VOIP etc > Voice Over IP - VOIP > VOIP Tech Chat > Packet8 Rocks!!!

Packet8 Rocks!!!

Yes,I am on my 5th day with Packet8 and it works great, I made calls in the States, Germany and Egypt, no one find out that I am using the Internet to call, thanks Packet8.

I agree with both of you -- I'm just beginning my third
week of Packet 8 service using a cable modem on Charter
cable in GA and have had no trouble with the service
whatsoever -- in fact my calls to Canada sound clearer
and louder than they did with Bellsouth and AT&T as well
as 10-10-987...

Bye Bye long distance charges....

reply to dlhusk
I finally gave up on P8 and cancelled. At best, sound was like a very bad cell phone, plus extra lag, packet loss and irritating echoes using Cox Cable in NW Florida area. Too bad. Thought I could dump the local telco and the LD carriers with their exhorbitant "fees" and "taxes". Will continue to monitor the technology......

Why is it that someone like yourself has such poor service, while others say it is crystal clear (including the times I call on Packet8)????

Have had packet8 for about a month. After two weeks, discontinued conventional LD accounts except for cell phone. Voice clarity tops, lag time about 1/8 sec, really good tech help, very satisfied.

However, for the last two days have been unable to use the phone to receive calls or to call out -- yesterday, they said they had network problems. Today, they say they have no known problems, but I can dial to and receive from only California. I live in Virginia -- so some serious networking problem must remain. Nobody is rooting for packet8.net more than I am, but finally, I need a reliable LD phone service, and if packet8.net can't fill the bill, will have to arrange otherwise. As mentioned, I HOPE they can fill the bill -- really nice folks.

reply to floshcannon
"Why is it that someone like yourself has such poor service, while others say it is crystal clear (including the times I call on Packet8)???? "

I think I can answer that based on my experiences...

When Charter cable is "upgrading" or doing something with
the broadband signal, my Packet 8 suffers -- and does the
opposite when the signal is good.

Currently Charter is running 2.5/128 which makes Packet 8
sound, on my Panasonic 2.4ghz cordless better than the
phone company -- however when Charter dips or there is
congestion on the cable modem my Packet 8 suffers and I
can get echo and on/off sound (like Monday when Charter
dropped down to 300/34 during an upgrade).

It's easy to blame Packet 8 when you don't know where the
real problem lies - in my case it was Charter and upgrades
but I did blame Packet 8 before running a speed test on
the modem.

Conclusion -- before blaming Packet 8 check the speed of
your modem and be sure your router is also working properly.
I found in every case it was Charter and NOT Packet 8.

Of course if you have constant problems with your broadband
signal, then VOIP isn't for you... unless you can get your
signal fixed there is no point trying to run VOIP with
a slow or congested broadband connection.

reply to dlhusk
I love my Packet8!! During the week of the upgrade it was a little bumpy but now things are great. I talked on the phone for 2 hours the other night and never once had to repeat or have the other person to repeat. I love the quality of the voice and the volume/loudness of the voice. When I had my bellsouth line I was always having to turn the volume up on the phone but it was never enough. I don't find myself hard of hearing either. With Packet8 I always find myself turning the volume down. It works great for soft spoken people! Also the number of dead air incoming and outgoing calls have dropped to ZERO in the past week. Now if they would just fix my outgoing caller ID problem things would be perfect!

reply to dlhusk
My Packet8 service is now very good too. No dropped calls. No silence or fast busy after dialing.

I have noticed that after a power failure I have to bring the DSL modem/router/NAT box up first, then the DTA. If the DTA comes up before the router is ready (which is normal because the modem takes time to train) the DTA does not seem to recover.

I just did this comparison between two lines on the same phone:

Line 1: GSM cell phone connected via a CellSocket.
Line 2: Packet8. First 3 codecs enabled. No silence suppression.

My caller and I agreed that the cell phone background was a little quieter, but we preferred Packet8 because the audio was louder and clearer.

With a half-duplex speakerphone, where only one person can speak at a time, Packet8's slightly longer delay tends to make for more noticeable clipping of syllables as the line turns around. To eliminate this problem, I just bought a full-duplex speakerphone. The delay is no longer a problem.

The 5-inch speaker in the new phone, a Polycom SE-225, produces dramatically richer and clearer audio than the traditional tiny speakerphone speaker. Until I heard the new phone, I hadn't realized that the phone itself can be the weakest link in the audio chain.

My one remaining concern with Packet8 is that the upgrade broke the caller ID feature. Before the upgrade, a call forwarded from Packet8 to another phone showed the ID of the original caller. Now it shows the caller ID of the Packet8 phone.

It seems that any voip ta has to be rebooted *after* the router. Computers don't require this because windows itself keeps track of the ip address which has been assigned by the router's dhcp. The ta's don't have this feature, as it would seem. I have seen this behavior both with the cisco ata-186 and packet8's dta-310.

-er

reply to Boggyboy
I've had Packet8 for several months now with few problems. Generally pleased with service. Most calls sound nearly as good as POTS. I still have my SBC line but use Packet8 for mostly local zone and long distance calls. Nice to have a second phone line as well. It must be that a lot of the problems some folks are having with VOIP are cable related. I have Comcast here in surburban Detroit. My advice would be if it does'nt work well in the first 30 days send it back.

reply to digiblur

said by digiblur:

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I love my Packet8!! During the week of the upgrade it was a little bumpy but now things are great. I talked on the phone for 2 hours the other night and never once had to repeat or have the other person to repeat. I love the quality of the voice and the volume/loudness of the voice. When I had my bellsouth line I was always having to turn the volume up on the phone but it was never enough. I don't find myself hard of hearing either. With Packet8 I always find myself turning the volume down. It works great for soft spoken people! Also the number of dead air incoming and outgoing calls have dropped to ZERO in the past week. Now if they would just fix my outgoing caller ID problem things would be perfect!

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