| reply to vonagepap2
Re:(Packet8) Tell me why not to get Virtual Office I've gone ahead and taken the plunge. It's not immediately clear from Packet8's web site that you need at least three extensions to get the VO package. With setup, telephones, and DTA devices, the whole thing comes at a hefty cost of ~$530 just to get started with a $39.95/extension monthly charge plus any virtual numbers.
So far Packet8 support by far surpasses Vonage (but really, a call center that spoke only Mandarin would be better than the 2+ hour wait times with Vonage). Techs are friendly and go out of their way to help. I've had two issues so far getting the system up and running, one of which was quickly resolved, the other pending further research (a word to the wise: make sure you enter in the correct MAC address the first time).
Call quality is excellent and with the exception of one 10 second glitch where the other party couldn't hear me, calls have been reliable. There was a system-wide outage tonight, but once that was resolved, things came right back up.
The phones are difficult to get used to and are basically a standard analog phone pre-programmed to enter in dialtone codes when softkeys are pressed. Placing a call on hold involves one of two buttons, each performing a separate function--one placing the call on hold like any standard phone with a built in hold button and the other placing the call on hold and giving a new dial tone. On one occasion I managed to lose a call testing between my local POTS line and the Packet8 line. Calls waiting on the park extensions are not displayed on the phone which is a disappointment. That information needs to be relayed by some other means.
I'll continue to evaluate the system once I'm able to get the one dead extension (with the invalid MAC address) up and running, but so far, the VO is promising. |
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| Yes!
And I thought we were the only ones having issues with this....
The music on "hold" they claim as a feature on their website and in the PDF file really just doesn't exist.
We've had several calls in to several different techs, some said it just can't currently do that, others suggesting pressing the softkey "New Call/Hold" button, then after dial tone, putting the dial tone on hold with the real hold button.
Thats just unreasonable. It's listed as a feature in several places, yet when you push the hold button, there is no music. The 2 button work-a-round sort of works, but as mentioned above, it's very easy to lose calls that way. Plus who wants to have to train an an entire staff on how to put someone on hold?? Regular working 1 push hold buttons have been giving out music for decades, you'd think they could get that right.
While I'm at it... Has anyone tested their call parking? On our VO setup, if you park a call, it just goes to silence, as if the person was hung up on. When someone picks it up, it rings for a second then the people are connected. Their manual states that while a call is parked they will hear ringing.
We've emailed them asking for ringing, music, heck... ANYTHING... hoping we could use the call parking as a replacement for their non-existant hold button problem, but alas, that doesn't work right either and unfortunately they have done nothing to resolve either of these major issues for us.
I do want to mention that other than the above 2 issues and a very lengthly setup time (2 weeks +) on the auto attandant, the virtual office has been great.
I was a personal P8 customer for a year, and the VO lines seem much clearer and more reliable. Once setup, the auto attandant works great. We've had no down time. We have our lines split between 3 different locations and it is just the solution we were looking for.
VO Techs said the auto attandant could handle 99,999 call instances. Heh, now to get all those slots full of sales calls...
In summary:
- Excellent call quality
- Very good auto attandant/ring group features
- SLOW auto attandant setup (at least 2 weeks!)
- NO NO NO Music on hold
So if you don't need music on hold (or don't mind messing around with a bunch of buttons and possibly dropping the call when you need to put someone on hold) I would recommend the service.
Cheers,
Alex
P8VO-Customer |
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ieee1394Premium
join:2001-08-25
Washington | reply to vonagepap2
said by vonagepap2:
With setup, telephones, and DTA devices, the whole thing comes at a hefty cost of ~$530 just to get started with a $39.95/extension monthly charge plus any virtual numbers.
I don't think those costs are out of line. Typically, you would spend at the very least $100 per phone with any PBX. Then there's the cost of the PBX itself. Still, if it were my dime, I'd go the PBX route and possibly consider either an Asterisk solution with IP phones or for an analog/hybrid VOIP PBX solution like the one now offered by talkswitch. It's always better to get a system that does what you want and performs the way you want it to than subscribing to a hosted service from someone else and hoping that they will improve it to meet your expectations. |
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 P8SupportPremium
join:2004-05-24
Santa Clara, CA | reply to P8VO-Customer
Music-On-Hold is a feature that is typically only played for external callers as an industry standard. It is not played for internal callers. Music-On-Hold is also customizeable via recording your own audio files. Call our Virtual Office Support line for more details! |
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| I currently have Virtual Office and I am extremely happy with the service and product. The only problem is that they need more tech support employees. Other than that this service has provided me more flexibility and the auto-attendant is great. If you have any questions please e-mail me. |
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| reply to P8Support
P8Support,
Maybe you could give us some support on the subject then?
