SunRocket VoIP *Everybody is reporting that this is DEAD!* (Free phones, extra number, etc.)

[Alpha35]

FWIW
I started my SR service 6 days ago and it has worked with out problems. So
I decided to try an international call this evening and use some of those free 100
Intl. minutes. Called a friend in Australia and talked 30 min. with zero problems.
Good voice on each end. I'm in CA using ATT DSL.

Gene H

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: georgepa
All - SR is about to unveil the long-awaited failover feature within the next 2 weeks. I don't have details but just know from highest engineering level that failover passed QA and is ready "for action."

At last this will top out S/R except for the second port available for the second line...
Geo. any news on this?

 

[georgepa]

"At last this will top out S/R except for the second port available for the second line...
Geo. any news on this?"

No news as of yet because I didn't ask. The guy is chief engineer for SR and asked me to not tell anyone. I figured this thread is small enough that it does not get back to him. I'll send a question about "open 2nd line" and what other features are in store. I assume they are readying for a very busy holiday season, starting to gear up soon.

 

[RideFree]

It was good that you didn't tell us, either.

 

[georgepa]

Hey, you know what they say about men and secrets. If he wanted it protected he should have told his wife.

Seriously, I heard about the imminent release of the new feature about a week before I posted, so it should be ok at this time.

I am at Niagara Falls for a week with my family. Have a laptop and my SR with me. Portability is another major plus for VOIP.

 

[RideFree]

So, we're talking Florida spoof from the barrel over the falls?

 

[gibster]

My gizmo went kaput over the weekend, and I contacted SR on Saturday, and had a new gizmo sent out on Monday, got it on Tuesday! That is most impressive handling of a bad situation for me, I was only out a couple of days, MAJOR KUDOS to SR. Been a customer since January 2005, and other than a few outages (I remember about 3 major ones that affected me), it has been unquestionably great value for the money. They even made good on a screwup with dropping the ball on renewing my yearly plan (they refunded 2 months when they had me on the monthly plan, when I told them to renew the yearly).

The only bad thing now is that I had the original gizmo before (the one with the wavy top, AC-211-SR), and knew the admin password for that one, and was able to improve my fax compatibility and open up the second line for outgoing calls...
They send me the miniscule (floppy sized) AC-211N, which apparently has a different admin password, so no second outgoing line any more... It was really convenient, and worked great, not sure why they are not opening it for everyone...

Anyway, if anyone knows the new admin password... PM me, please. I need my second line ;-)

 

[azoomee]

It allowed you to call out on a second line?

 

[gibster]

Originally posted by: azoomee
It allowed you to call out on a second line?

Yep, in the admin pages you could copy the registration parameters from line 1 to line 2, et voila! But I don't think you could have incoming functionality.

 

[RideFree]

Suddenly S/R seems to have improved over night.

Hush! Now everybody will be wanting it and we all know what happens when they get overloaded.

 

[tommytran]

It took 10 days after repeated calls to SR to have my gizmo replaced. Their level 3 support suck and don't know what they are doing. I hope SR put some thoughs on this before losing their custommers.

Originally posted by: gibster
My gizmo went kaput over the weekend, and I contacted SR on Saturday, and had a new gizmo sent out on Monday, got it on Tuesday! That is most impressive handling of a bad situation for me, I was only out a couple of days, MAJOR KUDOS to SR. Been a customer since January 2005, and other than a few outages (I remember about 3 major ones that affected me), it has been unquestionably great value for the money. They even made good on a screwup with dropping the ball on renewing my yearly plan (they refunded 2 months when they had me on the monthly plan, when I told them to renew the yearly).

The only bad thing now is that I had the original gizmo before (the one with the wavy top, AC-211-SR), and knew the admin password for that one, and was able to improve my fax compatibility and open up the second line for outgoing calls...
They send me the miniscule (floppy sized) AC-211N, which apparently has a different admin password, so no second outgoing line any more... It was really convenient, and worked great, not sure why they are not opening it for everyone...

Anyway, if anyone knows the new admin password... PM me, please. I need my second line ;-)

 

[georgepa]

azoomee-

There are some things you can do with the gizmo if you can log in as an administrator. Enabling port 2 to get another outgoing line is one of those extra things. It comes in handy when you need to call some place where you will be on music-hold forever without tying up the main line.

You can also assign star codes here for DND, forward, redial last call, block last call, accept last call, auto redial, disable auto redial, block caller id (per call,) anonymous call rejection - enable and disable. Stuff like that.


ridefree-

Hey, I am in Beantown now, survived the barrel drop off Niagara Falls. Tomorrow it goes back to good ol' Tampa Bay.



