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DMarceloPremium
join:2004-11-27
Bethesda, MD | Verizon / VoiceWing Conundrum or Dry Looped again First of all, VOIP lovers, how do we get a VoiceWing option added to the Choose list?
Late afternoon, August 02, 2005
I tried to call home but received a recording stating that “the party was unavailable, but please leave a message after the tone…” Since the voice was not my wife’s (from the answering machine), I surmised that Verizon must be working on my VOIP number transfer.
After reaching my wife on her cell phone, she confirmed that the phone had been unusually quiet all afternoon. She was able to make calls, but could not receive any. It also occurred to us that anyone calling us could leave a message, but we had no way of accessing these messages.
Early evening, August 02, 2005
I arrived home only to find that my communication service had deteriorated. Now, we cannot even make outbound calls. Although I was reassured that we would not experience any service outage during the VOIP conversion, I decided to give Verizon a break and wait until the morning to complain. We still have our trusty cell phone service (with a different provider, of course).:(
It looks like my DSL service is still functioning properly. At least I can get to the Net!:)
A look at my online VoiceWing account indicates that I have several voicemail messages attached to the temporary number provided to us from Verizon's VoiceWing. So calls to my land-line number allow messages to be captured on my temporary number. It would have be nice for someone to let us know.
Early Morning, August 3, 2005
I tried to connect my VOIP equipment, but no dial-tone or anything equivalent from the IP network. We still have no land-line service.
Mid morning, August 3, 2005
From work, a quick look on my online VoiceWing account shows that some strange local numbers have been attempting to make calls to my temporary VOIP number (305-000-0000, 1212202). I’m guessing these are from Verizon / VoiceWing technicians attempting to provision my service.
I still have not received any calls or emails from Verizon warning me of any service outage. I guess it’s time to give them a call.:o
The “Contact Us” button provides a handy 1-800 customer number. In no time I was talking to “the next available representative”. After passing the security check to ensure I was the appropriate account owner, Michelle listened intently as I described my no-service problem. Five minutes later, she informed me that she only handles billing questions. So now I’m transferred to the Technical customer service number.:(
I initially passed on the several call-back recording options that followed a classical piano interlude. But after 10 minutes of apologetic recordings due to their high call volume,(I guess everyone is trying to get in on VOIP), I decided to try sending them a written request using their “Contact Us” form. They claim a 30 minute response.:o
A minute later and a “beep” from my computer signals a problem. A window has popped up indicating that I am experiencing a “Server Error in ‘/ForYourHome/VOIP’ Application” (See attachment).
So much for this “Contact Us”option. I think I’ll try to the “Leave us a voice mail” option, but I better get an honest days work done first.
Late morning, August 3, 2005
The plot thickens. My wife called (from her cell) to inform me that she too has been trying to figure out why we don't have service. She was informed by Verizon that we are no longer their customer. The Verizon business office claims that we apparently have been switched to MCI.
I then called Verizon and was informed that they have successfully completed a request to disconnect our service with them. They had no idea what VoiceWing was and had never heard of VOIP. Maybe I have been the victim of a VOIP scam?:o
I tried calling the temporary VOIP number provided by VoiceWing, but only received the same recording as my land-line number. Apparently I'm "temporarily unavailable" from any phone number.
Time to call VoiceWing support! Keisha listened too and then surmised that what I needed is “dry loop” service added to my account in order not to lose service during the number porting process. Dry Loop? Couldn't they come up with a better fraise? I'm not sure I want to be dry looped!;)
Five minutes of some listening of a minuet in A minor, Keisha returned and informed me that the “dry loop” was not available in my location. But she was going to get her supervisor to figure out how we can get phone service again.
Now after listening to some cheerful African ballad from Paul Simon, Keisha returns with more apologies. It seems that she’s exhausted all of her resources and is resorting to an “offline escalation” procedure to resolve the problem. More apologies follow.
The net result so far is that the hand-shake between Verizon and VoiceWing is in shambles. Verizon disconnected my number before VoiceWing completed their provisioning.:( | |
lmjh7065Premium
join:2001-04-04
Cincinnati, OH | Re: Verizon / VoiceWing Conundrum or Dry Looped a Sorry to hear your being put thru this just to change your phone service. Welcome to the wonderful world of VoIP.:)
What I can't understand is if Verizon VoiceWing Broadband Phone Service is advertised on the Verizon web site, shouldn't Verizon know just a wee bit about it. I don't care if it is offered by some third party vendor, as I believe someone on this forum stated.
While I would not believe there would be no interruption to your service during the switch, I would believe that there would be maybe a half to one hour break in the service during that time.
I just see this as a general degradation in CS to the point where it almost no longer even exists, at least in this country. On one hand we have some companies timing there reps and don't want them to spend a lot of time with the customer - the old "time is money, money is time" thing. But on the other hand some reps only show up for work to collect a paycheck and could care less about the customer. But I can see why this is the case with the way some customers act/react, but at least there are some good customers and good CS reps left out there. Some reps are very friendly, helpful and very knowledgeable and apparently do believe and act like the greatest thing in the world is "to be of service".
