VOIP SunRocket Internet Phone Service $199 for 15months = $13.27/month

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: astrosfan90

Originally posted by: georgepa
I was told tonight, btw, that ALL tech support will be moved back from the Phillipines shortly.

Do I read this correctly in assuming that asking for Sales will no longer get you to a Canadian support center?

Not the way I read George's post.
He may have said that if you call from outside the S/R system on their 800# and asked for sales or tech support you would get Canadians.
If you used your S/R line, there were no guarantees.
However, He did state that if you hide your S/R#, chances are your sales ? would be directed to Canada.
That's the way I read his post.

Ah, those Canadians...you've got to love 'em.
First!
A Trillion Barrels of High Quality Crude Oil in reserve.
Second!
The new leader in English speaking phone support.

 

[Project86]

Wow this is a long thread! I just signed up for SR yesterday, and was wondering what exactly I will get in the mail from them. So far I figure it is the Uniden phones, and the "gizmo", and.... is that it?

Also, for installation... I have comcast cable for my ISP. Do I have several options for installing the Gizmo, or???

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: Project86
Wow this is a long thread! I just signed up for SR yesterday, and was wondering what exactly I will get in the mail from them. So far I figure it is the Uniden phones, and the "gizmo", and.... is that it?

Also, for installation... I have comcast cable for my ISP. Do I have several options for installing the Gizmo, or???

Yep, that's it. Gizmo box, Phone box. And an ethernet crossover cable.

As for installing it, just plug it into your cable modem and then plug your comptuer/router into the Gizmo. Or you can do it the other way around.

 

[georgepa]

azomee-

You don't have to cancel Verizon, that is automatic. Still a good idea to call them up anyway to be sure that it is really cancelled, but most likely they'll tell you that it has already cancelled out. If you have cable ISP, you're ok. If you have DSL or FIOS you have to do some more legwork. Make sure your DSL is "nekkid," same with FIOS. Basically, you just give them a credit card and they charge you for internet on that card instead of sending a paper bill. When mine ported, the day of the port both phones were ringing when someone tried to call (overlap.) The next day my Verizon line went silent, never to be heard from again.

astrofan-

Actually, the other way around. SALES is based in CANADA. MEMBER SERVICES (including billing) is still in the Phillipines, as is Level 1 TECH SUPPORT. That will change shortly, all will be moved to CANADA. Now, when you call 611 from your SR phone or the 800-# the system will detect that you are already a customer (probably via Caller ID) so they DON'T give you the choice of SALES (you already have an account, so why would you need sales?) If you hide your caller ID you get the additional choice of SALES, same if you call from a different phone number. Selecting that then routes your calls to CANADA. The SALES team is a bit easier to understand for some, and they do some Level 1 customer service/tech support as well. I found the CANADA level personnell to be a bit more forthcoming, especially when it came to these free phones thrown in with my renewal.


Project 86 -

Welcome to "THE THREAD." Yeah, gizmo and Uniden phones as well as an Ethernet cable. All you'll need. If you have a router, set up the phone adapter behind it. If not, plug the adapter WAN port into your cable modem, then a computer into the LAN port of the phone adapter. Be sure to set DRL (Dynamic Rate Limit) to the exact value that your ISP has listed as your outgoing bandwidth.

 

[Jlensbo]

Originally posted by: georgepa
wow, it DOES work. Thanks, daweeze, for the tip. I CALLED SR to renew. I made sure to call SALES in Canada, not CS in the Phillipines. I told the lady that I wanted to renew, that I heard that they can ship 2 free phones in addition to the 13th month. She said "We can certainly do that." It was done in 2 minutes. I called back again to confirm that the phones were included. The guy said that he didn't know what she included, but "let me send you the 2 phones." Then he said "Ok, they're on their way." From the looks of it I may be getting 4 phones, like daweeze. They must have bought them for next to nothing to give them out like that.

jlensbo-

CALL SR back. This time be sure to talk to CANADIAN support, which is SALES - they also double as customer service. I was told tonight, btw, that ALL tech support will be moved back from the Phillipines shortly. When you call from your SR phone they see your number with their caller ID, so SALES is not an option you have access to from your SR phone. Call from another phone (cell?) and go to SALES (which gets you to CANADA) or, alternatively, hide your Caller ID by typing *67 before you dial SRs number. Then go to SALES and request the renewal with the 2 phones.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

