is not true if I port my number.)
Now I waited, apparently its taking a couple days to process orders because the free year is keeping them busy. On Monday 12/11 a friend wanted to sign up for viatalk and asked me for a referral. I didn't have my account processed yet, so I submitted a low priority ticket to ask if I could get my customer number to do a referral. Within 35 minutes I was completely setup and had a tracking number and did my referral.
Now, I did notice a bug in the link for the tracking number, so I went direct to USPS to track. Not VT's fault, but USPS does not seem to tell you that they even received the package until it is delivered.
While I was waiting, I logged into the account and setup a softphone to play with a little. I setup the xten x-lite phone a made a few test calls. Pretty good calls, but I was using beta software which had a mic gain problem.
Received adapter Thursday 12/12. Plugged it in and nothing happened. Found out I had a bad port on my belkin f5d7230-4 router. Switched to a different port and lights came on but not the phone. Browsed to the PAP2 and found it was never configured. No problem, around midnight, I called tech support waited 3 minutes. Knowledgeable tech stepped me through the setup in a couple minutes and suddenly I had dialtone.
I made some calls for a day now and so far so good. One call this evening had slight echo for the first few seconds, but then it disappeared.
I have v3.1.9 in my PAP2T and there is a V5 available. Need to determine what has changed and if it is worth flashing. The tech said it will work fine with the standard firmware. Linksys does not say what the firmware changes.
ratings: The website (4) is a bit weak, but adequate. More extensive descriptions of features would be nice. Perhaps all the features put into a pdf in a manual format would be helpful.
Installation (5) even though I had to configure my pap2, it was easy and my having a bad router port is not their fault.
Quality (4) I did have a brief echo, but it corrected itself unlike other voip calling cards and softphones I've used. I expect to bump it up after a little more testing.
Reliability (4) Just trying to stay realistic that voip may never be perfect, but expect to bump it up after more testing.
Tech Support (5) I have been amazed at the top notch help.
Value (5) Price, features are great.
update 12/18: increasing quality and reliability...while i am not saying it will be perfect, it has been great over the last few days. Had an issue with my cordless phone not ringing. Submitted a ticket and it was fixed by changing to trapezoid ringing.
update 12/20: changed PAP2T firmware to 5.1.1 and now the original ring voltages work. Found outgoing voice breaking up during an extreme condition of doing a dslreports speedtest during a call. Clearly a router issue (not VT) and looking for a better router to eliminate this possibility. Started a separate thread to figure out what to get.
update 12/27: Flashed my Belkin with dd-wrt firmware. The software QoS helped some with outgoing voice during speed tests, but bricked my router during a setting tweak. So I temporarily used a dlink DI-524 router that made viatalk completely unusable. Dlink would drop connections or reboot every few minutes. Used the dlink while waiting for a Zyxel X-550 router to be delivered ($30 after rebates-rebate until 12/31). Installed and configured Zyxel X-550, giving Viatalk adapter ip address a #1 priority. Ran dslreports speed tests during a phone call to my POTS. Only brief blips of breakup on the voice during the upload test. Blips so minor that it did not interfere with understanding words. As a double check, gave my pc top priority and then disabled QoS. Both cases, outgoing voice quality had long durations of silence during upload test. Restored viatalk to top priority and all is great!!! A little more testing time and I dump the POTS.
update 12/29: faxed form to port my phone number. Bummer...fax had to retry several times to go through. Kept getting communication errors. Even got errors when turning off error correction. I was faxing thru VT line. Usable, but annoying. Sent faxes to other locations was much easier.
Voice calls sounding good and staying connected---since replacing the router.
update 1/11/07: I didn't have proper info on the port form and had to re-fax it last week. Got confirmation email saying port is processing and checked on the POTS website and found POTS scheduled disconnect for 1/24 
Quality has remained great. I bumped up the website rating, since they more than make up for any weak website info by being able to ask questions quickly and directly with VT. Also, the CEO gives feedback on this forum and VT's own forum. If you have a quality issue, VT is quick to find a solution as evidenced on the forums. VT has so many features, I keep learning how to take more and more advantage of them.
Faxing is still a bit weak. I have sent some 14400 baud faxes successfully, with error correction on. But, still have to expect retries. I just got a 5$ DSL filter to see if that helps.
update 2/1/07: Porting my number completed last week. There were a few hours on the day of the port where my number was in transition and could not get calls on the porting number. Guess that is to be expected. Anyway, since then, service has been great. Think we had one call where the audio didn't start for a few seconds at the beginning of a call, and think we had made a call to a cell phone and didn't here the ring tone. Tried to duplicate these things, but worked each time. I have read that these are fixable by sending a ticket, but waiting to see if I can duplicate.
