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Review by IzMan 
member for 1.8 years, 5 visits, last login: 18 days ago
updated 17 days ago
 Saint Joseph,Buchanan,MO
 $15 per month- (24 month contract)
 about 3 days "Mobile account page, failsafe, etc..." "Full of features and solid service"
| Web-site:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I came into the service around 4 months ago with my own Linksys SPA2102, which I prefer to use as its served me well in the past. Ive been overall impressed with the service and functionality of the features. For someone that lives on their smartphone such as myself, the phone friendly account portal is a big plus. Living in an area prone to storms during the winter, the failsafe feature is also helpful to auto forward my calls to my cell if our power goes out as it can frequently do at times. I really haven't come across any bad points yet in my experience, but will certainly update down the line. Their knowledge-base is the best I've seen compared to previous providers for learning more about what you can do with the service or answering questions without having to call support. Droid app seems to be next, great!
Update - I've been using the app for a while now and can appreciate the service on the go. There have been a couple times when our power has been knocked out as anticipated, so it's nice to have the backup as well. I've only had to call Support once when I recently had to reset all my electronics up again in a different space in the house and was having troubles. I got through pretty quickly and they got me running again within 15 minutes or so. Not bad at all! The service continues to be a perfect fit for my needs.
Comments:
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Review by topgun
member for 2.1 years, 492 visits, last login: 6 days ago
updated 41 days ago
- undisclosed location
- $16 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 5 days
- "Excellent tech support, Features we love, Saying GBye to Verizon :)"
 "No flux capicator\Mr Fusion to re-do past conversations :("- "Best mix of support, features, and reliability I have found"
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(ratings match consensus)
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Been a customer for 4 1/2 years now through thick and thin. I have seen the Good, Bad, and the Ugly. The main complaints I have read are dealing with the Incoming Call Manager (ICM) on the newer Aquarius network. That is to be expected because peeps are impatient and even though they were told repeatedly that ICM is\was in BETA they still expect everything to work flawlessly. Of course when it doesn't it; the Taylor Trolls come out from under the bridge and we all know misery likes company on the internet hence the smear reviews.
Got my hands on the new Innomedia MTA-6328 about 6 months ago and have been loving it. Provisions in less the 30 seconds and since PhonePower can securely tunnel into for support issues the End User experience is much more enjoyable. Much better then the old HT-502 which I would almost forget I was using VoIP until I would have to reboot it for my phone service to work every week or two. Not a big deal mostly just a PITA.  Now I don't even think about me using VoIP it just works 
I can usually reach a Tier 1 tech within an 10 minutes and depending how busy they are a Tier 2 within 1-12 hours. It really depends on how swamped they get. Like most businesses the best time to call is early in the mourning or late afternoon.
If I find anything more out I'll add it; as always thanks for reading any comments are welcome!
--update-
Been a customer since 12/3/2008 so I'll be going on my forth year this winter. Originally had a buy one year get a year free deal. Now they keep throwing my peeps & I renewal specials for being a valued customers. 3
Originally ported my # from Verizon and it was dumb luck the port went through within the hour of receiving my Grandstream HT-502. Any problems I experienced with voice quality was do to Verizon DSL (they switched to me another router @ the CO) about a year into my PP service.
Reliability has been outstanding I only remember 2 multi-hour outages, one from a router going bad and the other a major DOS attack. It can\does happen to every telephone service provider I have been with including Verizon (s!@t happens). To bad some jealous competitors try to make a failed smear campaign from it »bit.ly/L4ogIF
I have watched them grow from the older (Capricorn) network to (Aquarius) which has more advanced call routing, filtering, fail-over, etc. Been loving the new Android app (still in BETA) along with many others in the PhonePower forum. Despite all the growth they still make you feel like your not just a number and will call me back just to make sure a ticket was resolved. When I first signed up I knew allot of the staff by name, with their tremendous growth not so easy anymore but hey it keeps my brain working.
Just now got off the phone with support and they answered withing 5 minutes! Since I'm using their new Innomedia ATA I confirmed that with tech support that they can access my device with no problems.  Which is good if they ever needed to Troubleshoot anything related to the intertubes. My ole Grandstream was and still is a great rock solid ATA and served me well but for whatever reason the new Innomedia has cleared up some latency issues.
Rated Website 75% - Although the backend works fine for everyone I know; it could be a little more streamlined\intuitive for newbs but definitely not a deal breaker. I'm hoping the new ICM will include a nice slick polished GUI all geeks\newbs alike want. Aquarius is definitely a BIG improvement from Capricorn!
Ease of Installation 75% - Lets face it 100% Plug N Play Residential VoIP would be like us humans talking to our computers like they do in Star Trek (not happening). PhonePower makes it as painless as possible with clear directions, tech support, FAQ, etc. If you are purchasing PP you may need to get your feet wet doing some trouble shooting, opening ports, etc. I had to call tech support to help me out with above ^ again not a deal breaker. Just be aware when using any VoIP service you may have occasional minor hiccups.
Call Quality 100% - PP does not control the public internet or my ISP I can't fault them for the one in every 50 calls not being perfect. With people using VoIP, cell phones, old aging copper, elusive payphones, rating something so subjective with so many variables just does not seem fair to me. Far as I'm concerned PP has cleared the bar enough times so they get perfect from me.