INCREDIBLE!!! This is great advice that WORKS! I feel it necessary to repeat it for all those who are renewing their service:
DO NOT CALL from your home phone number! I did this twice and each time got someone who told m, "NO, the two free phones are only for NEW ACCOUNTS".
I verified that I was talking to "sales in Canada". I said that I understood that I could renew and get 13 months as well as TWO FREE PHONES. "Of course," he said, "I'll be sending those out overnite at no charge to you!"
So now I've renewed my service for $199 for 13 months AND get two more phones. I was so close to NOT getting the phones until I read the advice here!!!

 

[TheTurk]

The notice on the package I received with Gizmo clearly stated that it may take up to 10 days to start receiving call.

10 days passed, and I emailed SR, after 4 days waiting they claimed it may take 16 business days.

After 35 days, finally I got incoming calls started which took many emails to SR.
Now it is over 30 days of trial period, i am not sure if I can cancel my service or recieve credit for the time without incoming.

I do not not about Vonage, but it is evident that Sun Rocket is not a miracle company. Still technically insufficient.

So there is no need to promote this company like crazy unless one is working for that company..

Sun Rocket = less than avarage service and functionality.
I prefer to pay more a bit and get better service..

So, I give Thumbs Down for Sun Rocket as a customer:thumbsdown:

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: TheTurk
The notice on the package I received with Gizmo clearly stated that it may take up to 10 days to start receiving call.

10 days passed, and I emailed SR, after 4 days waiting they claimed it may take 16 business days.

After 35 days, finally I got incoming calls started which took many emails to SR.
Now it is over 30 days of trial period, i am not sure if I can cancel my service or recieve credit for the time without incoming.

I do not not about Vonage, but it is evident that Sun Rocket is not a miracle company. Still technically insufficient.

So there is no need to promote this company like crazy unless one is working for that company..

Sun Rocket = less than avarage service and functionality.
I prefer to pay more a bit and get better service..

So, I give Thumbs Down for Sun Rocket as a customer:thumbsdown:

Well... I signed up for SR on 3/1/06. I received my GIzmo and such in the mail on 3/7/06. I could immediately make outbound calls as expected but inbound did not work. However my inbound temp number started working yesterday (3/10/06).

No complaints here.
Sorry you had a bad expereince so far Turk but call them up and like everyone here says, go to the SALES department. Let them know how long it took and that you are now over the return policy and are upset. They'll update your "start date" to the date you started getting incoming calls..

HOWEVER, if you ported your other number over and that's the number you are using, then most times is the place porting it FROM that causes the delays and won't give up the number. At least that's what I've been told...

 

[azoomee]

Originally posted by: TheTurk
The notice on the package I received with Gizmo clearly stated that it may take up to 10 days to start receiving call.

10 days passed, and I emailed SR, after 4 days waiting they claimed it may take 16 business days.

After 35 days, finally I got incoming calls started which took many emails to SR.
Now it is over 30 days of trial period, i am not sure if I can cancel my service or recieve credit for the time without incoming.

I do not not about Vonage, but it is evident that Sun Rocket is not a miracle company. Still technically insufficient.

So there is no need to promote this company like crazy unless one is working for that company..

Sun Rocket = less than avarage service and functionality.
I prefer to pay more a bit and get better service..

So, I give Thumbs Down for Sun Rocket as a customer:thumbsdown:

Interesting -- so far I must give them thumbs up. They've met all expectations set for me, ie: Ported in 2.5 weeks vs 4, reply to every email request within 24 hours but normally sooner, QOS is good and never expected 100%.

So far so good. Thanks GEORGEPA for your insight as well

 

[georgepa]

Turk-

I guess I don't understand the issue. Outgoing calls worked from the start, incoming calls are now working. All should be fine. Enjoy excellent phone service from now until...

Pretty much everybody who posts here on a regular basis has been pleased with this service as for price/features/no taxes_fees/extras combination. You can cancel anytime, SR issues a prorated refund, so ALL YOU WOULD BE OUT in any case would be 1 months of service, which is less than $17. Yet, you get to keep the phones ($55 value.) Maybe you are assuming wrongly that you are now tied into some sort of yearly contract, like with Vonage (which charges a hefty cancellation fee if you cancel before a year is up)? It would be nice if they gave you a month's credit or sent you an extra phone handset for the duration it took your local CLEC to turn on incoming calls, but, man, it's $16.58 as it is for the month.