Just starting to discover how to use all the features. I really like the custom caller-id so I can put names with cell phone numbers.
Faxing going ok, but still inconsistent. The DSL filter I bought was broken, so didn't get to try that. I turned on FAX ECAN on the pap2t, which seemed to help. Also, forcing fax to 9600 helps some, although I sometimes think that since it takes longer to transfer, there is a larger possibility of taking a hit.
Have used the service for hundreds of perfect calling minutes including calls to Africa. Don't notice any delay.
Setting up distinctive ring to ring in morse code to identify the caller.
update 2/9/07: Used VT for over 1300 minutes now and going great.
Faxing now working very well. Changes needed were updated PAP2T firmware, setting FAX DISABLE ECAN to yes, lowering the in and out gain to -6dm, telling the fax to do 9600 baud. I did a bunch of test faxes at 9600.
I have the VT voice mail send an SMS to my cell phone when there is a message. That way I can see who left the message and decide if I need to retrieve it.
Update 2/28/07: Now over 2100 minutes of usage and still great. Normally can't tell a difference from POTS.
Update 4/18/07: Have used over 4600 minutes on Viatalk and still great. I use the softphone on my PC when away from home and that works well also.
Update 5/17/07: Still going great. I stand behind the statement, that your router makes or breaks your experience. I upgrade firmware on the router and didn't have all the settings right, and experienced a partial lockup in the router that blocked my internet and phone use. Anyway, I fixed the setting and rebooted the router and all is well.
Update 7/16/2007 Now over 10,000 minutes of use since sign-up and still impressed. A call today went to voice mail when it shouldn't have, but that doesn't happen often. Now, the offer to signup is even better now that they give you 2 lines. I don't have that option.
8/8/07 Even with all the sunrocket folks signing up with Viatalk, everything still working great. see »c3.mine.nu/bsafehome.html
8/30/07 been having some trouble the last couple weeks. When making an outgoing call, sometimes the first dial attempt doesn't go through. 2nd dialing usually goes thru. Looking at the forums, it might be related to the sunrocket surge. Anyway, I called tech support, they told me to try several things. That didn't help, so I called back. They changed something at their end and while too soon to be sure, I think it might be fixed. I bumped down reliability a notch. But, I am confident that things will be good as the sunrocket surge smooths out.
11/07/07 been going good. I've been on the beta server for a while now. I've bounced over to standard servers occasionally when the beta was being worked on which is the nature of beta's.
12/3/07 Have made/received about 17,985 minutes of calls in the past year. Last several months I've been on their beta server and switched back to a normal server because of some troubles a couple days ago. Overall calls are great.
12/27/07 Been a full year, still have the free year to go yet. Having two phone lines has been really neat. While not perfect, faxing has been going well, a couple pages per week.
6/27/08 going good. Just used VT to call home from France/Ireland for free.  I renewed for another 1.5 years (special during memorial day), so I'm set until June 2010. I updated the monthly cost to indicate the renewal price, including the monthly "gov't" fees.
10/6/09 overall, very good. great flexibility and features. SMS text messaging for VM has been customizable for a few months now so I can pick what I want to see in my 150 character SMS limit (cell phone limit, not VT). Second phone line has been so useful. A few connection problems because comcrap isn't supplying a strong enough signal to my modem, but that isn't Viatalk's fault.
Followup comments:  kieranmullen
Premium
join:2005-12-12
Portland, OR
clubs: | Strang rating If they had problems how can you rate them 100% on everything? | |
| | chas3
join:2004-12-03
Dallastown, PA | Re: Strang rating see below. | |
| josh28
join:2007-11-11 | New Number in Philadelphia Area I'm a Boston-area ViaTalk user who is moving to Cheltenham, PA in January. Were you able to get a local PA number when you ported your old number?
I, too, was told that ViaTalk is not issuing new numbers in that area.
Thanks. | |
| | chas3
join:2004-12-03
Dallastown, PA
 ·Comcast
 ·ViaTalk
1 edit | Re: New Number in Philadelphia Area They couldn't issue me a viatalk number in my area, but they were able to port my verizon pots number for me. Some smaller telephone companies do not offer porting of the local numbers to any VOIP, but verizon does (old GTE area). Neighbors can still call me for free.