Reliability 100% - For how long I have been a customer vs. how much downtime I have experienced due to acts beyond their control I'm not complaining. My ISP has many more outages! Every time I had to call 911 the call was routed properly and the E911 worked flawlessly.
Tech Support 100% - Call them yourself and ask them questions, don't take my word?
Value for money 100% - Ask your cable company, Landline, Wireless Carrier, etc. if they can give you all the features PP offers for 20\month or less. That's all I have to say about that..hehe
Comments:
 | | Phone Power is terrible at this point. If they don't fix my problem I'm going to slam them on the internet. Been going on for a week now. | |
| | | | Re: Phone Power is terrible at this point. Can you PM me your account info and I can look in to what is going on? | |
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Review by gworkman7
member for 7.4 years, 1461 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 52 days ago
- Tucson,Pima,AZ
- $15 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 14 days
- "Good Feature Set / Reliable"
- "None"
- "Could be a good thing."
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I had my account hijacked by PhonePower due to Broadvox Direct dropping its customers on them. When I first recieved the e-mail notice, I contacted Phone Power to ensure the equipment would be sent to the correct address. This was on 9/10. On 9/14, I checked the tracking log and it showed that the equipment was sent to my old address. I contacted them again because my original box would no longer work after 9/15. They corrected the information (for the second time) and said it would be shipped out on 9/14. A few phone calls and two missed promises of the box being shipped and we are now up to 9/17 with no equipment and now, no service. I now have a tracking number for an overnight shipment of the equipment.
*** UPDATED 10/5/09
The equipment finally arrived on 9/21. So far, the service has been performing well. The only problem I had is that the volume is too loud. Called tech support and they had to log in to advanced settings (not available to end users) and make the adjustments. Everything is fine now.
Tech support was reached in less than 5 minutes, which was also a plus.
*** Updated 10/25/2010
I"ve had this service running for a year now. They have added enhancements to their website and the service has been very reliable. I have had two occasions where I needed tech support. On both calls, I got CSRs in SoCal within 2 minutes. This is quite an improvement over my BroadVox days.
I converted my plan to two years for $14.95/month.
Comments:
Reviews:
 ·PHONE POWER
| Disappointed with Tech Support Quite disappointed with tonight's chat. At the end, the tech COULD have at least left with courteous apology. Instead, he chose to be arrogant. If he didn't know the "Zippy" drive should be connected to a computer, he should have stopped at the beginning. Instead, he drug out the process for 17 minutes before telling me to go away...
You are now chatting with Bill
Greg W: howdy Bill
Bill: hello, can I have the name, phone number and user name on the account?
Bill: what is the issue with the zippy?
Greg W: Any number I call rings once, then stops. I call 611 and get the prompts. I press three and the entry does not respond, so I can't call tech support
Bill: Ok, let me document this. Please keep in mind we are now closed and my troubleshooting options are limited right now.
Bill: when you dial 611, what prompts do you hear?
Greg W: OK. I've been trying to get tech support online since 8 this evening.
Greg W: new order - 1
Greg W: existing order - 2
Greg W: tech support 3
Bill: OK, well we are closed at the moment, so I will do the best I can.
Bill: so when you press one of the numbers to select an extension you are unable to do so from the zippy?
Greg W: Correct. I tried with two different phones and neither would get past the prompt. They should default to a live human at some point, but they don't
Bill: who is your isp?
Greg W: CenturyLink. My reg phonepower box works fine. I just need this USB device to work in a computer room.
Bill: ok, what is the brand name and model number of your modem?
Greg W: ActionTech Q1000
Bill: do you have a router in your network? if so, what is the brand name and model number?
Greg W: Netgear WNR 3500U
Bill: is the phone adapter connected directly to the actiontech device or the netgear device?
Greg W: No...the Zippy USB is intended to be connected to a computer. It has no software. It is connected to a computer.
Bill: Ok, at this time I can no longer continue troubleshooting, I have created a trouble ticket regarding your issue and a technician will contact you in the morning. Your ticket number is: 1402236.
Greg W: Horrendous. I have been trying to get through for HOURS. I can't believe this is where we land.
Bill: we closed at 10, the chat started at 10
Bill: we are closed
Greg W: Great. That helps. Thanks for the apology. I'll expect better service tomorrow.
Bill: No worries, have a great night
Greg W: To be posted to DSL Reports...not that you care. Good night.
Bill: Ok, have a good night | |
| | | Poor Support Yes, this was handled poorly by the technician you worked with and it is not the type of support that we strive to provide. I hope that the technician you spoke with this morning provided you with the level of support you deserve. We will be reviewing the issue with with the original technician you worked with and corrected his mistakes. | |
| | | | Re: Poor Support This morning's call was much better. It was on par with the service I've had in the past.
Thanks. | |
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 Review by LeeOpines
member for 5.7 years, 63 visits, last login: 78 days ago
updated 78 days ago
- Crestview,Okaloosa,FL
- $12 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 1 days
- "Excellent voice quality - excellent support from billing to technical"
- "Nothing!! The are Great"
- "Definitely worth trying – the price is right and you will be able to live with the voice quality"
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** Updated 01/19/13 **
I have now been with Phone Power for four years. They have provided excellent service and excellent VOIP quality calls.
