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signmeuptoo94
Bless you Howie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-22
NanoParticle

signmeuptoo94

Premium Member

Phone Power questions

Phone Power claims they give an ATA for lease, and I suppose that means that no matter how long you stay with them, when you cancel you must ship the ATA back to them, right?

I need to know something about the service billing system, too:

When making calls to international locations, how do they bills the customer? Is it prepay, do they bill immediatly moment you reach a certain dollar amount like vonage, which charges you the instant you go over 75 dollars of LD calls? I see in the terms nothing about how they bill you on the added international long distance, whether they bill you once you reach a dollar amount, or they just wait for the billing period?

srm59
Premium Member
join:2009-06-22
Glen Cove, NY

1 edit

srm59

Premium Member

I've had PP for about 4 months now and have been very happy.

You are correct that the ATA is on a lease as long as you remain a customer and must be returned when you leave. Failure to return will cost you $100 penalty.

As for international call billing, they keep your credit card on file and seem to bill weekly. We make frequent international calls and that seems to be the pattern. The PP support site has this information:
"Every user is allowed a $10 credit for international calls.

Once that $10 limit is reached, the balance is charged automatically to the credit card on file. If a user makes calls that would accrue charges less than $10, then the balance is charged on the normal billing date.

We are working on developing a system so that a heavy call volume user can request a higher limit to avoid daily charges, but this will require a deposit."
After seeing that I do notice that most of my invoices are around $10 so, perhaps my pattern is about $10 LD a week. I have no problems with the billing and have been very happy with the service. I've even used the LD service for my wife while she was on an international trip and needed to call another international country. The price worked out well for me to call her in Zambia and make a three-way call for her to Mexico. Everyone was able to hear each other clearly.
34574589 (banned)
join:2009-09-05

34574589 (banned)

Member

said by srm59:

I've had PP for about 4 months now and have been very happy.

You are correct that the ATA is on a lease as long as you remain a customer and must be returned when you leave. Failure to return will cost you $100 penalty.

As for international call billing, they keep your credit card on file and seem to bill weekly. We make frequent international calls and that seems to be the pattern. The PP support site has this information:
"Every user is allowed a $10 credit for international calls.

Once that $10 limit is reached, the balance is charged automatically to the credit card on file. If a user makes calls that would accrue charges less than $10, then the balance is charged on the normal billing date.

We are working on developing a system so that a heavy call volume user can request a higher limit to avoid daily charges, but this will require a deposit."
After seeing that I do notice that most of my invoices are around $10 so, perhaps my pattern is about $10 LD a week. I have no problems with the billing and have been very happy with the service. I've even used the LD service for my wife while she was on an international trip and needed to call another international country. The price worked out well for me to call her in Zambia and make a three-way call for her to Mexico. Everyone was able to hear each other clearly.
How was the all quality on the 3 way?

srm59
Premium Member
join:2009-06-22
Glen Cove, NY

srm59

Premium Member

I have to say that the quality was quite good. I actually have done this connection about 3 times through PP and every time each party was able to hear each other clearly. I was especially concerned that the external parties wouldn't hear each other however each commented that the signal was clear. So, I'm pretty happy.
dragonartist
join:2009-09-18
Monterey Park, CA

dragonartist

Member

I switched my numbers to PP after I had a 15 party conference call that had perfect quality. No problems on the line with any call I ever placed.
Expand your moderator at work
fatuous
join:2009-10-04
Eatontown, NJ

4 edits

fatuous to signmeuptoo94

Member

to signmeuptoo94

Re: Phone Power questions

I'm a CallVantage refugee. I'm not going to bash PP, but PP doesn't hold a candle to CV. I've had PP for about 3 months now.

Things that were better with CV than with PP:
  1. Tivo and fax worked fine over CV. Not with PP.
  2. PP has pretty bad echo cancellation problems. About 30-40% of my PP calls have echo, reverb, etc. With CV, I had no problems ever.
  3. PP plays horrible and annoying music to people that you put on hold. Currently they have no way to disable it. CV's hold was just wonderful silence.
  4. I've noticed 1 major and several minor outages with PP. I never noticed an outage with CV, and I've had CV since it was launched.
  5. PP's account management website is functional, but not great. CV's website was much more intuitive and easy to use.
  6. CV had a softphone option. They charged an extra $5/month for it, but at least it was an option.


Things that are better with PP than with CV:
  1. PP is cheap if you get the 2 year upfront contract like I did. I'll have to pay some fees again when I reach 12 months like taxes and fees, but at worst, I'll pay $300 for 24 months. That's an adjusted $12.50/month vs. the ~$35/month I used to pay for CV. Those prices are totals that include all the taxes and fees and such, not just the plan price.
  2. PP has the cloned line feature.


So considering the price, I'm reasonably content with PP, but if CV came back tomorrow, even at the same price, I would go back to CV.
34574589 (banned)
join:2009-09-05

1 edit

34574589 (banned)

Member

Well, if PP sucks so bad why are you with them? No offense but you have no problem listing everything that is bad. However you never mention their:

-Excellent customer service w\24 hour tech support
-Free cloned line
-They are coming out with their own softphone which users will be able to DL for free
-The price is less then half of CV

If they are so horrible why do you stay?
Stewart
join:2005-07-13

Stewart to fatuous

Member

to fatuous
said by fatuous:

I've noticed 1 major and several minor outages with PP. I never noticed an outage with CV, and I've had CV since it was launched.
Unless you live alone, you probably noticed hundreds of 'outages' with CV, when you couldn't make or receive a call because another family member was on the phone. With PP, the cloned line solves this problem.