You can take your current number with you, but your new neighbors will have to call you long distance. Check if viatalk offers numbers in your new city (I don't recognize the name). If they don't, you would have to sign up for local pots service, then port it. Which would cost you an install just to get a local #. Or, if GrandCentral.com offers a local # in your new area, you could forward it to your old VT #.
Edit...just noticed the topic is Philadelphia area. I think VT has local #s in many Phila areas. They might charge a small fee to change numbers?? Or, you could add the phila number if you want to keep the boston for folks there to be able to call you for free from boston. | |
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Review by gatfly
Posted: 79 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 36 visits, last login: 79 days ago
Hoffman Estates,Cook,IL
$28 per month (36 month contract)
about 25 days
"Cheap without fees, but there are cheaper"
"Hidden Fees, Early termination Fees, Constant outages, 2 hour wait to talk to support, too many to name"
"Looks cheap, but not really"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
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Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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Their upfront price looks good, but do not be fooled. You will be charge monthly fee as well, making the price per month over $20 already.
Plus, if you cancel, there is $49.95 early termination fee, and they charge you $50 for the router. So you will lose another $100 when you cancel. They automatically charge your credit card when your service ends for another year of service.
On top of that, they charged me tax for a whole year, but then it comes to time to refund, they did not include the tax amounnt at all. I had to bring it up three times, before they finally admit there was a tax refund.
It appeared that they would scam for every penny when possible, even if it means violating tax laws.
Do not even get me started on the quality of service. Let's just say for the last 1 year and half, I wish I never switched from Vonage. Now that was really depressing if you read about Vonage quality of service.
Pros:
None
Con:
Hidden Fees
Early termination Fees
VoIP device fee if you cancell (not free as advertised)
Over charge Tax fee and do not refund when they should
2 hour wait time to talk to support
Constant outages
Poor line quality on over 50% of the calls
Frequent dropped calls
Followup comments: Fisamo
Premium
join:2004-02-20
Apex, NC | Equipment charge Don't know if it's too late, but you can send the device back to them to get a refund of that $50 equipment fee... Double-check the TOS and see if you can still return it (I think there's a time limit). | |
| tferguson01
join:2009-07-27
Newnan, GA
·ViaTalk
1 edit | Must be looking to gripe about. I had this service for well over six months. Called customer service numerous times with questions and they have been nothing but the politest. When customer service/tech support is backed up they have a call back feature and always have gotten the ring back with in 15min tops. Service has always been clear with no lost packets. There are no hidden fees what so ever. You pay the same fees with any other VOIP and copper line company. I paid for the bogo deal which they do make you pay for taxes up front for the two years. The only thing you have to pay monthly is the 911 recovery fee and regulatory fee that everyone has to pay no matter what company you are with monthly. The features offered makes vonage look like a joke. Don't let this review scare anyone from trying this company. Vonage charges the same disconnect fees and if you return the viatalk PAP2 box within 2 weeks you are not imposed the 50.00 pap2 box fee. No hidden fees they are written clearly with in their TOS. | |
| DHM1956
join:2009-08-19
·ViaTalk
| I agree with TFerguson.... I have enjoyed great service from ViaTalk.....both call quality wise and customer service wise. I am not sure who's support you are calling, but since I have had the service, I have called support a few times and been treated like gold. Waited on average about 2 minutes which is unheard of for tech support. I only wish I had the same experience with my other service providers. There were no hidden fees, everything is spelled out for the consumer upfront in the TOS. This review seems way out of line...I mean even giving their website and installation the lowest rating pretty much voids this review in my mind, and it should in yours if you are looking for a provider. As I said in my initial review, I would not hesitate for a second to recommend them to anyone. | |
| 
ex_sunrocket
@comcast.net
| problem resolved in timely fashion this morning, i received robo "calls" on my viatalk voip phone. Called support, and they quickly identified those "calls" are not real phone calls, but via automated ip address direct connect from some scumbag company, so I cannot screen them in traditional ways. They suggest changing my voip port number away from 5060 to avoid those calls. After the port change, phone service became non-functional. Because I use an old sun-rocket box, they cannot give me directly the solution. But they did try hard, and after a while, they remotely access my voip box and fixed the problem. A great support experience from them. Thanks. | |
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Review by tferguson01
UPDATED: 82 days ago
member for 128 days, 97 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Newnan,Coweta,GA
$8 per month
"Tons of extras free. Like free second cloned line. NOONE CAN BEAT THIS PRICE!"
