Zombie999
join:2004-05-04
Toronto, ON | [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? Broadvox direct has been down for me since 6pm yesterday.
No dial tone (busy error tone), incoming or outgoing not working.
Internet is fine. Powered cycled the ATA several times. | |
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 artisticcheese
join:2004-11-09
Carrollton, TX | Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? Wow, I did not even know that Broadvox Direct is still alive. | |
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 | ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? said by artisticcheese  :Wow, I did not even know that Broadvox Direct is still alive. Today and last night notwithstanding, BVX is very much alive and kicking. And at $19.99/month (grandfathered price) and a rock-steady dial tone I'm quite happy with it.
It's just days like today when things go wrong and I'm left to hope someone is working on the problem that I wish there was a bit better support system in place. | |
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montee4
Premium
join:2004-02-15
Chicago, IL
1 edit | said by artisticcheese :Wow, I did not even know that Broadvox Direct is still alive. I wonder how many customers they have now. I remeber when the President or CEO used to be very active in these forums back in the day
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ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
1 edit | Yes - having the same problem here.
I logged a ticket last night around 8 p.m. but haven't got any response from them yet! Oh their darn ticket system! :P
Fingers crossed it's not something serious. | |
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| ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? I just received this from Broadvox:
We had a problem with one of our servers last night. Here is what you can try to reconnect to our servers:
Adapter Reboot: Unplug the power cord from your adapter for about 5 minutes, then wait about 10 minutes before testing your phone.
If that doesn't work, try:
LAN Reboot: Unplug the power cord from your adapter, modem and router for about 5 minutes. Then starting as the internet enters your home plug in the first unit - probably your modem. Wait until it boots up, then move to the next unit - probably your router (if you have one). Wait for it to boot up, then plug in your phone adapter. Wait about 10 minutes then try your phone again.
If this doesn't work, please repeat the Adapter Reboot and LAN Reboot.
I'm at work so I'll have to my wife jump through all those hoops at home and see if that fixes the problem. I know I tried the usual power cycling last night, but maybe today it will work. | |
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| | ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB | Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? Tried - still no success. We get a fast busy the second we pick up the phone. Can't call or be called. | |
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| | llast08
join:2004-08-05
Boise, ID
| quote:
If this doesn't work, please repeat the Adapter Reboot and LAN Reboot.
LOL -- this is the worst troubleshooting email ever.
Step 1: Perform this action.
Step 2: If Step 1 doesn't work, don't call or email us. Instead, perform Step 1 again. Repeat forever.
I believe that's also called the "get lost" response. | |
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| | | ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? said by llast08 : quote:
If this doesn't work, please repeat the Adapter Reboot and LAN Reboot.
LOL -- this is the worst troubleshooting email ever. Step 1: Perform this action. Step 2: If Step 1 doesn't work, don't call or email us. Instead, perform Step 1 again. Repeat forever. I believe that's also called the "get lost" response. LOL - agreed, although to be fair I left off the "if this doesn't work, please contact us". But being Broadvox they don't exactly make it easy to call for help, so I'm left to hope they get my email and are going to do something about it.
That's the unfortunate thing about being a BVX subscriber - sometimes it seems like I'm the only customer. Residential customer anyway.
Approaching 24 hours without phone service...  | |
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Zombie999
join:2004-05-04
Toronto, ON | I'm still down. Adapter/LAN reboot didn't help. | |
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Rop
@rogers.com
| Same issue here. First my two Broadvox business lines went down (1 1/2 day now), this morning the other adapter with my home phone line is down too. Same tech response as posted when I reported the issue yesterday.
For a phone company to have an issue affecting a great number of their subscriber is pretty serious. I hope this won't become a habit...
-RoB- | |
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| ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? What worked to solve my problem is the following:
I have changed the SBC (Session Border Controller) that your device attempts to register to. For this change to take affect and the device to attempt to re-register to our service, please preform another LAN reboot. Please then retest and update this ticket with results. Thank you If you have contacted BVX to advise them the LAN/adapter reboot procedure didn't work, you might want to suggest they try the above.
I've been up ever since - touch wood! | |
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| | Zombie999
join:2004-05-04
Toronto, ON
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? said by ErikRP :If you have contacted BVX to advise them the LAN/adapter reboot procedure didn't work, you might want to suggest they try the above. I've updated my ticket TWICE, still no response from broadvox. Service now down for TWO days!