Now, WHERE do you see less than average service and functionality? You have incoming and outgoing calls working and you say that? In what way is functionality not "above average"?

So, going with your question, have you CALLED to see if they can give you a month's worth of credit (change the starting date of your account) or give you some other concession (try to see if they can ship you an additional handset, a better value than a month's credit.) Complaining is easy, but now that you have all of it working you can just enjoy the functionality and tremendous amount of features instead of paying double to a company that gives you less functionality as it is.

As to this thread, it has become a chat community of sorts. As you can tell most everybody who gets SR has a good experience. Maybe it won't work for you, maybe you expected miracles and got a very good service for the little money you spend per month, and that's not enough. I am sure everything is not for everybody. But to claim that those posting here are "working" for the company is ridiculous. I don't mind someone coming here with whatever they have to say, but keep it above board, please. Several posters here suggested you CALL SR to see if they can give you a different starting time or some sort of extra value a while back. From your post it is evident you are still asking "Can I..." The question is: DID you call SALES to get a concession for the time you had to wait for incoming calls to come in? What did they say?

Good luck with Vonage. Since they are not a miracles company, either, and you'll be paying triple the amount of money for less features and ever-increasing taxes/fees you'll probably be looking for a while.

 

[daweeze02]

Originally posted by: georgepa
Turk-

I guess I don't understand the issue. Outgoing calls worked from the start, incoming calls are now working. All should be fine. Enjoy excellent phone service from now until...

Pretty much everybody who posts here on a regular basis has been pleased with this service as for price/features/no taxes_fees/extras combination. You can cancel anytime, SR issues a prorated refund, so ALL YOU WOULD BE OUT in any case would be 1 months of service, which is less than $17. Yet, you get to keep the phones ($55 value.) Maybe you are assuming wrongly that you are now tied into some sort of yearly contract, like with Vonage (which charges a hefty cancellation fee if you cancel before a year is up)? It would be nice if they gave you a month's credit or sent you an extra phone handset for the duration it took your local CLEC to turn on incoming calls, but, man, it's $16.58 as it is for the month.

Now, WHERE do you see less than average service and functionality? You have incoming and outgoing calls working and you say that? In what way is functionality not "above average"?

So, going with your question, have you CALLED to see if they can give you a month's worth of credit (change the starting date of your account) or give you some other concession (try to see if they can ship you an additional handset, a better value than a month's credit.) Complaining is easy, but now that you have all of it working you can just enjoy the functionality and tremendous amount of features instead of paying double to a company that gives you less functionality as it is.

As to this thread, it has become a chat community of sorts. As you can tell most everybody who gets SR has a good experience. Maybe it won't work for you, maybe you expected miracles and got a very good service for the little money you spend per month, and that's not enough. I am sure everything is not for everybody. But to claim that those posting here are "working" for the company is ridiculous. I don't mind someone coming here with whatever they have to say, but keep it above board, please. Several posters here suggested you CALL SR to see if they can give you a different starting time or some sort of extra value a while back. From your post it is evident you are still asking "Can I..." The question is: DID you call SALES to get a concession for the time you had to wait for incoming calls to come in? What did they say?

Good luck with Vonage. Since they are not a miracles company, either, and you'll be paying triple the amount of money for less features and ever-increasing taxes/fees you'll probably be looking for a while.

LMK if you get 2 or 4 phones I am very curious if I was just lucky or they are doing this for others too.

 

[Kelemvor]

Maybe we should have the OP put a poll in the first post that would state:

If you've had SunRocket service for long enough to get acclimated with it, how would you rate your satisfaction level?

We'd obviously not want someone to post after 1 week if they think it took too long to ship or someting like that because SR usually comps you the time for that. But for those people who have had it for a few months or more, that should be plenty of time to know how much you like or dislike the service. This would give newcomers to the thread an instant glance at how people here really feel so they know if it's something to try or not...