"Haven't found any as of yet."
"With the current BOGO deal @ $189.00 w/ NO CONTRACT and money refundability, makes this company a company not to pass up."
| Web-site:
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(ratings above consensus)
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This service is always on with no hiccups. I am a former VONAGE customer. When compared to the big names on the market this company sure competes. Seems like others don't agree. With a descent internet connection (I have 10mbps down / 1mbps up) this company will perform. I send faxes and run my home alarm off of this with no problems. Customer service is great and always there when you need them. They have a call back feature that can't be beat during high call volume days. Second free cloned line is a wonderful feature. Its like having a second phone line but with one number. You may be turned off when you see that to take advantage of the BOGO deal you have to fork out close to 200.00 up front but there is no contract and if you want to cancel anytime within the year you get your money back of the prorated months you didn't use. Give this company a try and you will not be disappointed.
Minimum connection is 69kpbs up and down. The connection speeds that I am running with is well more than enough to withstand this but I have tried it on 3.0mbps down and 128kbps up and it works great also.
If you are wondering how one comes up with $7.87 take $189.00 and divide by 24 because you are getting two years of service.
The fees everyone complains about are different if you pay for the BOGO deal, because you pay for them all up front but the 911 and taxes which amount to $2.45 for me.
UPDATE: Close to six months later and still a head strong company. Not a lick of problems. Sure Vonages new world plan is appealing but unless you call out side of america (Mexico, Europe, Asia) the plan serves no purpose and is still $24.99 plus taxes and fees. Viatalk still has them beat. Number porting can't be easier and I even ported my number from Vonage. No problem. I love ya Viatalk.
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Review by Techie714
UPDATED: 89 days ago
member for 4.3 years, 1214 visits, last login: 8 days ago
Anaheim,Orange,CA
$16 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Price, Call Quality, Features"
"Tech Support, Billing Support"
"As a former Sun Rocket customer so far I'm happy"
| Web-site:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I've used the service for about a month and so far it's been rock solid with no issues. Now getting it all set up was a bit of a problem because something was wrong with my provisioning as well as the phone adapter they sent me. But after that was all fixed my phone has been good to go. So far coming from Sun Rocket this has not been bad at all. And porting my number from SR was a very smooth transition.
UPDATE: Been using Via Talk for a year now & so far I have been VERY happy with there service. There tech support is still pretty bad though.
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Review by DHM1956
Posted: 99 days ago
member for 105 days, 4 visits, last login: 58 days ago
undisclosed location
$189 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Great Price, Great Features, reliable so far"
"Don't have any so far..."
"Great service for the price."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I recently signed up for the promotion of $189 for 2 years of service. So far things have been great. The two line feature has come in handy on more than several occasions as well. When researching, I saw a lot of complaints regarding the extra taxes. When I received my total invoice at sign-up, I can honestly say that these weren't shocking. They all appeared to legitimate taxes, and seemed even to be lower than what I was paying with my old landline provider. I am in the process of porting my number over to ViaTalk, and will update my review as to how that goes. I wouldn't hesitate recommending trying ViaTalk to anyone after my initial and current experience with the service.
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Review by austriacus
UPDATED: 107 days ago
member for 2.3 years, 28 visits, last login: 107 days ago
Minneapolis,Anoka,MN
$20 per month (12 month contract)
"Very good call quality, very good customer service, very good control panel"
"HORRIBLE international rates, and an onslaught of fees and charges adding around $3.40/month"
"Good service, great bang for your buck. If you need good international rates look elsewhere."
| Web-site:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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We've been VT customers since the collapse of Sunrocket - which was about 2 years ago now?? - and have been very happy... for the most part. The beginnings were pretty frustrating as many people that switched at the same time can probably attest to. However, VT has improved dramatically since then and call quality and service have been impeccable. The few times when there were issues (dead air on pick-up, dead air after dialing yet the other party hears you) and we called in to CS to have this resolved they did so courteously and quickly.
Last year we spent 9 months overseas in Europe and took our ATA with us. Aside from some silly restrictions (you can't call overseas from your line while overseas!!) which you can't even lift after talking to CS service was great while over there. The only downside to having our US number while over there was that we got woken up a few times by businesses calling us in the afternoon - which was 3 or 4 in the morning over there.