Maybe they are closed for the weekend? | |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
| I must have been lucky to miss this episode of problems. As far as I'm aware my dial tone has been rock solid. However over the years we have never seen the much hyped feature set and wiz bang features that had been promised to us in the beginning when all the Broadvox Direct hype and sales pitch was rampant around this forum and others. That said I'm locked in at the grandfathered rate and the dial tone has been there when I need it. What doesn't seem to work for me is even though I have names associated with many numbers within my Broadvox account. Recently those names have not been showing up on the caller id. Broadvox Direct and others have always been quick to point out that the industry considers caller id and caller id with name as a different product. Even though consumers don't seem to feel this way. Yet if a name is within my account it is supposed to show up when the associated number calls me.
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| Zombie999
join:2004-05-04
Toronto, ON
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? said by IGGY :What doesn't seem to work for me is even though I have names associated with many numbers within my Broadvox account. Recently those names have not been showing up on the caller id. I asked them about that. They said they updated the software on the switch and the new software doesn't support that feature. | |
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| | ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? said by Zombie999 :said by IGGY :What doesn't seem to work for me is even though I have names associated with many numbers within my Broadvox account. Recently those names have not been showing up on the caller id. I asked them about that. They said they updated the software on the switch and the new software doesn't support that feature. I think we lost the caller ID information sometime around February. I asked BVX about it and I got the same response. I made the rather sarcastic comment that it didn't seem like much of an upgrade if customers LOSE features!
FWIW, we had someone from BVX tech support call maybe 3 or 4 months ago and we got the individual's caller ID info on our phone. I wonder if we would get other BVX subscriber's information?
I agree: rock solid dial tone but the feature set certainly isn't growing, and is actually shrinking. I like the few features that are available from the Portal, like the "Click to Call" and the "Follow Me" functions (although I'd be happy if the site was more Firefox compatible).
For the money I pay I'm happy, but I would have trouble paying more for what I'm getting.
Zombie999, not sure what to say. I thought they kept mostly business hours however when there is no phone service I thought they might be more responsive. What do you have the issue flagged as? I used "Service Outage". | |
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neftv
join:2000-10-01
Broomall, PA
 ·Broadvox Direct
| I just checked my service it's working. Of course I just caught on to this thread just moments ago and not from yesterday so if I did have an outage I wouldn't know. I know I been having problems with using Broadvox with the Verizon Fios router. I have had to double nat ahead of the Broadvox ATA till recently when Verizon upgraded the firmware to their router and now that is not the case (no more double nat. So far for me Broadvox has been good to me for the most part. I don't who I would go to if I had to change or was forced to change. It seems that all VOIP providers can have their share of problems. | |
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Rop
@rogers.com
| My second BVX adapter went down as well, same issue. So now I have one adapter down for 3 days now, the second one for 1 day. BVX hasn't updated my ticked in the past 24 hours, looks like they don't work in the weekend. I sincerely hope they are not about to go belly-up, while it worked it worked well and the 20-bucks-a-month rate is unbeatable. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
-RoB- | |
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fkrizh
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? "the 20-bucks-a-month rate is unbeatable. "
I used to subscribe to broadvoice. Nowadays I use a pay as you go setup with Callcentric.
I pay $2 for the DID, and about 2 cents/minute for incoming and outgoing calls to Canada and the US, as well as to most other first-world countries.
So for $20/month, I would have $18 for talking, which works out to 900 minutes per month, or 30 minutes per day.
Since we use the phone about 60 minutes per month, if that, pay as you go is the obvious choice, but I'm wondering how it works out for people like yourself; is 900 minutes a month less than you use your phone? more? | |
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newguy65
@rogers.com | anyone still down? I'm not up yet and I have no dial tone, no busy signal. They haven't responded to my ticket since Saturday. | |
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| ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? Keep after them, and I suspect you will hear something from them soon after they open today. (Ugh - that is unless Veteran's Day is a day off for them...  )
I'd definitely try to find out why you were left without service for a whole weekend and what they will do to stop that from happening again. We were up and running by mid evening Friday night - I can't help but think we were the last customer handled before they turned the lights out for the weekend. Without a bit of luck we could easily still be down today as well. For all of us BVX customers, find out what their tech support policy is like, although if my previous experiences are any indication it is like talking to a machine. | |
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Toronto Canada
@cgocable.net | Down 72 hrs and counting (no dial tone since Fri pm). Are they out of business? | |
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backup1
@rogers.com | mine's finally back up....finally!! It went down Thursday PM and just came up right now. | |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
4 edits | This is interesting that some people are still reporting being down. I wonder if this is something region specific? My line is up and running. I've used it multiple times the past few days. Another slightly aggravating issue is that you used to get status reports now and then when you logged into your account. It seems this worthwhile customer service option went away ages ago. Then again in the beginning many people could never get logged into their accounts without a problem.