 

[astrosfan90]

I don't think we've had too many unsure folks come through that didn't post to ask questions, which to me is far better than glancing at any poll. Better to hear it from the horse's mouth in the form of direct answers to your questions, IMO.

Anyone know what sort of internet connection military folks who are deployed have? One of my best friends from childhood may be deployed to Iraq in the next few months, and I would love to set him up with a gizmo and a phone if there was a chance he'd be able to hook it into a connection out there and call home with it.

Thoughts?

 

[RideFree]

"Better to hear it from the horse's mouth ..."
FRANKIE, THERE WILL BE NO POLL!
You've just heard it from the horses mouth (wait, I think he may have been headed in the other direction ).

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: RideFree
"Better to hear it from the horse's mouth ..."
FRANKIE, THERE WILL BE NO POLL!
You've just heard it from the horses mouth (wait, I think he may have been headed in the other direction ).

No need to shout about it...

 

[astrosfan90]

lol! Sorry, I didn't mean to shoot you down, was just sayin.

I think we had two or three new SR folks here this week--how was your setup and all that? You guys all up and running?

 

[sdzc]

I have had Sunrocket (MPLS on Comcast) and have had great phone service. I am still trying to work out the bugs from a faxing aspect, but we have ways around that. I have not seen any down time since I have been on it. Porting my number did take 3-4 weeks though, so that could be faster, but that could be Qwest's fault and not Sunrocket.

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: astrosfan90
Anyone know what sort of internet connection military folks who are deployed have? One of my best friends from childhood may be deployed to Iraq in the next few months, and I would love to set him up with a gizmo and a phone if there was a chance he'd be able to hook it into a connection out there and call home with it.

Astro,
The way I understand communication in/out of Iraq is that there are two-three satellite bounces that make VoIP useless unless you have access to the military?s infrastructure.

Telecom networks are poor or non-existent in Iraq except for AT&T?s satellite ?phone booths? which are dispersed at US military-held areas throughout the field of operations.
AT&T charges $.21/min. at these kiosks ? pretty high imho.

A direct satellite system like BGAN or something similar, although expensive, might be shared among a platoon, cost-wise.

Edited: I should add that AT&T's stuff is probably as a result of a military contract. And I've seen horror stories of buying calling cards stateside and shipping them to the troops ? these cards are blocked by AT&T and can not be used in Iraq.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: sdzc
I have had Sunrocket (MPLS on Comcast) and have had great phone service. I am still trying to work out the bugs from a faxing aspect, but we have ways around that. I have not seen any down time since I have been on it. Porting my number did take 3-4 weeks though, so that could be faster, but that could be Qwest's fault and not Sunrocket.

Awesome! Hopefully you can get that number ported soon.

RideFree, thanks, good to know. Just trying to figure out other ways I can help my buddy out.

 

[azoomee]

RIDEFREE, GEORGEPA,

Question for you (or anyone else). We're not 100% Sunrocket at our hose as of a few days ago. SOMETIMES, when we make calls we hear it ringing then it stops like someone answered -- BUT, can't hear anything. Today, my wife called me from our home phone, and I couldn't hear her. Redialed and it worked fine.

Any ideas or solutions?

Thanks

 

[agrall]

So far, so good for me. I really like the features.

The jury is still out on the call quality, but so far - no complaints.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: TheTurk
Their technical blah, blah is not a concern of mine.
As a full paying user, I expect the service fully.
If they have technical issue, they should not be charging my CC until the service is fully functional.
Simple as this....
I stand by that they are by far the worst..still no incoming call.
yet they charge the full ammount.

this company SUCKS guys.
I am working on cancelling my account to try Vonage. I am coordinating with my fiends who signed up to cancel theirs too.

They have the same problem.

Don't promise if you cannot keep it.

I hope this company will not make me say "VOIP sucks"..

A word of warning... Vonage does not pass your outgoing CallerID name. This is by design. Usually it will pass your outgoing number but not always. When that happens the person you're calling will see "Unavailable" or "Anonymous" as the caller. Then they assume my call is a spammer and don't pickup or worse yet my call is blocked because they don't accept anonymous calls.

Anyway, I cancelled my Vonage service over the weekend. I don't think any VOIP provider is going to be perfect but I'd rather have SunRocket or ViaTalk at about $13/month than Vonage at $27. I had complaints of 'echo' on Vonage as well and I'm on a 10Mb down / 1 Mb up cable connection.