Now my two gripes:
1. International Rates: I do -- for the life of me -- not understand why VT has one of the worst international rates out there. We call Austria all the time. Most other VoIP providers have rates ranging from $0.02 to $0.06. VT charges a whopping $0.3178 per minute to Austria -- landline, mind you, as mobile numbers over there are more expensive. Those are charged at around $0.4760!!! I'm currently using a Skype access number and pay $0.025/min. Take that, VT!! In all seriousness, though: This is one big reason for me to think hard about moving away from VT.
2. Nickle & Diming:
They nickle and dime you to death. Now all told, these "fees" amount to around $3.40/month. But just look at the line items for two (2!!) months:
1958846 2009-06-13 12:29 AM E911 Cost Recovery Fee $0.48
1961950 2009-06-13 05:08 AM Payment -$2.72
1979079 2009-06-16 12:41 AM Sales Tax $0.02
1979080 2009-06-16 12:41 AM FUSF (VoIP) $0.02
1979082 2009-06-16 12:41 AM Telecommunications Assistance Service Fund $0.13
1979083 2009-06-16 12:41 AM E911 $0.65
2117177 2009-07-13 12:10 AM Regulatory Recovery Fee $1.97
2118400 2009-07-13 12:27 AM E911 Cost Recovery Fee $0.48
2121186 2009-07-13 01:04 AM Payment -$3.27
2144606 2009-07-16 12:33 AM Telecommunications Assistance Service Fund $0.13
2144607 2009-07-16 12:33 AM E911 $0.75
All in all: if you don't mind looking past their "$199/year Unlimited" label (or whatever the current special is) and plan for an additional ~$40.00 in fees through the year you'll get yourself a very decent VoIP provider with excellent features and customer service!
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Review by scholztec
UPDATED: 113 days ago
member for 2.8 years, 142 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Scottsdale,Maricopa,AZ
$12 per month (24 month contract)
about 30 days
"Un-freakin-believably cheap, excellent web UI"
"Install hell, tech support hell"
"You get what you pay for"
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(ratings match consensus)
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I've been a VoIP person for some time. I was a SunRocket customer, then Packet8, now ViaTalk. I was looking to switch from Packet8 because, although their service was awesome, they were kind of expensive, and their web control panel was very business (multi-line, split billing, etc) oriented, and not very consumer-friendly.
ViaTalk seemed to get pretty decent reviews here, so I decided to go with them. I ordered my own Linksys PAP2, as the "free" one you get from them has to be returned.
The order process was complicated by the fact that I have a PO Box, and live with someone else. I understand that porting a telephone number is serious business, but I think ViaTalk's procedures exceed those required to get access to nuclear weapons.
Once provisioned, it took nearly a week of back and forth with tech support to get calling fully functional. Their whole operation smacks of an unprofessional nature. My account, when first set up, had someone else's personal info and call detail records in it. Tech support had a very "well, if it doesn't work, go somewhere else" attitude. Even the supervisors I talked to seemed surprised that I was upset with such service.
Call quality is fair. I'm sure that it is par for the course with VoIP, but Packet8's service was indistinguishable from a landline. My VT line has odd audio corruption on about 10% of calls, and is usually fixed by re-placing the call.
One nice thing about VT is that they are very hacker/geek friendly. They will gladly give you settings to poke around in your VoIP box, and even help you set up an Asterisk PBX or softphone program. This is where they exceed Packet8.
ViaTalk is unbeatable price wise. However, when my 2 years is up, I intend to go back to Packet8.
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Review by mathfaster
UPDATED: 113 days ago
member for 4.1 years, 483 visits, last login: 8 days ago
Upland,San Bernardino,CA
$16 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Prompt, courteous customer service"
"Too many requests for things that could have been done right the first time"
"Good service at a good price"
| Web-site:
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(ratings above consensus)
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Changed to Viatalk after 9 months with Vonage for the following reasons:
1. $174/yr for 14 months (12 months $199 + two free months + DSLREPORTS $35 off coupon) for unlimited calls. I was paying Vonage roughly this amount for 500 minutes/month. With the $40 fee from Vonage for terminating prior to 12 months and the overlap time to port my number, the cost will be pretty much a wash with Vonage except I'll have unlimited calling.
2. Vonage hasn't added a new feature since I signed up with them 9 months ago. Viatalk offers Outgoing Caller ID and name. Vonage does not. Plus many other features Vonage does not have like Do Not Disturb.