SR is opening a new tech center in Missouri in a few weeks:

http://www.sbj.net/article.asp?aID=73968

Looks to be 500 employees. From the sound of it first-rate personnell.

 

[iamme]

we got an email saying today was the day our number would be transferred to SR.

however, today all our incoming calls to our original number say it's disconnected. (we can call out of our original phone, thought)

is this normal? should we just wait until the end of the day?

 

[azoomee]

Originally posted by: iamme
we got an email saying today was the day our number would be transferred to SR.

however, today all our incoming calls to our original number say it's disconnected. (we can call out of our original phone, thought)

is this normal? should we just wait until the end of the day?

This is normal -- I think mine did this for a day or so.

 

[ImSeeker]

Ok - international (FROM international) call questions.

I'm headed to Europe and thinking of taking my Gizmo with me.

Does it really work from international locations?

I took it with me to a friends house in another city and it worked fine.

Any implications here? I had broadband at the friends house, which made it easy, but it may not be as easy elsewhere, if it works at all.

 

[agrall]

Just got DirecTV and the HD DVR...

Any tips on getting SunRocket to work well with the DVR?

 

[georgepa]

Originally posted by: ImSeeker
Ok - international (FROM international) call questions.

I'm headed to Europe and thinking of taking my Gizmo with me.

Does it really work from international locations?

I took it with me to a friends house in another city and it worked fine.

Any implications here? I had broadband at the friends house, which made it easy, but it may not be as easy elsewhere, if it works at all.

Well, you are going to need broadband, whereever else you go with your gizmo. If your hotel has that (and you can plug your gizmo into a swift broadband connection, or alternatively use it wirelessly via a wireless gaming adapter) you should be good to go.

Just to be on the safe side I would ALSO bring along the router (and an extra ethernet cable) you are currently using. You don't want to be visiting someone and, if they don't have a router, force them to go through your gizmo to still be using their computer online.

You also want to consider different power situations in other countries.

 

[Den in MI]

Hi everyone,

Got in on the 4th of July promotion on 6/30 - $199 for 2 years. The person that signed me up spelled my street and my city incorrectly. I was able to correct the shipping and billing information online, but the service address change required a call to Sunrocket Member Services. I was primarily concerned with the service address, as that is the address that transfer information will be based upon, as well as emergency services. I spoke to Rusty, who told me that he couldn't fix the error but he would enter a request to have it fixed, which could take up to 20 days to accomplish.

I told Rusty that, if it took 20 days to fix a typographical error that was made when I signed up for the service 2 hours ago, the service obviously wouldn't meet my needs. I requested that he cancel my order. He said that he would have to place me on hold to transfer me to the cancellation department. I was on hold for about 5 minutes, then Rusty came back on the line and said that the Cancellation Department was experiencing high call volume (go figure). He placed me on hold for about another 5 minutes, then came back and told me he still couldn't get through. He then asked me for a telephone number where they could call me back, which I gave him. I was on the phone with Sunrocket, including voice prompts and Rusty, for a total of 18 minutes.

I emailed Member Services this information and the problem was fixed within a couple of hours. No one from the Cancellation department ever called, but I decided not to cancel due to the fast response on the email request. I emailed member services that I decided not to cancel.

I requested transfer of telephone number and received confirmation of the request on 6/30. Setup voicemail online on 6/30. Received the gizmo on 7/13. Installed it between the modem and the computer on 7/14 without incident (will add router in about a month). It sounds different than POTS, with slight background noise, but perfectly acceptable (especially for $8.29/month)

It was 2 weeks ago on Friday that the request for porting my number went in. I left a message with Carrie Barr today to see if she could advise me of the status of the number transfer. I have Comcast 6Mbps cable internet and ATT (formerly SBC) phone service. I intend to replace my ATT POTS with SunRocket after the number ports over.

Thanks georgapa for Carrie Barr's telephone number. I'll let everyone know how it goes.
BTW, my sister signed up for Comcast Digital Voice for $33/month on the day before I signed up for SunRocket. Her number was ported on the day the service was installed (although she pays four times as much as I am paying).

That's all for now - we'll see how it goes...

 

[iamme]

Originally posted by: azoomee

Originally posted by: iamme
we got an email saying today was the day our number would be transferred to SR.

however, today all our incoming calls to our original number say it's disconnected. (we can call out of our original phone, thought)

is this normal? should we just wait until the end of the day?