If you want to save money and receive excellent service, I would recommend joining this company.
In my job, I accomplish performance assessments all the time and yes some of the assessments have been VOIP!
This company’s technical expertise and staff have been great and yes I will be renewing with them again very soon.
** Updated 04/07/09 **
My phone number has been transferred (very quickly and with no pain).
My Grandstream adapter HT502 has been working fine and staying connected for weeks now with NO problems.
The reason I switch from my old VIOP provider to Phone Power was because a telemarketer woke me up at 8:00 on a Saturday (I am on the do not call list). This telemarketer was calling & calling day after day week after week. My old provider had very limited features and did not allow blocking of anonymous calls or any call blocking at all. Within minutes of setup with Phone Power, these calls have stop (they are still calling but all they get is a busy signal)
I have taken the HT502 adapter out of the DMZ and placed it behind the firewall for protection. Once I turned off SIP ALG on my DIR-655, I have not had any more problems.
I am happy; I made the right choice at the right time ($199.00 for two years)
** Original review **
To Date, Phone Power has provided me excellent support from billing to technical and excellent voice quality.
I was able to very quickly utilize my new Phone Power VOIP service and the phone quality was/is excellent.
But I did have a few minor issues;
• On the first day when I tried to answer two of my incoming calls (many other calls work fine) all I received was a fast busy signal. I called technical support to see what they thought (only spent about 3 minutes on the phone with them and their support was excellent). Technical support’s suggestion was to put the Grandstream adapter into my router’s DMZ zone. I did this and I have not had a busy signal since. This issue is not Phone Powers fault, but mine because I am putting their adapter behind my router.
• After four days of flawless service, I went to call my wife and my call went directly to voice mail. So I figure a simple reboot would fix the problem, it did not. I call technical support and guess what; my Grandstream adapter HT502 needed a hard reboot. Worked great since that hard reboot.
Phone Power's technical support team was able to fix my problems very quickly.
I am glad that I have join Phone Power and I know you will be glad too once you join.
Comments:
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Review by jacobslive
member for 5.3 years, 100 visits, last login: 23 days ago
updated 85 days ago
- San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
- $30 per month
- "Complete physical fax and alarm system support + fully functional 2nd line"
- "needs to improve customer support, lack of knowledge, website functions, softphone, smartphone app"
- "I may refer/recommend"
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I have been PP customer for nearly 2 years and was very happy until recently. However, their service start going down frequently and everytime we get a robotic response from the CS Rep that our engineers are working on it and they don't now when it will be fixed. When asked about why your services are going down so frequently... no response at all.
I have been writing +ve reviews about this company on different websites and referring my friends to them. However, it seems time to look around for more reliable service provider.
Update: 12/31/2011
Please see the attachment and read the recent experience for poor customer support.
What happened to those best PP customer care staff?
I was a phone-power customer for nearly 3 years and really enjoyed the service and outstanding customer care from PP. Nearly a year ago I have switched to another company to accommodate my requirement and budget. Right now I have 3 VOIP lines in the house. As we have moved from east to west, I have obtained a MJ plus with a very good phone number. Recently been to PP website and found pretty attractive deal that will accommodate my current requirements and I was expecting the same better service that I had in the past, oh boy I was wrong!
Day 1.
Went to local Frys to get a PP adapter bundle. Store 1 had a opened/customer returned pack which I didn't want to try because I didn't want to get messed up with the re-activation issues involved. Went to Store 2 and got a brand new pack. Came home and started activation process, here comes the starting trouble...
PP wont let me activate the adapter saying that it is not a retail adapter that I can activate online. Being a computer support professional for 14+ yrs I knew it is a adapter/mac authorization issue. Being a support guy I never pretend to be tech savvy when dealing with customer support as no one likes competition Assuming this is a technical issue, I started online chat with "tech" person and explained the situation and copy pasted the error message I got from PP website. To my surprise this guy transferred the chat to "sales" department :O. Ok, I thought I might be wrong and it is a sales issue and continued to chat with sales rep and she suggested me that I should call the "billing" department. Well, I called the "billing" department and learned PP "sales" and "billing" is same department. Here it goes again, explained from beginning, this girl understood its a technical issue and transferred me to "tech" support. Again, explained the situation (4th) time to the technical guy, after listening carefully this guys wanted to transfer me to "sales" department!!! Ok, time up, that is it, I lost my temper. I raised my volume this time and asked this guy to stop bouncing me from sales to tech to billing to sales! Ok now he started realizing I hate the bouncing game and agreed to help me. After putting me on hold for 2-3 minutes he figured out the issue as I guessed. Mac ID not in their authorized devices list! He added my device mac ID to their system and I was able to proceed with the registration. I thanked him and he wanted to know from where (store and location) I got this device and I gave him that info.
Completed online registration process and requested to transfer my number from MJ plus. I got a order confirmation email saying that I will get another email with the service activation notification.
Upon login to "my account" on PP website it says my service should be activated after midnight.
Day 2.