3. Customer support is in the US. Having had most of my colleagues jobs outsourced overseas in the last year I felt this was a plus.
Signed up on 4/21 just before the big sale. Was provisioned on 4/24 and got my Sipura 2002 adapter on 4/26. Plugged it in and it worked. Sent in my first ticket as my billing date did not include the free two months even though I had included the terms of the offer in the signup form. Got a reply back that billing date had been corrected but billing date was not showing correctly online. Submitted another ticket and billing date was now correct.
On 5/8 during a call the Sipura 2002 stopped working. Called in to support and they determined that adapter was bad and they would be shipping a new adapter. After a week called phone support to get a tracking number (and to get a date my number would be ported on ) for the new adapter as none had been received to date. Received new adapter (Linksys) nine days after problem. Once again plugged it in and service was back. Submitted ticket to get credit for the time service was out. Received credit for more than the time of outage.
On 5/19 (the date they said my number would be ported) received email saying number was ported and it would be 3-5 hours before it would take effect. Recycled the adapter the next morning and could not place a call from my cell to the ported number. Called phone support and they said it was because the routing was in error and would be fixed by the end of the day. 5/21 placed call again to ported number and the incorrect routing had been fixed.
Overall I am happy with Viatalk's service. Their customer support is there when you need it and is very prompt and US based. I placed and received enough calls during my first two weeks to get a feel for their reliability and quality (over 500 minutes of talk time).
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 Review by micki_hills
UPDATED: 114 days ago
member for 6.1 years, 126 visits, last login: 114 days ago
Vashon,King,WA
$19 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Lots of features, good call quality, good responsive support"
"additional charges levied after I paid for a year in advance"
"Not the cheapest, but very good service and a load of features make it worth it"
| Web-site:
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(ratings match consensus)
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update: 08/10/2009
Service was always good, but I got annoyed when I started getting hit up with extra charges each month even though I paid in advance for a year's service.
When it came time for renewal this year (and at a higher price) I decided to jump ship. After all, with so many options for communications these says, why pay more when you don't need to? I switched to magic jack.
I have been with Viatalk since July and I am so far *very* pleased. I didn't get in on any of the specials, but I did use the dslreports coupon. I purchased the 1 year contract. At $19.95/mo it's not the cheapest but it also isn't expensive and compared to my old landline cost - it's a steal. They keep adding features and even respond to requests to add features. Two of the features that I most wanted came along within a couple months of signing up. I have asked tech support for a few things to be changed and was responded to immediately. At first, the call quality was the same as with Vonage and Sunrocket - about cell phone quality with a bit of latency. This has always been acceptable to me. But something has changed in the last couple months and now my call quality is better then ever. I didn't change anything on my end, so perhaps it's due to the addition of servers closer to my area (?) I have had only one minor problem (voicemail indicator light, accessing voicemail via phone) in the time I've had service. I like the Linksys - very compact and has a nice interface. They will give you passwords if you want to manage it yourself, which I haven't taken advantage of but may in the future since I do have some experience setting up and maintaining an asterisk@home server. And they have softphone support at no extra charge. I am very happy with the service and hope it continues.
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Review by dipswich
UPDATED: 124 days ago
member for 6.4 years, 1990 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Raleigh,Wake,NC
$18 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Strong feature set"
"Does not honor its contracts; pads with junk fees; feature-happiness affects stability"
"Cannot support an ethically challenged service"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
Signed up July 28, 2006 on a BYOD plan to give service as a gift for 2 years to a college student ($199 buy one/get one year free plan, everything included (including E911)). This was advertised as a "buy it and forget it" plan, and I turned off international dialing to ensure that it would be.
However, on October 16, 2007, a mysterious invoice appeared for a $2.50 "E-911 & Regulatory Recovery Fee." This fee has been invoiced monthly since and attempted to be debited as an unauthorized charge. It leaves a very sour taste in the mouth as an obvious tactic to pad the bill and not in the agreement I made with Viatalk.
Luckily, the credit card I signed up with is no longer active and the accumulating charges have been declined. By continuing to bill, Viatalk has declined to perform on the contract; I plan on testing the arbitration clause at this point.
When service was used, it performed well. Rarely a complaint, although without a provisioned adapter I had to bump servers around occasionally to keep stable service. Based on this, I wouldn't recommend nor would I sign up with Viatalk as BYOD again (or at least, I would let them provision it). I assume stability would be better that way.