Also, did CV have a nice mobile site for making calls from your cell? If you have A-List/My Faves/Friends and Family, that can save you lots of cell minutes with minimal hassle (also useful for hiding your cell number).
fatuous
join:2009-10-04
Eatontown, NJ

fatuous to 34574589

Member

to 34574589
said by 34574589:

-Excellent customer service w\24 hour tech support
As to customer service, I couldn't say how good AT&T CV customer service was because in all the years I used them, I never once had a problem that needed customer support. Everything just worked. As for PP customer support, the only problem I had that required customer support was to get the Caller ID changed on my second line. They made the change on their end, but calls to outside lines still show the old name (as of about 5 weeks now). They said it was because other providers haven't updated their CNAM database.
said by 34574589:

-Free cloned line
Thanks for pointing out about the free cloned line. I edited my post to include it.
said by 34574589:

-They are coming out with their own softphone which users will be able to DL for free
As to the softphone, "coming out with" isn't the same thing as actually offering one. I'm talking about PP right now, not some maybe-some-day PP.
said by 34574589:

-The price is less then half of CV
I already addressed the great price.
said by 34574589:

If they are so horrible why do you stay?
Because CV is gone :-( and because Vonage is even more expensive than CV was, and isn't as good.

PhonePower
Premium Member
join:2007-07-20
Winnetka, CA

PhonePower to signmeuptoo94

Premium Member

to signmeuptoo94
Echo is caused when you get "feedback" of sound from your phone's earpiece into the microphone.

Most echo issues are solved by turning down your earpiece or by asking support@phonepower.com to turn down the gain in you telephone adapter (reboot required).
fatuous
join:2009-10-04
Eatontown, NJ

1 edit

fatuous to Stewart

Member

to Stewart
said by Stewart:

Unless you live alone, you probably noticed hundreds of 'outages' with CV, when you couldn't make or receive a call because another family member was on the phone. With PP, the cloned line solves this problem.
I really don't know what you're getting at with this. You could say this about anything, and I don't think getting a call waiting indicator rather than a cloned line is an "outage" by any stretch of the imagination.

PP had an outage a few weekends ago where nothing worked. No incoming or outgoing calls, and the backup number didn't work either. It lasted for the better part of a day.

Cloned lines and outages have absolutely nothing to do with one another.
said by Stewart:

Also, did CV have a nice mobile site for making calls from your cell? If you have A-List/My Faves/Friends and Family, that can save you lots of cell minutes with minimal hassle (also useful for hiding your cell number).
What PP feature is this?
34574589 (banned)
join:2009-09-05

4 edits

34574589 (banned) to fatuous

Member

to fatuous
said by fatuous:

said by 34574589:

-Excellent customer service w\24 hour tech support
As to customer service, I couldn't say how good AT&T CV customer service was because in all the years I used them, I never once had a problem that needed customer support. Everything just worked. As for PP customer support, the only problem I had that required customer support was to get the Caller ID changed on my second line. They made the change on their end, but calls to outside lines still show the old name (as of about 5 weeks now). They said it was because other providers haven't updated their CNAM database.
said by 34574589:

-Free cloned line
Thanks for pointing out about the free cloned line. I edited my post to include it.
said by 34574589:

-They are coming out with their own softphone which users will be able to DL for free
As to the softphone, "coming out with" isn't the same thing as actually offering one. I'm talking about PP right now, not some maybe-some-day PP.
said by 34574589:

-The price is less then half of CV
I already addressed the great price.
said by 34574589:

If they are so horrible why do you stay?
Because CV is gone :-( and because Vonage is even more expensive than CV was, and isn't as good.
Waaaa!!!! Ask your boss for a pay raise? Or you could go with ViaTalk they have servers all over the country.

Dude regular phone service goes out to ya know? My POTS has been down in the past and my DSL was accidentally shut off! S@#t happens, why not give them the benefit of the doubt instead listing all everything ya don't like. They are not CV, no s#$t there are reasons why you don't like them fine... But your with them now because your cheap and they provide good enough service to stay with them. So just relax and enjoy them.

BTW since you obviously so smart do you have clue how much money it takes to have the uptime you wish to have. Sure if everyone was willing to pay 34.95 then that might happen. Unfortunately VoIp is so cut throat now and savy consumers that use VoIp have so many options, they will leave over pocket change. Do you have any clue how long it takes before PP even makes any money off you? Just something to think about when saving hundreds of dollars.
34574589

34574589 (banned) to PhonePower

Member

to PhonePower
said by PhonePower:

Echo is caused when you get "feedback" of sound from your phone's earpiece into the microphone.

Most echo issues are solved by turning down your earpiece or by asking support@phonepower.com to turn down the gain in you telephone adapter (reboot required).
I just called in and they lowered it to negative -6db and it helped with my echo problems.