Midnight gone, mid day came. I got dial tone on my device, but wont let me dial any numbers. My account page stuck on after mid night message. Curious to know what happened I called the billing department and the lady told me MJ rejected my porting request and my service is not activated. Hello, PP should have shoot an email to me informing me the situation at least! Well I kept this thought to myself and asked the lady the reason for rejection. She said, MJ wants my account number and the pin number. Now, I asked the lady, will I be able to use the service during the number porting process or do I have to wait until the number porting completed? She said, I should be able to make outgoing calls while waiting for number porting, but incoming will work only after porting completed. But to do this, I should get the account number and pin from MJ and give it to PP. I knew she is right as I ported number to PP in the past and it was the same situation that time. I thanked the lady and hang up.
Now I called MJ and got the account number and the pin number. Called back PP billing again. This time another lady came to phone. Explained the situation, she checked the past call record. She took the account number and pin number. This time I asked her when the service will be activated so that I can start making outgoing calls. She said 3-10 business days! I said I am not asking about number porting but service activation, she said she understood that and repeated 3-10 business days.
I believe I am stuck now as PP initiated number porting and I don't want lose my number. So I have no other option but to wait 3-10 business days.
PP surely has to concentrate on employee training. Their customer support was not like this in the past. I never had such a horrible experience in the past with PP. Tech guys were so good as they exactly new what they were doing, not anymore! So sad! I was planning to move my other 2 numbers to PP, but now I realized that it would be another horrible mistakes, so never again!
UPDATE 02/01/2012:
Today I got a call from Ms. C from PP and apologized for the inconvenience. She promised me to activate the line with a temp. # until my number port is completed. Within minutes the service was up and running. I am able to make and receive calls to the temp. # assigned.
At this point I would request PP to insert a small info to their website advising for those who trying to port their number to PP with their initial order that the service will not be activated until number porting is completed, if that is the PP policy. I could not find this information anywhere in the KB or Order page on PP website.
I would like to thank and appreciate Ms. C for stepping in and correcting the situation. Apart from activation process, I would still request PP to advise it's care staff to carefully understand the issue and resolve it rather than bouncing between departments. That's where it makes the difference of PhonePower Customer Care
UPDATE 08/20/2012: After I came back to PP and has been with them for nearly 8 months, other than the initial glitch I did not have any problem. I also ported a second number to PP and I have 2 numbers with 2 ATAs working with them. So far all is well.
We a group of PhonePower fan boys also created a place to discuss about phonepower services, you are always welcome to join us at www.phonepowersupport.com
UPDATE 12/12/12
It is been almost an year with PP again and ATA is working perfectly fine to make and receive calls. In this update, I just downgraded their website rating and and value for money to to neutral (3). Reason for this downgrades are:
1. Their forum section has become a haven for spammers.
2. Their website goes down randomly multiple times of a day.
3. They have failed to fix their soft phone and smartphone app.
4. Website lacks tablet browsing support
5. They have introduced new feature and broken many of existing features.
6. Call log has no reliability.
For most of the above issues they have no ETAs or they are reluctant to rectify the issues.
At this time I have decided to stay on month-to-month basis which will be around $30+ a month including tax+service fee etc. Time for Holiday shopping? :P
UPDATE 01/12/2013
I had to pull one number out from PhonePower due to their greed for money. I had two numbers from them and at the end of contract for one number I asked them if they can combine two numbers and keep one number as a virtual number. They said yes, but one problem, the money I paid for the second number (prepaid for 1+1 year) will be forfeited. The second number been into service for just 6+ months and they want to forfeit nearly $150? Yeah, right!
Customer service became lousy. If seeking customer support via email, forget it. They will never respond. At the same time if you ask a question where there is a chance they can get more money from you, you will get a response within hours. If you need support to step in you have to put your concern in their public forum.
For most prepaid plans, once the initial contract is over, you will pay premium price, whether month to month, yearly or 24 months. I really do not mind paying bit extra for solid service. But, at the same time I would need all the offered add ons to work fine as well. They have a sofphone for for Mac that doesn't work. They have buggy iOS app that never works properly. None of them were fixed or there was no intention to fix with a standard reply, sorry no ETA. I have seen no ETA for 9+ months. Their SIP credential won't work with well known SIP clients. They have users forum (which is great), but it is a spammer's paradise. They wipe out customer's posts along with spams. Certainly not acceptable for the price after promotional offer.
I would recommend PhonePower for those who just care about a working ATA/SIP phone to make/receive phone calls, but nothing else such as add ons.
Comments:
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Review by mjames75
member for 111 days, 0 visits, last login: 111 days ago
lodged 111 days ago
- Stafford,Stafford,VA
- $24 per month
- "Great Price, Feature packed, Free cloned line, Unlimited International calling"
- "Flakey service at best. Very inconsistent, Call quality is below average"
- "This service would be top notch if they work out the persistent availability and quality issues"
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I am really trying to like the service, but it has been trying my patience from day 1. It started with international calling. Apparently there was a routing issue. After a few days that got resolved. On top of this, inbound and outbound calling are hit or miss. On inbound calling, 3 out of 10 times the call will go straight to voice mail. On outbound calling, at least once per day I will get all cirtuits are busy. Im using FreePBX by the way. I know that its not a problem with my setup because I also have SIP service with voipvoip and I havent had a single problem Inbound or outbound. I always check the voipvoip line whenever there are problems with phonepower and the voipvoip line is always ready to go. I have a log of every time I get line congestion messages, and its way to often to ignore.