I'm not really sure on exactly when I first saw the Caller ID issue. I know in the past this was something that came and went depending on the mood of Broadvox. This has been one of my biggest complaints since day one. Yes the portal options get used by me. In some cases Broadvox is offering more than some providers. Yet in other cases they are offering less options compared to other providers. I just want Caller ID with name. To me if your offering a supposedly technologically advanced product. You should at the very least have an option most people consider a basic item with their landline for years now.
The whole President or CEO thing what an interesting story that is. Jeff Williams denied in a very big thread that he ever represented himself in this way. The fact is a quick read of many older threads showed he indeed had represented himself as such. But later stated that he was in fact the CTO.
»/profile/875525
Many of those threads are bookmarked here
»voip.iggyz.com
It's interesting how he offered support help here at one time. Then when he got overwhelmed he just took off. He also sidestepped direct questions in relation to customer service. Basically passing the buck. You would think that someone that high up within the corporate structure would be serious about getting customers answers.
»[Broadvox Direct] Jeff - What has happened to Bvox support?
If someone decides to debate me I offer proof on my above comment.
Jeffery Williams President Broadvox Direct, Llc evp; Broadvox, Llc
That is within his tag in the thread below.
»[Broadvox Direct] What happened to the dialplan, Jeff?
Yet in later threads he denied ever stating he was in fact the president of the company.
A quick addition - anyone else not getting emails in regards to who called or a message being left? Has this feature now been killed as well? I haven't gotten the email heads up in a few weeks now I think.
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| fortissimo
join:2003-10-17
Richmond, BC
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? When I had my share of various problems w/ BVD ranging from customer service, billing to technical (all reported here in gross details), I tried hard to give them opportunities to resolve the issue (talking about months, not days), and they were largely not resolved. Of course the end result is that I cancelled service.
However, during that time, Jeff Williams and I had private messages in between. He did not really want to answer the tough questions, and did answer more general stuff (background etc), although I found him quite sincere and straight forward despite not answering the tough questions. He also said he was no longer in the direct (managing) capacity at the time.
Among the various things discussed, he mentioned that they spent a lot of money on the ticketing system (for reporting and tracking customer service, basically a CRM system) but it had bugs and needed to be ironed out.
During the early days of VoIP.net I also had just the right chance to have talked to the Director of Customer Service (of VoIP.net not BVD) at the time to help a friend resolving a shipping issue. (it was resolved).
In my recollection, both companies (at the time they were separate) were poor in customer service, but it was inconsistent (i.e. sometimes they were ok / good). However, having dealt with the likes of Packet8, BroadVoice, vBuzzer, Acanac, CIA (no not the spy agency), etc, I can only say that most are just as bad (more or less), with the exception of vBuzzer which had had few problems (not zero, only much less than others and less severe).
When I was very excited about consumer VOIP products, I have pretty much given up on them. I still do VOIP for fun, but not being gun ho on subscribing to consumer services (VOIP).
Most people (including those here in the last few years) are interested in VOIP for the reason of cheap phone lines, not for the technology. A few want it for nomadic reason, and that is small in comparison to those who want cheap phone lines. Outgoing calls, especially LD is not a whole lot cheaper on VOIP (but a bit) compared to phone cards, and yet phone cards are more flexible. We are seeing more phone cards sold by VOIP companies now.
I will never trust BVD anymore as they didn't resolve my problem and drag me on for months. It was about FAX support which they listed as a supported feature with T.38 etc. I didn't even know that they took away Caller ID, that's just not right. My $4. a month unlimited local calling with DID has full Caller ID with name included and this is the expensive country of Canada this is provided in! | |
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Zombie999
join:2004-05-04
Toronto, ON | Mine is working now...after they changed SBC. | |
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Rop
@rogers.com
| My two adapters (3 lines) are still down, going into day 6 now. Tech support claims to have changed my SBC for one of the adapters, but that didn't make any difference. Still not working. Their phone line for tech support goes to voice-mail after about 20 minutes on hold. There are daily responses to my tickets, though they don't resolve it. This process is waaaay to slow!
I've started to look at other VOIP providers. Probably Vonage. Despite that the same calling plan is $65 instead of the $25 I pay now (business line plus fax), I would think that they are large enough to not allow outages like this to happen.
-RoB- | |
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| ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? It's really disappointing. I'm happy enough with BVX - when it's working - but when there are problems it's like a big game of chance. I can't complain too much about the service I get, but when I see others having problems with their phone service that stretch beyond 24 hours then I get concerned. This is my only phone service and while I could always load up the ol' Pay & Talk cell phone I can usually go without for a while.