This is normal -- I think mine did this for a day or so.

very nice, it was all transferred and working by the next day. now i just need to cancel our "old" account

plus, i still need to figure out how to get the Gizmo behind the router...

 

[tommytran]

The gizmo is working fine behind the router. Check your line here http://www.bandwidth.com/tools/voipTest

Originally posted by: iamme

Originally posted by: azoomee

Originally posted by: iamme
we got an email saying today was the day our number would be transferred to SR.

however, today all our incoming calls to our original number say it's disconnected. (we can call out of our original phone, thought)

is this normal? should we just wait until the end of the day?

This is normal -- I think mine did this for a day or so.

very nice, it was all transferred and working by the next day. now i just need to cancel our "old" account

plus, i still need to figure out how to get the Gizmo behind the router...

 

[georgepa]

Originally posted by: iamme

Originally posted by: azoomee

Originally posted by: iamme
we got an email saying today was the day our number would be transferred to SR.

however, today all our incoming calls to our original number say it's disconnected. (we can call out of our original phone, thought)

is this normal? should we just wait until the end of the day?

This is normal -- I think mine did this for a day or so.

very nice, it was all transferred and working by the next day. now i just need to cancel our "old" account

plus, i still need to figure out how to get the Gizmo behind the router...

If your "original" line was POTS you will probably find that the order to transfer the number also had the effect that your account cancelled out automatically. If your previous number was with another VOIP provider you have to call in to cancel.

What happens when you try to move your gizmo behind the router? Does it just not show you a VOIP light? Have you tried shutting everything down (internet modem, router, gizmo,) then hooking it up the way you would like it to be, then in sequence power on the internet modem first, then the router, then the gizmo?

 

[georgepa]

Den in MI-

Good thing you stuck it out. As you know the savings are tremendous. Enough to put up with some "stuff." Rusty seems like a piece of work, no doubt from the overseas crew, which is definitely hit or miss (sometimes you can get excellent service from the Member Services people in the Phillipines, sometimes it stinks.) You will probably find that sticking with the service was a wise move.

I linked to an article above where SR is currently training 200 displaced MCI Call-Center Personnel in Missouri and will start putting them online during the first August week, and the intent is to have 500 Call-Center folks manning the tech support and member services lines from right here in the US by the end of the year. Nobody will have to deal with hard-to-understand "Rusty" types anymore. Now, I have had good experiences with support, but then again, I have "taken the thing apart and put it back together" so-to-speak. Many newcomers are depending on these people, and it would seem that the new setup will provide a smoother ride for us all when it comes to Customer Service.

 

[iamme]

Originally posted by: georgepa
If your "original" line was POTS you will probably find that the order to transfer the number also had the effect that your account cancelled out automatically. If your previous number was with another VOIP provider you have to call in to cancel.

What happens when you try to move your gizmo behind the router? Does it just not show you a VOIP light? Have you tried shutting everything down (internet modem, router, gizmo,) then hooking it up the way you would like it to be, then in sequence power on the internet modem first, then the router, then the gizmo?

you were exactly right about the number cancellation.....wish i had read your post before spending 15 minuites on the phone w/ AT&T

i posted a whole bunch of times in this thread, earlier, about my problems. i can't get a VOIP light when i put the gizmo behind the router. even after numerous combinations of shutting everything down and waiting 5+ minutes.

the only way i can consistently get the gizmo running is this:

1. unplug gizmo and cable modem
2. plug cable modem directly into PC, restart cable modem (modem->PC)
3. wait for cable modem to cycle and confirm internet access on PC
4. unplug cable from PC and put into gizmo (while cable modem is on)
5. start up gizmo and wait for VOIP light.
6. plug router into gizmo and pc to router. (internet connection now runs modem->gizmo->router->PC)

i feel like i'm "tricking" the cable modem and gizmo into workign this way, but that's teh only way i've gotten it to work consistently.

 

[ImSeeker]

Wireless gaming adapter - ordered.

Extra ethernet cable - check.

Bring along my router - ugh - ok, one more thing to schlep.

Adapters for Europe - check - yay most of this stuff does the conversion, so you just need the adapter.

Thanks for the info.

 

[georgepa]

ImSeeker-

If you are bringing a wireless laptop anyway you may want to set up softphone with SR instead of bringing your adapter (or in addition to, in case you can't make the connection or power conversion work.) I can PM you the proper way to set this up, and it would be a lot cleaner. Quality is very good, as long as you have a USB phone or a decent headset/microphone setup.