Good luck with your switch and please keep us posted. | |
DMarceloPremium
join:2004-11-27
Bethesda, MD | reply to DMarcelo
Re: Verizon / VoiceWing Conundrum or Dry Looped again The saga continues...
Late Afternoon, August 3, 2005
I received a call from Verizon VoiceWing apologizing for the loss of my DSL service. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that I had even lost that service. But he did have good news. My DSL service is being restored via a private line. Oh really? I would now have a private data line to support my DSL broadband service in place of the prior voice/data facility. “So, how would you like this billed to your account”. “Excuse me”? I replied. “Actually, I don’t expect any differences in billing from my prior DSL service”, I responded. The reply was since I was no longer a Verizon customer; I’d probably end up with a different billing arrangement for the DSL broadband service.
You can well guess that I’ll be scrutinizing my next bill to ensure that I’m not paying a penny more for my private data line.
Afternoon, August 4, 2005
My patience waning, I again call Verizon VoiceWing, to get a status of my phone service.
Between Verizon and VoiceWing they had accomplished what Mother Nature could not. Throughout all the winter and summer storms that included thunder storms that felled trees, insurmountable rain that flooded my basement, ice storms that dropped electric lines, and unbearable heat that melted asphalt. Throughout all, the one constant, was my good ol’ dependable land-line service (My cell phone wasn’t as dependable).
I am nearing the point of VOIP cancellation and have decided to give them till the end of the day to salvage me as a customer.
Evening , August 4, 2005
We have a dial-tone!! Without going into the gory details of how it was accomplished, I continue to be amazed at the issues I’ve encountered with the training provided to the customer service personnel. Like robots, they always repeated the security mantra (even if it was the same person I spoke to hours before). Yet, they failed to know what to ask when it came to problem solving.
I finally got a tech person who methodically attempted to get an idea of what my network looked like. No one else even asked. They simply relied on sending signals to my adapter and request to re-power the components.
It turns out that my own “creative” network configuration had caused me two days worth of VOIP service down-time. I’ll elaborate later when I post my VoiceWing review, but it turns out the VOIP adapter is extremely unforgiving when it comes to the configuration of routers within your home network. It was perhaps silly of me to presume that if my DSL was working properly, then anything bridged to the same router should likewise be receiving the proper network messaging.
In any case, I was forced to remove any bridging and cable to VOIP adapter directly to the supplied 327W router provided by Verizon.
I’m going to give the service at least a week before posting a review. Hopefully, I won’t be the recipient of any billing surprises. Currently I’m on the fence on rating their customer service. Yes, they were nowhere as knowledgeable as they should be, even for new technology. On the positive side, they were always very courteous and patient with my tirades. I really did feel that they were trying their best to resolve my issues.
While writing this segment, I even got a follow-up call to ensure that all my communication services were working properly.
Try losing your phone service for a couple of days, and you really start appreciating that sweet sound of a dial-tone. Hmm, I wonder if I can change my cell-phone ring to a dial-tone?
Now the only question left is, who’s going to pay for all those extra cell-phone minutes of waiting music that I endured while waiting on VoiceWing’s customer service?
Morning, August 7, 2005
Well, it’s been 3 days of generally spotty service. It appears that when all the bodies in the universe are in alignment, the systems works like a charm. The most often issue is that I cannot receive inbound calls for a while. A few minutes later, after the sunspots settle down, service goes back to normal. No discernable rhyme or reason for the change.
I’ve also just discovered that VoiceWing customer service is not available on Sundays. This is not starting out as a positive user experience. | |
 RockyBBPremium
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO | Re: Verizon / VoiceWing Conundrum or Dry Looped a you picked the wrong VOIP carrier, Dmarcelo. My consumer VOIP customers (using carriers Vonage and Nuvio) don't go through this... VOIP, as a generic product category, is not your demon here. | |
| reply to DMarcelo
Re: Verizon / VoiceWing Conundrum or Dry Looped again DMarcelo,
Just on an inside note, The Verizon VoIP along with other providers is a purtly contingent serivce. VoIP by defenition is voice over Internet. Any service quality issues (no dial tone, poor sound, missed/dropped calls) asside from major outages would be a direct cause of either your home network or Connection provided by your ISP.
Most likely your experiancing low or loss of bandwidth aka intermitent packet loss. If you are experiancing these problems inconcitantly then do the following:
Disable all internet applications i.e. P2P, Kazaa, emule, edonkey, bittorrent, streaming media, etc.
Then from a computer on the same home network as your voicewing phone do the following.
Click on Start >> Run >> Type CMD >> press enter.
A black DOS prompt will appear
Type the following:
ping www.yahoo.com -t >> c:\ping.txt
Press Enter
You will see no info display on the screen. Leave this DOS box open until you experiance an instance where a call to your voicewing phone is directed to your backup number. You can then stop the DOS test by pressing Ctrl + C
You will find a file named "ping" on your C:\ drive.
This will show if you are experiancing packet loss with your internet connection. Packet loss (request timed out) = no internet connection. If you need help decoding it you can Attatch that file to an email and send it to me at: Daniel.Woeck@livebridge.com
You may also want to try running an spyware removal tool. I would suggest the MSN Virus Beta program or AdAware
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