I've contacted support twice--
On 7/30/06, I asked about Viatalk provisioning the adapter. A complete response was received 5.5 hours later.
On 10/16/07, I contacted them regarding the mysterious invoice. A canned response was received 672 hours later (that's 28 days).
In the year, the level of support obviously went south.
About the ratings--
Web-site: The control panel is decently designed and covers all the features. I do find myself going in circles every once in a while between billing, support, and call feature management. Due to the daily morning outage and its current unavailability, as well as the too-frequently changing deals on the front page that make shopping the service difficult (and can't be trusted to be honored, anyway), I award 3 out of 5 stars.
Ease of Installation: Within 15 minutes, I had the necessary credentials to begin using the BYOD service. Top rating, here.
Call quality: Not perfect, but far better than a mobile phone. Probably deserving of a 4+, I'm giving it a 4 of 5 as the closest available mark.
Reliability: I'm giving 3 of 5 here due to a couple of outages that I've noticed with Viatalk. Often, changing servers gets it back quickly, but that's a hassle. Again, I think a provisioned device might offer a little better reliability, but I'm rating the service as sold and received.
Tech support: 28 days to answer a billing question is excessive, pure & simple. And, tickets are not answered in the order they were received. 2 out of 5.
Value for money: This is a hard one to rate. Assigning value purely on service and price, Viatalk is probably a 4. However, I'm bundling in the bumbled ethics of changing contract prices here. And, being an honor question, it weights heavily. I am giving 3 of 5, and stretching to do that. 2 of 5 after a second junk fee increase announced three months later.
***6/18/2008 Update***
Nothing's changed, except I can confirm that service is suspended due to disputing the E911 and "Regulatory Recovery" fees. Real telecom companies don't suspend service while hashing out a dispute. Adjusting "value" accordingly.
Luckily, I can't use Viatalk, as I'm sure I'd notice, based on the forum complaints, sub-par reliability and call quality. Since I'm not, I can't reduce the ratings on those components.
I cannot recommend this service.
***7/22/2008 Update***
I've had a pretty simple request in with support. They aren't responding. That's "worst."
I've also lowered the web-site rating, as the information in the most important page, the Terms of Service, is pretty bad. You'll want to read it before signing up, especially the part about
"ViaTalk LLC may update this agreement at any time without notice and you are agreeing to such changes in advance."
Followup comments:
cash
@cox.net
| fees, fees, and more fees The principle of adding more monthly fees on when you have an "annual contract" is despicable. I don't care if it is $5 or one penny, the principle leads me to suspect their business just based on ethics and principles. I then completely disconnect service? Come on. I refuse to continue to do business with viatalk.  | |
|
ConfusedinNY
@verizon.net
| The taxes are everywhere I don't defend them one bit but I will say that I asked thru the online rep if there were other charges to the annual plan and was told there is a e911 charge and regulatory fee. These were recently (within the last year) enforced by the government and the company's have no choice. Only one service has told me that they include all taxes and fees in the annual plan. However, with the 2 years I did the math and its still cheaper with these guys. It is the service quality that worries me though. I am still deciding. | |
| | dipswich
Premium
join:2003-06-27
Raleigh, NC
 ·AT&T U-Verse
·VoicePulse for Bus..
·ViaTalk
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: The taxes are everywhere They do tell you about the fees now, but they are being deceptive about the "government enforced" part.
•The government does not require any fees to be passed onto the consumer.
•E911 was already offered by Viatalk without the extra fee, and it is still listed as an included feature (without mention of an extra fee) on the features page.
•"Regulatory recovery" is not a transparent disclosure of the source of the fees. These could be costs generally accepted as costs of doing business, although legal requirements, that are rightly built into product pricing.
Further,
•USF, the presumable primary source of "regulatory recovery fees," is paid based on a percentage of revenues (not net expenses). Viatalk gets its revenue up front on long-term commitments, so why charge a monthly recovery fee? The monthly collection problem on contracts is exacerbated since Viatalk charges the fee during "free" periods. Even in the accounting department there is no revenue during that time. Hence, Viatalk has a glaring disconnect between what's charged and what it's based upon. Yet another problem is that the fee is a fixed amount vs. a percentage of the equivalent monthly cost. This isn't how Viatalk is charged.
•Viatalk continued their offers after their USF liabilities were announced. That was the proper time to implement pass-through billing. | |
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