1 edit | I'm out - almost So is Viatalk going to get better anytime soon??
I've been a Viatalk evangelist for a few years, but I've had enough. My wife was constantly telling me the phone didn't work, or she couldn't hear people talking. My 911 didn't work... calls went to dead air constantly.
I went ahead and turned an AT&T landline back on. It cost more and AT&T is a pain to work with... they can't even get their Voicemail indicator light service to work right... but the phone works.
Why has it gotten so bad lately?
JQP |
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 44402812Hack The PlanetPremium
join:2006-08-28
Plattsburgh, NY | From what I have heard it is an infrastructure problem? From what I gather they did not implement their solution to scale very well? What bugs me the most is why they insist on playing ring around the severs? I mean come on! I have friends on Voicepulse, Vonage, Voipo, etc. and I never hear them saying today I learned the names of all the transformers from my VoIp company.
I have actually got a PM saying how someone liked tinkering to get ViaTalk to work. If I ever become that bored where I like having unreliable phone service because it gives me something to do please kick me! I guess I'm old school because I prefer to have phone service the works over cool features that do me no good when my phone has no ring back, calls go directly to voice mail, garbled calls, dropped calls, etc. O'well to each their own  |
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 v35_pilotWhoops, there goes another AMUPremium
join:2005-12-12
Fayetteville, NY
 ·ViaTalk
 ·Verizon FiOS
1 edit | reply to jqpaulsel
said by jqpaulsel:Why has it gotten so bad lately? Can't answer that but I certainly empathize with you.
Problems with outgoing calls resulting in either a fast busy or dead air have increased tenfold at my household while the family's tolerance for this has decreased proportionally. |
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 jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
·voip.ms
| reply to 44402812
That's because Viatalk is the official VOIP service operated by tinkerers, for tinkerers. It's just like when we got the toaster speech back in 2007 -- you have a bunch of support techs running around changing this and that, tweaking this router or that adapter just to get the customer off the phone and close the ticket. After awhile an avalanche affect has been created that breaks phone service for a bunch of customers.
If you don't like tweaking you won't like Viatalk. |
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| reply to jqpaulsel
I'm very curious as to why some people have issues with VT and others like myself don't. I switched to ATT Uverse for internet and I've had to maybe call TS 2 times over the last year. I would suggest those who can go with a internet provider who does not compress packets to do so and save yourself a lot of headache.Even when I was on cable broadband I have very few issues, so the less compression =less issues in my opinion. |
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jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL Reviews:
·voip.ms
| Two calls to tech support in a year shouldn't be the norm for any VOIP provider -- and keep in mind how many people have had dozens of tickets, and those who have just given up and don't bother any more.
Phone service shouldn't require tech support. |
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| reply to jqpaulsel
Well, I'm on the phone with a new provider porting out my VT number. Since VT won't do a recorded message telling callers the number has changed, I'm porting the number to a cheap pre-paid Virgin mobile phone that I can set up a reccorded voicemail on.
What fun. |
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 ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4
·VOIPo
| said by jqpaulsel:Well, I'm on the phone with a new provider porting out my VT number. Since VT won't do a recorded message telling callers the number has changed, I'm porting the number to a cheap pre-paid Virgin mobile phone that I can set up a reccorded voicemail on. What fun. I have never had a voip provider that does that.
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"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage? »www.venganza.org |
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v35_pilotWhoops, there goes another AMUPremium
join:2005-12-12
Fayetteville, NY Reviews:
·ViaTalk
·Verizon FiOS
| reply to taylor2767
said by taylor2767:I would suggest those who can go with a internet provider who does not compress packets to do so and save yourself a lot of headache. Nice assumption, but in my case it would be incorrect. I have been a Verizon 20/5 FiOS customer since Dec 2005 and a VT customer since Sep 2006.
FiOS has been rock solid and given that bandwidth I am almost 100% certain there is no compression of packets going on with them. Without exaggeration we have experienced only one incident of a one-hour outage in the three plus years I have been a FiOS customer.
In my opinion and experience VT's problems as of late have been what others here continually point out - that there is an extreme amount of tinkering or tweaking going on at their end with little in the way of testing these changes prior to customer roll-out.
Every problem I have experienced during the last six months has been due to settings and servers at VT's side, not mine. |
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| As stated before, why does it only happen to some and not all? |
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 VTBrendanViatalkPremium,VIP
join:2005-06-27
Clifton Park, NY
kudos:1
1 edit | We have some ongoing tests to confirm it (this round of tests started on monday) which should be wrapping up today, however we're fairly certain that there are some bad media gateways on the L3 network that are affecting the audio streams for our customers during heavier usage hours. This could theoretically affect some users and not others as these media gateways are spread throughout the country and if you're calling or receiving in an area serviced by a working gateway, all is well. I'll provide more information on this as I get it to keep you guys in the loop.