On a good note you cant beat the international calling feature and the cloned line.
Comments:
| | Please ask for help before posting a negative review The vast majority of Phone Power customers enjoy excellent reliability. The fact that another trunk on your PBX is problem-free does not prove that your setup is correct, because providers differ in NAT traversal and handling of multiple registrations.
It should not be difficult to troubleshoot and fix the problem.
Besides FreePBX, are any other devices (ATA, softphone, smartphone app, etc.) registered directly to your Phone Power account? If so, have you confirmed that the inbound issue persists when only the PBX is registered? When only an ATA is registered?
Does your PBX have a public IP address? If not, please post make and model of router and modem, along with any special settings such as port forwarding that you have configured. | |
| | | Checked for an ALG? Typically dropped registration issues like that are caused by an ALG transforming ports, then closing the pinhole after the fact. Perform a capture when your system tries to register with wireshark, and make sure both the source and destination ports match up. This is one of the most common problems with PBX's/SIP credentials. | |
| | | Update 12/18 I reviewed the problem with the technician that you worked with earlier today and it looks like there were a couple of issues. Any time where there was a call to the number and the call went to VM we noticed that your end point wasn't responding to the invite. This in turn invokes the unavailable call forwarding which sends the call to voicemail.
The issues that you worked on today regarding your registration brought something to light in that your firewall was re shaping traffic in a manner that was causing the service to fail.
We hope to hear from you soon once you get the firewall/router issues sorted out. | |
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)
lodged 129 days ago
- Bountiful,Davis,UT
- $200 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "Phone Service worked about 70% of the time once installed"
- "Install took 35 hours. Customer Service would not let us out of contract though product did not work."
- "If your service does not work immediately, you are locked into contract and hours of tech support calls (we logged 50 hrs)"
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Our Phone Power VOIP phone service has not worked in a year-and-a-half
after we logged 50 hours of customer service and technical support calls
trying to get it to work. Phone Power refused to let us out of our
contract even though they could not deliver on the product we paid to
receive. Their customer service policy seems to be "The Customer is Always
Wrong" and "Our Company is Always Right." There appears to be no limit to
how far they will make the customer go to prove their product is not
inferior.
We became PhonePower customers in 2009 with a pre-paid 2-year contract of
$15 per month. Be aware the fee goes up to $20-30 per month after your
contract expires unless you *call the month prior to the contract
expiring*and set up another pre-paid, lower-priced contract. However,
this
additional extension of the contract proved a mistake for our family. Here
is our experience:
Initial set-up of Phone Power VOIP service took *35 hours*. Yes, you read
that correctly -- 35 hours. Most of those hours were spent online or on
the phone with their technical support department. Tech reps continually
jimmied this and that and ultimately got it working, but only because I had
the time to spend at night on the phone with their technical support team.
You may be wondering to yourself: Why on earth would anyone spend that much
time on the phone trying to get their VOIP service to work? The answer is
simple: Because the company would not let us out of our pre-paid contract.
No exceptions. No common sense. No limit to how many hours the company
expects you can spend on the phone with their technical support team. It
seems that even if the company does NOT provide the service you have paid
to receive, you are still on the hook for the full cost of the contract
(whether you prepaid the contract or whether you are month-to-month on
contracted service their policy is the same.) They are perfectly willing
to have a customer spend 35 hours of their time trying to get their product
to work rather than to let you out of their contract -- or, shall we note,
to take their claws off your money.
The nightmare truly began when we moved and brought the Phone Power VOIP
service with us. For some inexplicable reason, it did not work in the new
apartment, even though we brought all the cords up without disconnecting
them and we did the "plug and play" route of the same set-up that had
previously worked. We spent 15 hours on the phone with Phone Power trying
to get it set up, eventually asking to be let out of the contract and again
being told that we just needed to spend more time on the phone with
customer service and there was no way for us to be let out of our contract
(I have since learned there is an early termination fee option, and I
advise customers to take it rather than try and deal with this company).
Our Phone Power VOIP service has not worked for the past year and a half,
and when I called today to again ask for a refund or to be let out of their
contract, the supervisor Jessica again told me the company would do nothing
and I was stuck. This is their *modus operandi*. When I asked where I
could lodge a complaint about her customer service, I was told in a very
snotty tone that "No one is on the floor but me. There is no one else for
you to complain to," as though their company has no president or CEO.
It appears the technical support team keeps lousy call records, so be sure
and keep your own account. Our account record apparently never showed the
hours of phone calls we logged trying to set up the service, or the fact
that we requested repeatedly to be let out of the contract. I listened in
disbelief as the supervisor "Jessica" told me that our technical call
record indicated that our troubles were "all resolved" and that "customer
was pleased." This was a total fallacy. The technical support team did
actually shine today (a rarity) and got my phone service working in just
2.5 hours -- it appears that split wall jacks can severely disable the
service, which no one had ever mentioned before this call. At least the
remainder of our contract commitment will not be a total waste of money
since we will actually have the phone service to use. However, even during
these last "successful" 2.5 hours, I had to make three separate tech
support calls, and one representative simply hung up on me. When I called
back, the tech support record said it was a "dropped call." Yeah, *right*.