If an external caller calls us on any of our P8 VO phones, directly or via the auto attandant, and we push the big hold button right next to the handset, expecting them to hear industry standard hold music, they hear nothing... Silence... As if they were hung up on. It's almost like a second mute button.
I'd like to customize ours just so that it works!
If you can't tell, we are feeling a little misled and quite annoyed about this. "Music on hold" is on your feature list and you show a picture of a nice Nortel 390 phone with a hold button. The phone arrives, we call from a POTS line, test the hold button, but no music.
Neither of the virtual office techs (Edwin or Arturo) we've worked with could get this to work. Is there someone special we need to speak with over there to get this working?
Even the most basic $500 analog PBX supports music on hold. Why can't our high-tech iPBX?
Please help!
Alex
P8VO-Customer |
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| I use P8 Virtual Office, and our Music on Hold works perfectly. We had to do nothing to enable it. The music they choose is a little dorky, imagine Bugs Bunny on a beautiful morning type of music.
Joe |
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| I went ahead and got Virtual Office a couple of weeks ago. I agree with everything others have written about it. Service is good but with dropouts now and then. Customer service is very good over the phone, though email can take more than 24 hours.
The Hold music does not work for me either; I just tested it from an outside line and got nothing. It isn't really an issue for us though.
One thing I would like is to be able to have "simulaneous ring" instead of just forwarding. I can't figure out how to do this, or if it is even possible with VO, though I haven't call Support yet. How lame would it be, though, if the cheaper residential service has it but not VO?
It would also be nice if the Virtual Office voicemail picked up when the forwarded number doesn't answer. |
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| Shibumila - Your callers get music on hold just by pressing the HOLD button next to the handset? That dorky music comes on if we use call waiting to pick up a call, start a 3 way call, or start a call on another line. Making it almost ironic that when you push the hold button, the hold music won't come on.
If you don't mind, please verify that we are talking about the same thing, (the hold button next to the handset), and test it by calling from a POTS line and putting yourself on hold with it and putting the handset on the hook. If you do have hold music, then we can lay into tech support to fix ours.
bigapplefan1 - We have our auto attandant setup with ring groups to do a simulaneous ring of certain extensions depending on which option was selected. The first one to pick up the call gets it. You might want to look into that option if it fits your situation, as it has worked great for us.
P8Support - How about a reply to my post from 9/23 ???
Best regards,
Alex
P8VO-Customer |
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| It sounds to me like the Music On Hold feature is a system feature, while the hold button on the phones is a local hold. I am not a VO user, however, so I wouldn't know for sure. Seems like a flaw in the integration design. |
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| P8Newbie,
My bet is you are correct. They have something fouled up somewhere.
The phones they ship are fully programmable Nortel 390 phones with all the button functions reprogrammed as macros for their system. For whatever reason, our hold button seems to have been left programmed like the hold button you get on any old $30 office phone from Walmart.
That should have been reprogrammed with a system hold, or one of the 6 other programmable keys could have been as well. They could have even just used the flash as a hold. We've had an analog based PBX for years that did it's hold that way and it worked fine.
Regardless of all the speculation.... The real issue is that they advertise music on hold, and a hold button... On their website and in their PDF files, but sadly the feature does not exist.
Packet8 is clearly false advertising!
The continued lack of a reply from P8Support on this thread even furthers my theory.
Best regards,
Alex
P8VO-Customer |
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P8SupportPremium
join:2004-05-24
Santa Clara, CA | On the current Packet8 Virtual Office phone there is a button named "Hold". This is a phone feature that does not send any sequence keys to the VO server. It is local to the phone and mutes both sides of the call. This button will be renamed as "Mute All".
There is pre-programmed soft-button named "Hold/NC", meaning a call can be put on hold to allow making a New Call (NC). In this case it sends some sequence keys to the Virtual Office server and it plays MOH to the remote side while it plays dial tone locally so a new call can be placed.
We will implement in the future the possibility to put a call on hold while it plays music on hold to the remote party and not playing dial tone on the local side.
In the interim a customer may contact us to request the following behavior change to be made. The local party puts the remote party on hold by pressing "Hold/NC". While the remote party hears MOH, then the local party hangs up, the default behavior is that it will immediately ring to remind that there is a held call, instead we can delay the ring back by "x" seconds.
Music On Hold also plays on call transfers and while the first party in a conference is waiting for others to join. |
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