-Brendan |
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ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 Reviews:
·VOIPo
| reply to taylor2767
said by taylor2767:As stated before, why does it only happen to some and not all? There are so many causes it could be. I did not have the vast majority of the issues that were reported by some people. You would think that everyone's location is different, the routing to the modem could be different, cable vs dsl vs ISP etc is different, home network configs can be different.. There are alot of factors. I had AT&T DSL 5 mb down, 650 kbps up, Linksys Router running Tomato firmware, no ports forwarded etc and it worked just fine for me.
Now VT has been making alot of changes on their end which doesn't help the situation, and I don't "let them off the hook" so to speak. I have yet though to find a provider that works for everyone. Inherently there are so many factors involved with indie voip.
--
"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage? »www.venganza.org |
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44402812Hack The PlanetPremium
join:2006-08-28
Plattsburgh, NY | reply to VTBrendan
said by VTBrendan:We have some ongoing tests to confirm it (this round of tests started on monday) which should be wrapping up today, however we're fairly certain that there are some bad media gateways on the L3 network that are affecting the audio streams for our customers during heavier usage hours. This could theoretically affect some users and not others as these media gateways are spread throughout the country and if you're calling or receiving in an area serviced by a working gateway, all is well. I'll provide more information on this as I get it to keep you guys in the loop. -Brendan If this really is the case then why the hell has it gone on so long with nothing being done? Unless L3 was covering thee @ss and like most people ViaTalk took them at face value up until now? I know I'm not a "Technical genius" but if 1ks of people were calling my business bitching about the same issues, the first place I would start looking after ruling out my infrastructure would be my vendors. Hope everything goes well and you find the problem(s)? Murphy can be a royal PITA? |
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Reviews:
 ·ProLog
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·voip.ms
| reply to VTBrendan
Here is a new one ( for me at least ) about 20 Minutes ago tried calling a landline 203-268 xxxx and got dead air. Hung up and called again and got a message "this subscriber has a voice mail box that has not been set up yet" .
Hung called again and call went through.
This was today after two incoming calls that dropped, one only rang 1 of the 2 lines on the pap2 (line 1 did not ring) and one had 1 way audio. Not a good day for VT.
About a 50% success rate so far.
Tim
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The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. |
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ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 Reviews:
·VOIPo
| reply to 44402812
said by 44402812:said by VTBrendan:We have some ongoing tests to confirm it (this round of tests started on monday) which should be wrapping up today, however we're fairly certain that there are some bad media gateways on the L3 network that are affecting the audio streams for our customers during heavier usage hours. This could theoretically affect some users and not others as these media gateways are spread throughout the country and if you're calling or receiving in an area serviced by a working gateway, all is well. I'll provide more information on this as I get it to keep you guys in the loop. -Brendan If this really is the case then why the hell has it gone on so long with nothing being done? Unless L3 was covering thee @ss and like most people ViaTalk took them at face value up until now? I know I'm not a "Technical genius" but if 1ks of people were calling my business bitching about the same issues, the first place I would start looking after ruling out my infrastructure would be my vendors. Hope everything goes well and you find the problem(s)? Murphy can be a royal PITA? How about some of the symptoms you see could be identical to the issues you would see on some customer side issues or something that would point to the ISP? AS someone who runs a PC help website you should know that many issues can share a common symptom.
Did you also think maybe thousands of people are not calling?
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"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage? »www.venganza.org |
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44402812Hack The PlanetPremium
join:2006-08-28
Plattsburgh, NY
2 edits | said by ptrowski:said by 44402812:said by VTBrendan:We have some ongoing tests to confirm it (this round of tests started on monday) which should be wrapping up today, however we're fairly certain that there are some bad media gateways on the L3 network that are affecting the audio streams for our customers during heavier usage hours. This could theoretically affect some users and not others as these media gateways are spread throughout the country and if you're calling or receiving in an area serviced by a working gateway, all is well. I'll provide more information on this as I get it to keep you guys in the loop. -Brendan If this really is the case then why the hell has it gone on so long with nothing being done? Unless L3 was covering thee @ss and like most people ViaTalk took them at face value up until now? I know I'm not a "Technical genius" but if 1ks of people were calling my business bitching about the same issues, the first place I would start looking after ruling out my infrastructure would be my vendors. Hope everything goes well and you find the problem(s)? Murphy can be a royal PITA? How about some of the symptoms you see could be identical to the issues you would see on some customer side issues or something that would point to the ISP? AS someone who runs a PC help website you should know that many issues can share a common symptom. Did you also think maybe thousands of people are not calling? Good point dude but after 2 years? I know you right 1ks of people are not having problems. But the forums at PhonePower and Vipo are dead silent and usually people only come to the forums to bitch, lol. Or look at it this way they have all these people having a multitude of problems over 2 years, one would think the "side issues" would be ruled out? For instance did you mention you were having problems? You are pretty tech savy right? When did these problems start happening? One would think ViaTalk could put some type of capture on the lines of known techies and eliminate the simple stuff? |
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ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 Reviews:
·VOIPo
| Since I don't frquent the forums at Phonepower or Voipo I don't know so I can't speak to what they do.