Needless to say, we will not be re-upping our contract next time. We are a
bit smarter after this horrid experience! Give Phone Power the BIG MISS if
you do not want serious headaches with your phone service. There are
undoubtedly honest VOIP providers on the market. By the way, Phone Power
says they are a company out of California, but their actual physical
address for tax purposes is listed in Las Vegas. No surprise there!
Comments:
| | huh? I am not a big fan of PhonePower... but what plan costs $200 a month?! | |
| | | | Re: huh? Um, the plan cost $200 for our initial two-year contract. The review does not ever say it cost $200 per month, so I do not know where your information comes from on that point. | |
| | | PX EliezerPremium
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River
kudos:13 | Re: huh? Look at the top of your review:
Bountiful,Davis,UT
[Contract] $200 per month
(24 month contract)
| |
|
PX EliezerPremium
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River
kudos:13 Reviews:
·callwithus
·voip.ms
·Optimum Voice
·Vitelity VOIP
·Gizmo5
| Does not make sense.... 1) If your INITIAL installation took 35 hours (which is quite hard to believe---that's a full work week) then for gosh sakes why didn't you CANCEL as they do have a guarantee:
MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. PhonePower.com proudly stands behind our service with our 30 day satisfaction guarantee. Within the first 30 days of your activation you may upgrade or downgrade to any of our current promotional rates or cancel your plan with absolutely no hassle. If cancelling, simply contact customer service requesting cancellation, return the hardware to us and a full refund will be issued. Customer only bears the cost of return shipping and any usage-based calls (example: Operator or International calls). Money back guarantee is not applicable on unsupported internet services.
2) If for some reason they refused to honor that guarantee, you could have complained to your credit card company. You didn't.
3) Even after all that, when your original contract was up after 2 years, after all the aggravation, you could have easily switched to another company.
You didn't. You let it renew....
Way I see it, this is your fault 3 times, and that makes this review even harder to believe. | |
| | | | Re: Does not make sense.... Guarantee was not honored. And, YES, it was a full work-week to get it installed. | |
| | | |
| | | | Re: Incorporated in California.... Thank you. It appears my information was old on the point of incorporation, and I accept your correction. | |
| | |
DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | Epic The OR is kind of fail. looks like another drive by flaming. | |
|
| |
| next review in page (previous review)
Review by Vortexed
member for 150 days, 2 visits, last login: 52 days ago
lodged 149 days ago
- Las Cruces,Dona Ana,NM
- $14 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 3 days
- "Easy, knowledgebase, price"
- "Happy customer"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I ordered through their online process. It was straightforward so I never felt the need to call sales. The number selection in my area was quite extensive. Hardware came ready to go and it was plug and play from there. It only took a couple days to arrive, but I am fairly close to California, where it shipped from. My Panasonic phones have cooperated nicely with the system. Considering the price (I prepaid for two years), which seems to be pretty competitive, its proved to be a good deal. In combing over the knowledge base out of curiosity, I've learned a lot more about the service in detail. I recommend others giving that a look as well for those who want to know a little more about what's available or to answer a question on your own.
Comments:
| next review in page (previous review)
 Review by ymhee_bcex
member for 6.9 years, 703 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 167 days ago
- Tarzana,Los Angeles,CA
- $15 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 3 days
- "Sound quality, features, value"
- "24-month contract, website can be confusing"
- "Excellent value for the money"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Update October 2012
===============
Got a bill for the second ("free") year - $64 in "taxes and fees". So, the total real price for 2-year contract is about $15/month. Feels a little bit like cheating (like buying something for $7.95 + $7 for shipping and handling)...
On the upside - they added a new feature (currently in beta): forwarding based on time of day. For a doctor's office it was the biggest thing that was missing!
Update January 2012
===============
The service remains good. There was an outage a few days ago. Both the service and website were out for couple hours. More details here: »[General] PhonePower down?
Wouldn't be a big deal (especially, for me since it was on Saturday morning). However, PhonePower handled it terribly. First, it showed that a technical glitch can bring down *both* service and website - bad design. Second, there were no communications through other means (and ITIL teaches us that client communications are as important during incident management as is actual incident resolution). Last, PP scrubbed two forums on their website, replacing with a meaningless locked post by the administrator ( »www.phonepower.com/forum/topic.php?id=447 ). It gives a nasty smell of a cover-up. As I said in the original review, the techies seem to be high-class, but people running the business could use some coaching.
Original review - October 2011
=======================
I've been VoicePulse customer for 7 years (3 accounts); but when my cousin was moving her medical office I went with Phone Power. So far, I haven't been disappointed. Cloned line alone made the cost saving quite significant ($50 vs $11 per month - not all doctors are rich). I bought adapter in Fry's - last unit, and it was returned. Apparently, MAC was already registered, so I had to call support. less than a minute wait, and the lady fixed the problem while I was waiting. Second call was to tech support - I plugged the adapter before the service was on (email said "after 8PM", but I only paid attention to the date). Again, less than a minute on hold, the guy understood the issue even before I finished explaining, and turned on the service while I was on call.
