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Review by bullitt2021 See Profile

  • Location: l4r4k7
  • Cost: $17 per month
  • Install: about 17 days
cheap
extremely difficult to get going through tech support
cancelled, could no long take the sporatic service
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I ordered this because I was fed up with dealing with the "big guys". The DSL service has been pretty much flawless, I cannot say the same for Tek Talk. It took 4 different calls just to get it going, and I am no techy (I also had to hire a 3rd party to make internal changes to the phone lines inside the house). The first individuals assumed I had thorough knowledge of how to integrate this service. The phone would stop taking calls sometimes within hours of making a call to get it going again, and those calls alone were slow and painful.

For outgoing calls, it almost always took 2 attempts. The first one would just give a busy signal. The system allowed incoming calls about 1 of every 50 calls. The balance went straight to voice mail - I would make sure I tested the system by calling from my cell phone while in the house, so it was never someone on the phone at the time.

Unless you are able and prepared to reset the modem and the Tek Talk device on a regular basis, and I do mean daily - stay clear.

member for 9.4 years, driveby review (so far)
updated 9.4 years ago


TSI JonD
Premium Member
join:2013-07-29
Chatham, ON

TSI JonD

Premium Member

Review

Hello bullitt2021,

Thanks so much for your feedback, it is always very much appreciated as it helps us refine our services and processes to provide the best experience for our customers.

With TekTalk, since it's a VOIP service it's quality depends mostly on the connection speed of your internet service. You mention that your DSL runs flawlessly but not what speed it is. If the speed is not high enough, it's no surprise the VOIP service wasn't running as it should.

One other thing you mention that causes some concern is that you hired a 3rd party to make internal changes to the phone lines inside the house. Our VOIP ATA is only intended to be used with a maximum of 2 phones being plugged in to it, and this is if you have multiple lines activated. That's not to say you can't use more than one phone, but if you would like to use multiple phones while only having one line active, you would need a phone system with a signal base and multiple hand sets.

It sounds as though you had a technician come in and wire your home to accept a signal from your ATA to power all of the phone jacks in your home. If that is the case, the ATA is simply not powerful enough to run in that configuration and it's very likely the configuration was the issue that caused such instability.

Regardless of what the issue was with the service I would like to sincerely apologize that your experience with our TekTalk was not what you had expected.

If you ever have any questions for us, please do not hesitate to open a thread with us in our DSL Direct forum.

Best regards,
Jon
Mango
Use DMZ and you get a kick in the dick.
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
www.toao.net

Mango

Premium Member

Re: Review

said by TSI JonD:

It sounds as though you had a technician come in and wire your home to accept a signal from your ATA to power all of the phone jacks in your home. If that is the case, the ATA is simply not powerful enough to run in that configuration and it's very likely the configuration was the issue that caused such instability.

You may want to double check this. The Grandstream HT502 supports a load of 3 REN. Though it's certainly possible he has a lot of mechanical bell or otherwise unpowered phones, most modern phones have a very low REN such as 0.1. It should be fine to use any VoIP ATA with household wiring.

Even if he has overloaded the REN, I would be surprised if that explains his issue with outgoing calls. He's having classic symptoms of NAT and/or SIP ALG problems.

I'd be curious to know if setting his ATA to use a high port number and port forwarding to the ATA would solve his problem.

m.
bullitt2021
join:2014-10-08
l4r4k7

bullitt2021

Member

to address the above...

The Tek Talk and DSL service were ordered at the same time on the same phone call. I asked for internet and and phone service, so I can only assume the individual at Teksavvy I placed the order with, sold me sufficient speed for the Tek Talk service.

I have one phone. I have 2 lines coming into the house. Only one was connected in the house, once the OTHER service was disconnected, the other line had to be switched in the house. Again, I had the 3rd party come in to do this because I was informed by the Teksavvy support person, they do not do this.
bullitt2021

bullitt2021

Member

Re: to address the above...

PS I have no idea what speed I have, the cost for the DSL service I pay is 44.99 plus tax - maybe that helps.