Oh, and as far as customer service goes, Vonage is *HORRIBLE*. You can't even cancel your account on the weekend because 'that department isn't open'. Freaking BS!

EDIT: I tried to cancel by Email but that wasn't allowed. I called on the weekend and after waiting on hold learned the cancellation dept isn't in on weekends - how convenient... :roll:

I just called Vonage (again) to cancel. I went through the menus and selected the option to terminate service. After 15 minutes on hold I got a CSR who asked how he could help me. I said I wanted to cancel my service. He asked why and I explained that the quality wasn't great (echo), I had issues with not being able to hear callers (had to reboot the adapter), and the big issue with outbound CallerID not being passed correctly.

He tried to steer me to support and I said, 'No thanks, been there done that. Check my call history'. He then threatened, I mean informed, me that I'd get charged a $40 disconnect fee. I asked why. He said because I didn't keep the service for a year. I said, it didn't work as advertised so why should I be charged a penalty. He said it wasn't up to him. I said, 'Fine, just cancel it and send me my final bill'. He said he can't cancel me because that's a different department. I had to get transferred or call a different number directly - either way another wait on hold session (keep in mind I chose the option to terminate my service).

I politely told the CSR that being transferred or calling another number isn't an option. It is not my fault that the 'Cancel my service' selection dumps to regular Customer Support. I said I've gone beyond what I consider reasonable effort to cancel my account and this will be my final call to Vonage. I consider my account cancelled as of 3/13/06 and any further charges from Vonage will be disputed with my CC company.

In short - stay far, far away from Vonage!

 

[georgepa]

Hey Robor-

The prodigal son returns.


Be sure to sign up with a goodie. Best deal is the 15 months for $199 deal = $13.28 per month. They have the 2-phone deal at $16.58 per month, but you already have phones. Try CALLING their sales department in CANADA to order. They are very quick with sending out free phones with renewals, which already give an extra free month. I would not be surprised if they threw in a couple of free phones with the $199 for 15 months deal. Just phrase it something like: "I am very interested. Someone in my neighborhood signed up for this 15 months deal but was also given 2 free phones. Can you do that for me as well? If so, I am definitely going to sign up right now."


I believe your issue was an issue with the gizmo not doing a good job with your bandwidth, cutting too much of it, resulting in call problems. It is kind of a rare thing and a few pages back another user with substantial bandwidth (you have 10 MBps down) replaced his gizmo with the Innomedia adapter, and his voice problems went away. At the time he was one of the first to get the Innomedia adapter for his specific problem, it was in beta-testing at that point. Since then the Innomedia adapter has replaced the gizmo for all new customers, so chances are good that your previous problems are resolved just with that new adapter.

From "the horse's mouth" another testament about overpriced Vonage. I can see a couple of bucks difference, but with the $199/15 months deal and all things considered we are effectively talking almost TRIPLE the cost when going with Vonage (after signature number and startup costs are factored in.) I believe Sunrocket has more to offer than Vonage, but even if they were similar in features, or even if Vonage had a slight edge, the price difference is just too enormous to be justifiable.

BTW, last week I've seen VONAGE HOLDINGS on my phone as incoming Caller ID, which is definitely weird. With SR my full name and phone number shows up. Even if it did not and only showed just my number (no name) I SURE would not want my Caller ID name to show as VONAGE HOLDINGS.

 

[daweeze02]

has anyone else renewed but your cc still has not been charged. I renewed 3 weeks ago and still have no charges, I called them and they said everything looks good on their end, but I got a notice when I logged into my account saying I have not renewed.

 

[georgepa]

daweeze-

What is your actual renewal date? I just renewed a few days ago, but my CC has not been charged and in the web portal it still shows "Your SunRocket Annual Edition is up for renewal..." I called them and everything looks good. The way I understand it is that they won't actually charge your credit card until the day the renewal has to go in. I guess that is better, no need to be charged until it actually is "due." Why charge your card if you still have 3 weeks left-over on your account? I won't worry about it until the actual upcoming renewal date, on which I expect my credit card to be charged.

 

[daweeze02]

My renewal date was the 9th, so maybe it will be going through any day now.