Pleasant surprise - phone number was ported in less than a week. Don't know if Phone Power is so good, or the process got easier; just a year ago it took almost a month.
I haven't tried fax yet (we are using Extreme Fax and love it, but monthly allowance of 500 pages is not enough) - something that VoicePulse never got working. Hopefully, this will be another icing on the cake. *UPDATE* I tried fax and it works! Now I am really thinking about ditching VoicePulse...
Now, to the annoyances. The website says in big letters that the plan is $8.33 ($200 for two years), but the junk fees add 25% to the price (before anybody starts flaming, I am *not* saying that it's false advertising. I am saying that the company misrepresents add-on costs as government-imposed taxes and fees). Second, the knowledge base is very informative, but it is often not clear if the article applies to small business plan or to hosted pbx, or to sip trunking.
Last in the annoyances department. The adapter costs $80 with $80 rebate. It's a Grandstream HT502 which costs $34 at VoipSupply. Obviously, the cost is completely arbitrary (although I haven't got my rebate check yet. *UPDATE* I did get a check in 6 to 8 weeks, as promised). All I really pay is sales tax. But why would you set the price at double the retail?! Vonage and 8x8 on the same shelf cost $40!
It has been only a month, but now her partners want to move their PBX to IP, and Phone Power is certainly a top candidate.
Comments:
1 edit | Forum Support is responsible for cleaning the forums and in regards to the outage we try to keep everything simple and clear. In this particular situation there were multiple threads citing numerous problems with random speculations. In the best interest of keeping customers informed of the time frame and nature of the problem we removed any of the extra threads that contained speculation.
This wasn't done with the intention of covering anything up we just want to make sure customers understand the specifics of this incident. | |
| | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA
1 edit | Re: Forum As someone who has been moderated multiple times I don't understand your point. This a forum just like Phone Powers and the moderators reserve the right to moderate the forum. I have had my posts deleted and edited because I was off topic so the fact that posts that contained speculation were deleted is pretty tame.
To each his own though. | |
| | | |  ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 | Re: Forum The threads could have been locked, not removed. Removing the threads looks suspicious. | |
| | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | Re: Forum Explain how the current situation looks suspicious.
There was an outage on ** date. Multiple threads were created were people thought the company was out of business and other bizarre things. The moderators moderated the threads and made an official company statement. The statement provided a time frame and the impact. Where is the cover up what is suspicious? If anything they acknowledged the problem and made an official statement.
This isn't area 51 there is no government conspiracy. On that note I don't remember anyone ever commenting about how threads/reviews get moderated on this forum(DSL Reports).
Getting uptight about a moderator doing their job is a little odd from my perspective. | |
| | | | | | ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 | Re: Forum We can agree to disagree. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | Re: Forum Hoping to prove a point. Forums do not belong to the users they belong to the companies that host them. If you don't abide by the rules of the forum prepare to be moderated. If the moderators don't think what you are discussing is relevant to the users prepare to be moderated. If you are going off on a tangent and discussing things that aren't relevant prepare to be moderated. If you aren't seeing a trend it is that a moderators job is to moderate a forum. This is par for the course with companies much larger than PP.
To post a review with a negative inflection about something that is par for the course is peculiar. Also I think it is in their forum guidelines. Granted it is your opinion and you are entitled to it.
My last statement still stands where is the cover up and what is suspicious. You make this out to be some giant scandal where PP is trying to hide something. An official source posted about an outage,stated the nature of the outage and the time frame. If anything this is the exact opposite of a cover up. | |
| | | | | | | | Reviews:
·PHONE POWER
2 edits | Re: Forum said by DSM Fan:Hoping to prove a point. Forums do not belong to the users they belong to the companies that host them. If you don't abide by the rules of the forum prepare to be moderated. If the moderators don't think what you are discussing is relevant to the users prepare to be moderated. If you are going off on a tangent and discussing things that aren't relevant prepare to be moderated. If you aren't seeing a trend it is that a moderators job is to moderate a forum. This is par for the course with companies much larger than PP.
To post a review with a negative inflection about something that is par for the course is peculiar. Also I think it is in their forum guidelines. Granted it is your opinion and you are entitled to it.
My last statement still stands where is the cover up and what is suspicious. You make this out to be some giant scandal where PP is trying to hide something. An official source posted about an outage,stated the nature of the outage and the time frame. If anything this is the exact opposite of a cover up.
I'm a big fan of Phone-Power and I agree where the mods at PhonePower are coming from. People are smart though and they are going to see the threads at DSLR not being modded, then go to PP forum and notice their posts being obliterated regardless of "rules, points, prerogatives, property, etc." and that will be all she wrote. My dad told me better to let people air out a little dirty laundry then have it overflow out of the hamper, which in this case would be the PP forum vs. public Internet. Which as we can all clearly see now in this review. siggghhh... Good, Bad, Right, Wrong, that is JMHO? »youtu.be/WJ_yQ02xwsM
--
I got the need for speed »bit.ly/topgunparody | |
| | | | | | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | Re: Forum Understandable that people feel their opinions or dirty laundry were removed. That is the job of a house cleaner. Moderators are forum house cleaners. Also no one has elaborated on this suspicious cover up. | |
|
| | | | | | | ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 | You are correct, a forum is not owned by the users. But if users fell that their comments are being removed the they will leave the forum and find another. | |
|
| | | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | quoted text pulled from your review
"It gives a nasty smell of a cover-up"
"As I said in the original review, the techies seem to be high-class, but people running the business could use some coaching."