But it has not a multitude of problems for 2 years. If thousands of people were having issues for two years I doubt they would be around now.
The point being if there has been issues especially on the new architecture, it could have been something that as they dug deeper and deeper they found. If they were doing what they could on their end and it wasn't fixing the issues, you have to look externally to the VT systems themselves. I don't know and I don't work there so I can't tell you those answers. But obviously it is something that they have found out recently.
And I mentioned that I was one of the people that did not have a majority of the issues.
--
"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage? »www.venganza.org |
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44402812Hack The PlanetPremium
join:2006-08-28
Plattsburgh, NY
2 edits | said by ptrowski:Since I don't frquent the forums at Phonepower or Voipo I don't know so I can't speak to what they do. But it has not a multitude of problems for 2 years. If thousands of people were having issues for two years I doubt they would be around now. The point being if there has been issues especially on the new architecture, it could have been something that as they dug deeper and deeper they found. If they were doing what they could on their end and it wasn't fixing the issues, you have to look externally to the VT systems themselves. I don't know and I don't work there so I can't tell you those answers. But obviously it is something that they have found out recently. And I mentioned that I was one of the people that did not have a majority of the issues. Could you tell me what issues you did have? I'm curious because the issues I had were dropped calls, garbled calls, no ringback when making calls, calls being missed, one way audio, and dead air. Maybe Brendan will stop by later and enlighten as to why they just found this out so recently? My guess would be that like ptrowski said they did not dig deep enough until they upgraded. Anyway, time will tell
As far as loosing thousands of customers that is very much possible? I did some digging and the Vonage churn rate is 3.3 percent as of August 08. So at 3.5 million subscribers that is a 115,000 churn rate. Granted ViaTalk is not that big nor are they in the negative as far as we know? But to loose a 1k customers a year you would only need 100k customers with a 1% churn rate. For comparison Spint\Nextel has a 2% churn rate. |
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ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 Reviews:
·VOIPo
| said by 44402812:said by ptrowski:Since I don't frquent the forums at Phonepower or Voipo I don't know so I can't speak to what they do. But it has not a multitude of problems for 2 years. If thousands of people were having issues for two years I doubt they would be around now. The point being if there has been issues especially on the new architecture, it could have been something that as they dug deeper and deeper they found. If they were doing what they could on their end and it wasn't fixing the issues, you have to look externally to the VT systems themselves. I don't know and I don't work there so I can't tell you those answers. But obviously it is something that they have found out recently. And I mentioned that I was one of the people that did not have a majority of the issues. Could you tell me what issues you did have? I'm curious because the issues I had were dropped calls, garbled calls, no ringback when making calls, calls being missed, one way audio, and dead air. Maybe Brendan will stop by later and enlighten as to why they just found this out so recently? My guess would be that like ptrowski said they did not dig deep enough until they upgraded. Anyway, time will tell I had some ringback issues from time to time and some calls that sounded tinny so to speak. But they were not NEARLY as bad or frequent as some people had them. The only reason I made a move was because of price. I guess I was the lucky one as I did not have to forward anything, etc. It was plug and play.
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"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage? »www.venganza.org |
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jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL Reviews:
·voip.ms
| reply to 44402812
said by 44402812:As far as loosing thousands of customers that is very much possible? I did some digging and the Vonage churn rate is 3.3 percent as of August 08. So at 3.5 million subscribers that is a 115,000 churn rate. Granted ViaTalk is not that big nor are they in the negative as far as we know? But to loose a 1k customers a year you would only need 100k customers with a 1% churn rate. For comparison Spint\Nextel has a 2% churn rate. Dude, Vonage's churn rate is 3% per MONTH, not per year. And using it to compare to Viatalk isn't really worthwhile since a large majority of VT's customers are on some sort of prepaid plan of greater than 12 month term. Don't forget, all the Sunrocket refugees are still within their 24 month BOYGOF deal. |
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