ErikRP
join:2004-11-06
Winnipeg, MB
| reply to newguy65
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 | reply to newguy65
Down 72 hrs and counting (no dial tone since Fri pm). Are they out of business? |
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backup1
@rogers.com | reply to Zombie999
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 | reply to Zombie999
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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Zombie999
join:2004-05-04
Toronto, ON | reply to Zombie999
Mine is working now...after they changed SBC. |
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Rop
@rogers.com
| reply to Zombie999
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
| 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 | reply to Zombie999
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
| reply to Zombie999
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
| reply to Zombie999
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
| reply to Zombie999
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
| 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
| reply to Zombie999
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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fortissimo
join:2003-10-17
Richmond, BC
| reply to IGGY
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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