As people have noted before, I think BVX is primarily a business-oriented company and the sideline venture they got into with residential and SOHO service is proving to be more trouble than it's worth. I can see absolutely NO evidence of them trying to grow their business; on the contrary it seems as though they're content to let people drift off to other carriers. Maybe that's an unfair assessment but I call it as I see it.
- Their website looks like it hasn't been updated in years. And it talks about "New Low Residential Rates" of $29.95/month - have they ever been higher than that?!
- Not only have no new features been introduced in YEARS but features which did exist no longer work. Gone is any sort of Caller ID. I have no idea - and no guarantee - that dialing 911 will work even with the workaround solution they have in place (although with me being in Canada I suppose I shouldn't expect too much in the first place?).
- There is ZERO communication between the company and its customers, with the exception of the occasional -and increasingly rare - system status notification. As was noted earlier there used to be the occasional status update on the web page. The last update was back in March, advising of changes to their back end system. Not a thing about this latest outage.
I guess you get what you pay for, but there comes a point when a bargain isn't a bargain. | |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
1 edit | The email alert seems to be working again. I got one today. Maybe it only triggers now when a message is left. In the past even if a message wasn't left I would get an email alerting me to the number that had called. If I remember right you could choose this option within your account manager.
As to many of the comments made above. I think a fair assessment has been made. If my memory is still working I think many older threads have the CTO that was first the president stating that their focus was going to become geared more towards providing backend and not towards outright consumer services. Which is a big switch from the hype and promises that were thrown around in the beginning.
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Rop
@rogers.com
| Another day, and no solution in sight...
BVX tells me they don't see my two adapters contact their servers to load the configuration. My next suggestion to them is likely going to be to configure two new adapters with the proper parameters and overnight them to me.
I would be very interested in hearing what actually happened here. It's a safe guess that very few of the affected people know about this forum, so they probably put a large number of subscribers out of business last week. Speculating on my part, it looks like they changed the server(s) that the units use to get their voip configuration from. The idea was probably to reprogram the units that are in the field to use their new server(s) before making the change, but they either missed some, or the fact that the units were behind a firewall prevented the updating. I've since tried putting them directly on the Internet (before the firewall), but that hasn't made any difference. Anyway, this is all just an educated guess on my part.
-RoB- | |
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George1233
@securenet.net
| I am down, but my friends/ close neighbours with same setup as me, area code and all are not.....Explain that to me. It is down since thurday night. Same reboot procedures I got from BVX. I hope will work soon. I am shopping for other providers in the meantime. I was with them for 1.5 years and I was very happy....To bad they are incapable of doing this right and keep people happy. Happy voip! | |
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catsoft
join:2005-12-19
Manotick, ON
| I've given up on Broadvox for my business lines and moved to a local voip provider. No solution was in sight with Broadvox, no human ever answered their help line, and the rate at which tickets were answered did not inspire confidence. My Broadvox numbers should get ported to the new provider. Keeping my fingers crossed for that.
My home phone line is still with Broadvox, and it is still down. I'll give them another week or so, if no solution is found by then that one will move too.
When I signed up with Voip.net they were a great little company. There was always a human on the other end of the phone, and wait times on the few occasions that I called them was short. Unfortunately Broadvox is a very different company.
-RoB- | |
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| ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| Re: [Broadvox Direct] Broadvox direct down? Get out! A week and still down?!
Are they even trying to do something to get you up and running, or is it total silence? I can take - somewhat! - problems with technology. System is down? Okay, it happens. But tell me:
1. That you KNOW the system is down;
2. What you're doing to get the system back up (even if you want to use completely non-technical language);
3. When you expect to be up;
4. Who I can contact if the system is not up when you said it would be.
Those four simple little things are what separates the good companies from the bad.
I'm sorry to hear about your problems, partly because it's one less person on here using BVX but also because it could just as easily have been me that has been without phone service for a week.
Best of luck...! | |
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catsoft
join:2005-12-19
Manotick, ON
| I've been at them with additional notes to the ticket every day. Also tried calling their 1-800 number (they have one, though it's not published). I asked them for a person to talk to (through the ticket system), or to call me. They never did. So yesterday I had enough.
Of course, my other Broadvox adapter came back to life this morning (I moved two lines to a new voip provider, third one was still with Broadvox). So they did fix it, even if it was too late too little. There's no note in the ticket system, nothing to try, I had left the adapter plugged in and it's working again.
-RoB- | |
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