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The Wiz
join:2012-12-17
Seabrook, NH

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The Wiz

Member

I Switched to Cable Phone service and I'm Glad

With all of the issues that everyone is having with their Voip service provider(s) makes me glad that I switched my phone service to Comcast Business Class Phone last July. Since then I've had rock solid service except for a 20 minute period during Hurricane Sandy. Wished I've switched last winter when I started having a slew of issues with both Callcentric and VOIP. MS. As usual whenever I reported having issues it was allways my fault. Now, whenever I have a problem I don't have to read an E-mail message, from the providers tech support, that is full of BS. Instead a tech arrives at my business to resolve the issue within 2 hours of calling in to open a repair ticket. Yes, you read right instead of E-Mailing the tech support group I simply call in and speak to a live person 24/7
Iscream
Premium Member
join:2009-02-17
New York, NY

2 edits

Iscream

Premium Member

So, the bottom line to your post is:

- you _DID_ have an outage during hurricane Sandy; even though it was only 20 minutes - it means that you have actually been NOT affected by the hurricane at all - because you have NOT lost your AC power. Have you been in NYC area you'd for sure experienced week{s} of outage as everybody else had with Verizon, Comcast, TWC, etc...

- you do still HAVE occasional outages with Comcast - because, as you admitted it yourself, you have to call them and talk, even 24x7 - that means the outages happened during day and night times and that it happened MORE than ONCE - otherwise you'd sure admitted that.

- you pay 3 to 4 times more than you'd be paying with VOIP for a pleasure of "talking" to a live CSR - that's fine and this is all about it. We (Callcentric) have such a "pleasure" of talking to CSRs or different vendors we have business with on a DAILY basis, sometimes more than once every few hours - to make sure the issue is being taken care of.

Of course, this was your decision (and your business) but so far, from your own description I couldn't figure out that you somehow "improved" your quality of service vs. you could have it with a good VoIP provider. It's absolutely right to say that VoIP is not for everybody, especially Bring Your Own Device kind of VoIP - because it requires a lot of experimenting and prior understanding of several basic communication things.

I totally agree with you that _now_ you just have a plain old telephone delivered via cable connection (same you could have with a traditional telco or FIOS or U-Verse, etc.) - that telephone's connectivity and maintenance is now not your headache... Very good for you. But the trade-off is the monthly cost (please, don't tell us that this is the same - there is at least 25-35% of added on taxes and surcharges) plus lack of most features your could have with any VoIP provider - like selective call blocking, address-book dialing , time of day routing, etc...

dbmaven
There's no shortage
Mod
join:1999-10-26
Sty in Sky

dbmaven

Mod

For each individual (or in this case business) the features vs. cost vs. reliability trade-offs are different. For a small business with no internal IT 'department' - traditional POTS or something similar may (and in this case - does) make more sense - unless some VoIP provider is going to step up with a more reliable option/higher level of support - even if it isn't the lowest cost.

jjoshua
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ

jjoshua to The Wiz

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Thanks for joining DSLR to tell us your story.

I'm glad that you switched to cable phone service.
nitzan
Premium Member
join:2008-02-27

1 recommendation

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Good for you. Here's a cookie. That'll be $50, thanks!
The Wiz
join:2012-12-17
Seabrook, NH

The Wiz to Iscream

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What I meant was that if I do have an issue I can reach out to a live person not somebody sitting behind a computer terminal reading from a script to resolve the issue. With the exception of the 20 min. outage during Hurricane Sandy I haven't had any downtime at all.

As for the cost Its a tax write off since the service is being used for business communications. As for the features Comcast Business Class does have most of the features that the typical voip service providers offer.

As for quality of service statement, in paragraph 4, when my customers call they immediately get right though to my office without any problems compared to the time when I was using some of the voip providers mentioned in this forum. That in itself is an improvement.

As a small telecommunications business owner I don't have the time to tinker around with a ATA and worrying if I'll lose my service due to some issue that is occurring outside my office. Yes, I'm familiar with VOIP Technology, how it works and the equipment used. Also, Comcast Business Class Phone is essentially a VOIP based service minus all of the issues that seen to be plaguing the voip service providers that are mentioned in this forum.

As far as I'm concerned if an individual wants / need reliable phone service it comes down to three options: traditional Pots service, Cable phone service or Cellular. As for the voip service providers, discussed in the voip tech. forum, they are nothing more than a waste of time and money that seem to be plagued with issues.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

1 recommendation

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

said by The Wiz:

As for the voip service providers, discussed in the voip tech. forum, they are nothing more than a waste of time and money that seem to be plagued with issues.

So you have gone to Comcast, officially voted as the worst company for customer service.
»lifehacker.com/5954084/w ··· -comcast
said by The Wiz:

As for the voip service providers, discussed in the voip tech. forum, they are nothing more than a waste of time and money that seem to be plagued with issues.

I can't speak for users of other providers, but now that the 100-year hurricane is done and the DDoS terrorists have been vanquished, I have no issues with CallCentric's excellent service.

And users of many other providers such as Voipo, Anveo, FlowRoute, Localphone, Ooma, FutureNine, and more, have no issues either.
said by The Wiz:

As for the voip service providers, discussed in the voip tech. forum, they are nothing more than a waste of time and money that seem to be plagued with issues.

