prestonlewis
Premium,MVM
join:2003-04-13
Sacramento, CA
 ·VoiceStick
| Same Mistakes I'm Seeing
When SR first came out, it was an interesting product but I was suspicious about the prepay for a year plan and the price was too cheap for them to make money. The original SR execs were former MCI/Worldcomm execs (another bankrupt company) and I didn't have much faith in them either. But to hear comments in the forum back then, SR was the best thing since sliced bread but look now what's happened: the execs from other failed companies ran SR into the ground and the price was too cheap for them to avoid bankrupty!
From reading other forum comments, I see a repeat of what happened with SR. People are fleeing to go to other new, unproven, God knows who runs them, mostly privately owned, perhaps run in a garage VoIP provider. I won't name any company names, that wouldn't be fair. But I see a few more SR catastrophes brewing in a few months to a year or so.
If a VoIP company wants a years pay up front, be careful. They may not last a year.
If their price is super-cheap, they won't make a profit and they'll eventually fold.
Please everyone, don't make the same mistake twice. Many of these new VoIP companies won't make it. Look at Vonage and P8, the two biggest VoIP companies who are barely making it much less some upstart company who is pricing cheaper and asking for a year up front in many cases. |
|
wnyzfinest
join:2007-07-17
West New York, NJ | they made a good profit
god known where they spent it on
their flashy office is for starters. |
|
johnsun
join:2007-08-03
Scottsdale, AZ
1 edit | reply to prestonlewis
The answer for me is to have 2 lines from different voips.
Line 1 is from Net2Phone (Sunrocket deal free for 12 months)
Line 2 MagicJack 40 first year and 19 there after(It works great for me and has really good call Q.
Here is the Ace in the hole my local GranCentral number good for life so I'll play with cheap voips all day long |
|
voiplover
Premium
join:2004-05-28
Portsmouth, NH | Just remember; Nothing stays the same. |
|
avalpert
join:2007-01-10
Silver Spring, MD
| reply to prestonlewis
What makes you think it is a mistake for the customers?
Sure SR went out with no grace and it caused a bit of a hassle for some but while they were running their company into the ground I got cheap and reliable phone service for 18 months, then got a refund for the prepaid portion of the six month I lost, kept my number and ported to another cheapie that may or may not survive long enough to cover my contract buyout + 12 months. But even if they don't, I'll get another refund for the unused portion and port my number to someone else.
And I'm pretty certain that the next one to go down does it with a bit more dignity - and even if they don't I'm getting the phone service I need at a considerable discount. |
|
Kenafin_02TA
join:2007-07-23
Edgewood, MD
| reply to prestonlewis
I certainly don't consider it a mistake. I was on the month to month plan with SunRocket so I didn't loose any money when they shut down and I saved a ton of money over a traditional landline for the year+ that I was with them. No complaints about their service until the week the ship sank.
I've already switched to another provider (Verizon Voicewing) and successfully ported my number so I'm out nothing. It was good while it lasted with SunRocket and no regrets while I had them. |
|
mindypin
Premium
join:2003-01-07
San Antonio, TX
| reply to prestonlewis
said by prestonlewis  :I won't name any company names, that wouldn't be fair. But I see a few more SR catastrophes brewing in a few months to a year or so. Unfortunately, I think it's possibly already happening. I wonder how many people are going to get screwed. |
|
Sly
Premium
join:2004-02-20
Johnson City, TN
clubs:
·Packet8
·Callcentric
 ·Comcast Formerly ..
1 edit | reply to prestonlewis
There is NO WAY you can compare Vonage to Packet8. The two companies have completely different business plans. So far, Packet8 may be the only VoIP company in the industry to have turned a profit. Vonage is nowhere close to that and is facing a possible shutdown if they lose their patent suit to Verizon. Not only that, but Packet8 has diversified where other VoIP providers have not.
Turning a profit, protecting yourself with patented technology, keeping in-house engineering staff, diversification, reinvesting back into the company instead of spending every last dime on advertising, improving the infrastructure to keep customer turn-over low... Packet8 is not going anywhere. 
--
"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
- Plato - |
|
christcorp
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Cheyenne, WY
·Bresnan Online
·VOIPo
| reply to prestonlewis
See, Kenafin and avalpert are two very "Rare" SunRocket customers. They have the right attitude. They went with sunrocket, knowing the risk they took. They weighed the "Price to Risk" ratio. They knew that they were taking a risk but for them it was worth it. After SunRocket went Quasar, they moved on to another provider. They know that it could happen again with a cheap provider. They are willing to risk keeping the number and other things for the price they are paying. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this way of thinking at all. I just wish more customers had that attitude.
Instead, you get a bunch of SunRocket customers who think that all voip providers are basically the same. They have no concept of what it takes to run a business. They have no idea where phone numbers come from, what the CLEC's role in all this is, the difference between SIP and RTP, what it costs to get and implement features, legally obtaining permission for much of the technology, etc.... All they know is that the uptime rate of SunRocket and Teletubbie should be equal with ATT and Packet8. That any and all of these other providers they may choose, should have the exact same feature list that SunRocket had. That for some stupid reason, these other providers should charge the same price of $199 for 2 years. And some are even ignorant enough to believe that these other providers should honor the remaining subscription they had with SunRocket.