As PPtech mentioned the techies scrubbed your beloved posts. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA
4 edits | Re: Forum Let me be even more clear
"It gives a nasty smell of a cover-up."
This comment invoked my comment about cover ups. There is no clarification of what was covered up.
"Last, PP scrubbed two forums on their website, replacing with a meaningless locked post by the administrator"
Yes it was a very meaningless post the below quote is directly from the meaningless post also indicates everything they covered up
"At approximately 6:12am PST on 1/21/12 a core network element failed. This would have impacted registered end points, website and calls to support. Service was restored at 7:50am PST."
Lets break down every aspect of this meaningless post.
"At approximately 6:12am PST on 1/21/12" "Service was restored at 7:50am PST" Indicates date and time of failure. I found this to be extremely helpful in that I know exactly when the problem occurred and I don't need to wonder about what happened.
"a core network element failed" Indicates what caused the failure. Don't think at any point that you are entitled to the specific component that failed. The internet didn't die and this was a Phone Power only problem.
"This would have impacted registered end points, website and calls to support" Field of impact. Allowed me to know that the failures I was experiencing were directly caused by the service outage.
I have been on multiple forums and seen situations like this all the time. I think it was a good idea that they cleared the threads. I was reading over some of the commentary. Some of the users came across as chicken little. OMG the sky is falling it is sun rocket all over again.
Ironically looks like they reinstated them to placate the masses.
If anything my commentary has been on topic. Your review makes you come across as an overly paranoid consumer. Hopefully other users can see that and take it for what it is worth.
"I actually give PP much more credit than you seem to" Yes I slam the company that has provided rock solid service and US based support staff for minimal cost. I totally don't give them the credit they deserve. Maybe I should start a review slam the company and speculate that they are hiding things. That would totally be the credit they deserve based on your logic. | |
| | | | | | | | | | Reviews:
·PHONE POWER
1 edit | Re: Forum Easy there DSM...take a breath buddy  I chirped in to try and keep the peace and play devils advocate in a civilized way. Making comments like "Don't think at any point that you are entitled to the specific component that failed.", Your review makes you come across as an overly paranoid consumer., etc. will just add more gasoline to the fire! 
PhonePower has 131 good reviews and only 21 bad. The numbers speak for themselves. PP did the right thing, everyone is happy, let all hold hands and sing »youtu.be/YZ2mQKvKJMQ
--
I got the need for speed »bit.ly/topgunparody | |
|
2 edits | DSM Fan you are getting a little worked up over something that is pretty trivial. The author of the review has a valid point and in hind sight we have restored the formerly moderated posts. In the future our forum protocol will fall in line with the suggestions of the users since the purpose of the forum was to encourage users to interact with each other. I would like everyone to know we didn't have draconian intent when we moderated those threads. | |
| | | |  Re: Forum
 | |
|
| | Did you get the beta feature activated? | |
| | |
| | Glad you like it, if you have an input email support or post on the forums. The product is still evolving and changing and as things start to solidify we will produce more help content. | |
|
| |
| next page (previous review)
 Review by lineofsight
member for 10.2 years, 3334 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 173 days ago
- East Saint Louis,Saint Clair,IL
- $12 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 1 days
- "Ultra-Reliable"
- "None"
- "This is the best, cheapest service for the money."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
UPDATE 10-17-2012:
A lot of time has passed. I have nothing but good things to say. I consider this VOIP system to be mature. Reliability is excellent. The only weakness has nothing to do with PhonePower. It has to do with reliability of the connection ot the internet on my end.
UPDATE 03-19-2011:
In my second year now. No outages for months. The reliablility is excellent. Making everything even better is the fact that they now allow you to get the SIP credentials, I have got this running using FreePBX!
I have gotten a couple of people to sign up with PP and I got $10 credits for each of us, this is paying the taxes that get charged on the second year of service on the $199 24 month plan.
My current hardware and service setup is Charter 18/2 Internet, a Motorola SB6120 Modem, a Netgear WNDR3700 Router and 2 FreePBX trunks in a PC using 2 Phonepower accounts. I keep the original HT-502 adapter unplugged but ready to go if my FreePBX system were to go down for some reason.
Original Review:
I have had PhonePower since 11-2009, I started off with a new number cloned to both ports, after a few months I decided to make the switch for my AT&T landline to add it to my PhonePower account. They handled the switchover perfectly. I now have my Original PhonePower number on port 1 and my home number on port 2.
I can't be happier. I put a UPS on my Motorola SB5120 Cable Modem, DLink DIR-825 Router and the Grandstream HT-502 that was supplied by PhonePower, just to add reliability in case of power company outage (this happens every once in a while here)
The features I really like are the voicemails via email (wav file) and the ability to quickly forward these numbers via the PhonePower website. The fax by email feature is a nice touch.
Comments:
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