Coming in to a forum devoted to independent VoIP service, and slamming the entire concept, takes brass balls.

I congratulate you on the ultimate trolling.
druber
join:2000-04-11
Stow, MA

druber

Member

I'm also amused by the implication that if he has to call comcast doesn't have their CSRs reading from a script. LOL...
pacpac
join:2011-12-18

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Well, you could always set up your own system; a) get a good Internet provider, a PAP2T adapter and couple of standard phones, b) a reliable VPS provider and set up Freepbx (you could even run a second VPS/Freepbx as failover), and b) a couple of quality DIDs; then, incoming calls should not be an issue at all.... For outgoing, get 2-3 VoIP providers in place, one as primary and the other 1 or 2, as failovers. As for me, I never looked back.... Probably needless to say, but you need to become a bit of a VoIP tech /wiz/ard, but that should not be an issue..

ArgMeMatey
join:2001-08-09
Milwaukee, WI

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I'd much rather read a post saying how happy someone is because they switched to a higher-priced service, than from some utopian who thinks they're going to get the same level of handholding service they got with Big Cable at 1/4 the price.

Many people here, myself included, figure their VoIP as one of many services that together, provide redundancy. If you are totally dependent on an incoming phone # for your livelihood, you should not be using VoIP in this class. A level of service agreement is probably going to be more expensive than ILEC POTS so ... there's your choice.
rblizz
join:2001-12-16
North Richland Hills, TX

4 edits

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said by The Wiz:

With all of the issues that everyone is having with their Voip service provider(s) makes me glad that I switched my phone service to Comcast Business Class Phone last July. Since then I've had rock solid service except for a 20 minute period during Hurricane Sandy. Wished I've switched last winter when I started having a slew of issues with both Callcentric and VOIP. MS. As usual whenever I reported having issues it was allways my fault. Now, whenever I have a problem I don't have to read an E-mail message, from the providers tech support, that is full of BS. Instead a tech arrives at my business to resolve the issue within 2 hours of calling in to open a repair ticket. Yes, you read right instead of E-Mailing the tech support group I simply call in and speak to a live person 24/7

Well, congratulations. Not quite what the point of posting this message in a VoIP Tech forum was, but congratulations all the same.

2nd Edit: I see your post was moved from another thread so now, in context, I understand why you posted.

I went the opposite route. I was paying Charter $30 for unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada, plus $5 not to be listed (to try to avoid being on everyone's call list), plus over $15 in fees and taxes (total over $50 a month) -- and we hardly used the service because we had cell phones. To be honest, the voice quality was good (about as good as CallCentric) as long as the cable service was up.

I decided that was too much, but I still wanted a home phone so I went CallCentric. For $4.45 a month (Dirt Cheap DID and 911 fee) I get unlimited incoming calls and pay almost 2 cents a minute for outgoing -- total cost for me, per month, is about $7 a month. But I talk to relatives all the time (sometimes an hour or more at a time) but, since they also have CallCentric, this means it costs us nothing. And I have much clearer voice than with my cell phone. Now, when my Sprint contract runs out, I can drop back to a 250 minutes a month plan that costs $12 (all taxes included) through Page Plus, and I'll save another good chunk of money.

Reliability? Except for a couple days during the DDoS attack when CallCentric service was compromised, and for the two days the power was out in Manhattan, CallCentric is *never* down. I can't say my phone service is never down because Charter goes down for a couple hours about every other week now. But it went down occasionally *before* I moved to CallCentric also -- and so my Charter phone was down during those times also.

I'm extremely happy I went with CallCentric. If I had a business, my main incoming line would probably still be POTS (CallCentric can't control when my cable service will go down) but outgoing, and any extra DID numbers would be VoIP (in my case CallCentric). As it is, I have the cell phone for backup and can work around my cable company's glitches.

EDIT: As for trouble tickets ... I was a phone tech (traditional PBX, not VoIP). We worked trouble tickets all the time. To me it's much more efficient than waiting on the phone -- I used to have to wait on the phone with telcos for hours at a time when a T1 was down. Than, after that hour wait, I would be told that -- "Oh, the problem isn't on the carrier side, it's on the circuit side." So then I would wait an hour for the circuit side tech to tell me that, "It appears the problem is on the carrier side." When you put in a trouble ticket -- all those kinds of issues are handled *off-line* -- much more efficient use of resources.

Thing is, you have to be comfortable setting up and maintaining your own equipment. If you're not, BYOD is not the route you should go.

Davesworld
join:2007-10-30
Thermal, CA

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He's switched from Voip to Voip.

It's supposed to be an "Eat This" post but it fell short on many assertions. Eat what?

Many of us here are here because we want control over how our VOIP behaves. Dial plans, not being stuck with hardware we don't like. If we have an ATA that behaves like a festering carbuncle with dangling cheesy polyps, we try something else.
rblizz
join:2001-12-16
North Richland Hills, TX

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said by The Wiz:

As for the cost Its a tax write off since the service is being used for business communications.

For business, where cost is a secondary issue, I would go with POTS for incoming. Your cable provider is much more likely to go down than your traditional Telco provider.
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