I totally respect avalpert and Kanafin for their attitude and position in choosing voip. They understood the risks and chose accordingly. For their needs, Sunrocket was a great choice. For the others who have no idea that their expectations of what they should have received from SunRocket or what they are now expecting from their replacement providers is totally unrealistic, there is no respecting that position. You get what you deserve. If you don't like it, then pay more and go back to POTS. But then again, many expect VOIP and POTS to be equal in performance, quality, reliability, dependability, and price. Whatever! Anyway, kanafin and avalpert, good job. Later... Mike.... |
|
laserjobs
Premium
join:2004-05-02
Las Vegas, NV
·Cox HSI
| reply to Sly
said by Sly :There is NO WAY you can compare Vonage to Packet8. The two companies have completely different business plans. So far, Packet8 may be the only VoIP company in the industry to have turned a profit. Vonage is nowhere close to that and is facing a possible shutdown if they lose their patent suit to Verizon. Not only that, but Packet8 has diversified where other VoIP providers have not. Turning a profit, protecting yourself with patented technology, keeping in-house engineering staff, diversification, reinvesting back into the company instead of spending every last dime on advertising, improving the infrastructure to keep customer turn-over low... Packet8 is not going anywhere. Packet8 sells stock to keep afloat. They have been diluting their stock for years.
--
Vote for Ron Paul in the Republican Primaries |
|
Sly
Premium
join:2004-02-20
Johnson City, TN
clubs:
·Packet8
·Callcentric
·Comcast Formerly ..
| Then you missed the quarterly statement where they became the first VoIP company in history to turn a profit. They haven't sold off any stock in a year or more. Those days are over. They predicted that they would be cash flow positive in 5 years and 5 years later they are right on target. You may have to find someone else to rant about because all your doom and gloom toward Packet8 is proving to be unfounded. |
|
Sly
Premium
join:2004-02-20
Johnson City, TN
clubs:
·Packet8
·Callcentric
·Comcast Formerly ..
| reply to christcorp
said by christcorp : Exactly... Sunrocket went bankrupt because of the business plan they had... yet people expect their new provider to have the same plan. What are they crazy? If it didn't work the first time then it won't work the second time.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -Ben Franklin
--
"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
- Plato - |
|
burris
Premium
join:2000-08-22
Miami, FL
·VOIPo
 ·AT&T Southeast
·ViaTalk
| reply to christcorp
said by christcorp :See, Kenafin and avalpert are two very "Rare" SunRocket customers. They have the right attitude. They went with sunrocket, knowing the risk they took. They weighed the "Price to Risk" ratio. They knew that they were taking a risk but for them it was worth it. After SunRocket went Quasar, they moved on to another provider. They know that it could happen again with a cheap provider. They are willing to risk keeping the number and other things for the price they are paying. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this way of thinking at all. I just wish more customers had that attitude. Instead, you get a bunch of SunRocket customers who think that all voip providers are basically the same. They have no concept of what it takes to run a business. They have no idea where phone numbers come from, what the CLEC's role in all this is, the difference between SIP and RTP, what it costs to get and implement features, legally obtaining permission for much of the technology, etc.... All they know is that the uptime rate of SunRocket and Teletubbie should be equal with ATT and Packet8. That any and all of these other providers they may choose, should have the exact same feature list that SunRocket had. That for some stupid reason, these other providers should charge the same price of $199 for 2 years. And some are even ignorant enough to believe that these other providers should honor the remaining subscription they had with SunRocket. I totally respect avalpert and Kanafin for their attitude and position in choosing voip. They understood the risks and chose accordingly. For their needs, Sunrocket was a great choice. For the others who have no idea that their expectations of what they should have received from SunRocket or what they are now expecting from their replacement providers is totally unrealistic, there is no respecting that position. You get what you deserve. If you don't like it, then pay more and go back to POTS. But then again, many expect VOIP and POTS to be equal in performance, quality, reliability, dependability, and price. Whatever! Anyway, kanafin and avalpert, good job. Later... Mike.... I have to jump on this band wagon as well..
I retired from the POTS world and knew fully well where I was headed. The substantial savings in service headed me to SunRocket when I was ready. Strange as it may sound, I was quite happy with SR for about 2 years even with the few outages they had. Even BellSouth had outages through the years. Now with cell phones, the risk factor goes down. My wife has even accepted this scenario.
I mentioned many times before that the multitude of features is really of no interest to me. The basics are enough and the failover substitute that SR finally conjured up, worked for me, for the most part.
Upon their demise, I ported to VT and thus far am satisfied. I opted for their adapter as I didn't have the patience at the time to diddle with my many adapters and for me this worked fine. Got the PAP2, plugged it in and bingo. The porting went as scheduled and for $15 I kept SR/TB alive for the forwarding...again, it worked.
Will VT survive....who knows? In the meanwhile, the few times I had to call VT support was not too bad...I'm an early riser. Generally, I don't need too much support, but in this case I had to get the admin PW for the adapter and had them hard code in the changes I wanted.
Contrary to all the reports, I found each of the support people quite pleasant and each of them solved my problems quickly.
Sure, there is almost a total lack of communication with regard to the tickets and such, but maybe when the dust settles, it will shape up.
As an afterthought, I suppose I must say that one of the compelling reasong for choosing VT at this juncture was the 2fer they were offering for SR refugees.
|
|
jester121
Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
 ·surpasshosting
·ViaTalk
| reply to wnyzfinest
said by wnyzfinest :they made a good profit god known where they spent it on their flashy office is for starters. Idiotic -- they never made a profit, or came anywhere close. Their flashy office was an expense, you know -- those pesky things that eat into profits? Those $50 Uniden phones they gave away? All those referral fees? The salaries of the retards that were running the company? THAT is what kept them from making a profit. |
|
prestonlewis
Premium,MVM
join:2003-04-13
Sacramento, CA
1 edit | reply to Sly
I'm sorry this thread has turned into an argument. It wasn't my intention. Let's move on. |
|
