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

[10Gauge]

I am still waiting for a response to my questions:

1) Why no email to many of us that THEY were having problems and its not on our end ?
2) Why no notice on the first page of their website ?
3) Why do they not have a "state of the network" webpage ?
4) Why they offer no discussion forum for users of their service ?
5) Why they have not openly discussed the many short periodic outages that happen all the time
6) Why they haven't fixed this in spite of the fact that the CEO said
he would in the LAST notice to users in July! (Notice attached below)

Why, if they were going to 'swap out' a key piece of equipment, did we not receive
any notice of it ? Heck, I tell everyone in my little business when I go to swap out a key
piece of hardware on the server. Doesn't everyone know to do this ?
Isn't this simply 'common sense' or at least common courtesy ?
It certainly should have been on the SunRocket 'State of the Network' page a week earlier
Oops, never mind, that doesn't exist!

 

[laketrout]

Originally posted by: 10Gauge
I am still waiting for a response to my questions:

1) Why no email to many of us that THEY were having problems and its not on our end ?
2) Why no notice on the first page of their website ?
3) Why do they not have a "state of the network" webpage ?
4) Why they offer no discussion forum for users of their service ?
5) Why they have not openly discussed the many short periodic outages that happen all the time
6) Why they haven't fixed this in spite of the fact that the CEO said
he would in the LAST notice to users in July! (Notice attached below)

Why, if they were going to 'swap out' a key piece of equipment, did we not receive
any notice of it ? Heck, I tell everyone in my little business when I go to swap out a key
piece of hardware on the server. Doesn't everyone know to do this ?
Isn't this simply 'common sense' or at least common courtesy ?
It certainly should have been on the SunRocket 'State of the Network' page a week earlier
Oops, never mind, that doesn't exist!

I believe sunrocket has better communication than other voips. I believe they do have a notice when you log into your account about the status of service in your area, if it is not working properly. As stated already, look through this thread, there are multiple e-mails discussing the issues they have had and they have compensated us in some way before. I don't think any voip company can guarantee 100% service from this day forth. Even Vonage with its huge subscriber base and millions of advertising dollars still experiences outages like the one it had a month ago. But I agree that this should continue not dwindle. They have had a serious outage and for those that are very dependant on their service they do need to address you/us and compensate you/us for the problem.

Ridefree - yeah, the one in the middle of nowhere. I love nowehere. So much better than the city at times... I would also love to go to a game at Mile High Stadium, its on my list of to-dos. You been there?

 

[jjm]

I would agree that new technology is bound to have its growing pains. But phone service had been mature enough that its reliabaility was taken for granted. If these startup firms are trying to sell a service to replace the old reliable local phone company, I think more complete disclosure is warranted. It is not a full replacement; it's an experiment. And the users are the test animals.

If it is sold on that basis, and people still choose to buy it, I have no problem with that.

In fact, even without such disclosure from SR, I bought it as a "toy." I had no intention of eliminating my land line because I expected SR to be unreliable. Too many others may have been enticed (by the price) to do away with the far more reliable land line because SR and others market their service as a replacement for the local phone company. They invite a comparison to the local service and even trumpet the additional features of their service. Since they invite comparison, they deserve scorn when they fall short.

 

[dundevil]

________________
Currently SunRocket is evaluating the situation that you experienced and will
release more information on how you will be compensated on Monday.

Thank You,

Melissa
SunRocket Member Services
1-800-786-0132


I received this on the 10th. Guess what, no explanation on how WE are going to be compensated for down service and Monday has come and gone. Great way to keep customers believing in you. Promise something and then no follow through.[/quote]

____________________

Get a life. You paid $199 for 1 year and got two phones worth $59

Compensation, lets see... 16.99per month / 720 hours per month =.0236 (2 cents +) per hour.

One days outage = 57 cents. I'm calling the Mercedes dealer!!

I have Comcast Internet at $43 per month. It was out for two days and they basicaly told me to F*** off and not bother them.

How many pieces of PC garbage have you bought that didn't work as well as you expected?

Give SR some space. They are coming along pretty good. Not perfect. But they have driven VOIP prices down.

Dundevil

 

[RideFree]

Hi Five!

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: dundevil
Get a life. You paid $199 for 1 year and got two phones worth $59

Compensation, lets see... 16.99per month / 720 hours per month =.0236 (2 cents +) per hour.

One days outage = 57 cents. I'm calling the Mercedes dealer!!

I have Comcast Internet at $43 per month. It was out for two days and they basicaly told me to F*** off and not bother them.

How many pieces of PC garbage have you bought that didn't work as well as you expected?

Give SR some space. They are coming along pretty good. Not perfect. But they have driven VOIP prices down.

Dundevil

WTF? Do you work for SunRocket or something? Since when is it okay to provide a service and not deliver just because you're cheaper than the competition? And for what it's worth, it's not one outage, it's several over the past few weeks. On top of that I've still got incoming/outgoing CallerID that doesn't work properly. Two calls to SunRocket support resulted in, "we don't know what's wrong but we'll look into it ad get back to you". I'm still waiting. All this talk about updates and customer service - well it isn't happening here. The only good thing I've seen about SunRocket is the price and as usual you get what you pay for.

 

[SLEEPER5555]

well then cancel

dundevil, well said!

 

[georgepa]

I talked with a senior SR engineer today, and he basically told me point-blank (off the record, non-SR sanctioned) some things that I found interesting. Here the synopsis:

1. The session border controllers, or better, the software that was provided, from Netrake could not keep up with the influx of customers. The meltdown on late afternoon Thursday/Friday occured due to that. From what he said the inferior software could not handle the load, causing the ATA's to be "bombarded with service attacks" from the controllers. The provider had no solution to the problem available. SR felt that they paid top-dollar for inferior product. Not so much the controllers themselves but the software that came with it. Last week Sunrocket severed the relationship with Netrake and installed new session border controllers across the board. The engineer would not name the new partner, I am sure it will be published via a press release shortly. Currently SR is using beta software with these new session border controllers, but it appears to be stable. More customized software is in the works.

Here is the press release from when SR and Netrake entered their relationship:

Number 1 in session control, Netrake signs SunRocket



2. According to this senior engineer SR secured a very large venture capital deal, the largest influx of money into the company yet. Supposedly there will be a press release about this on Friday or Monday. They are installing additional redundancy systems as we speak.


3. Many changes to come about shortly. SR will be offering many more area codes and more products. There will be a low-cost offering under $10 per month (everything the same, but instead of unlimited with 500 outgoing minutes.) Also, a small-business solution will be beta-tested around the end of the year. Softphone support before the end of the year. Official release of phone port 2 (incoming and outgoing will be 2 lines instead of the current 1) at no extra charge. They are dumping their Level 1 support (currently outsourced to CALLTECH) and restructure tech support. There will be direct, immediate Level 2 and Level 3 tech support help (rather than tickets) for those with immediate needs. Level 1 is said to go offshore (Phillipines.)

4. Failover and 7-digit dialing are the 2 issues that are at the very top of the priority list. I suggested Simulring as the best solution, he agreed. I don't know if that's what they are working on. He was not going into detail specifically what type of failover they'll have. We discussed 7-digit dialing. He mentioned that it is going to be selectable in the Sunrocket software to make it easier for customers (rather than dialplan changes inside the gizmo.)

5. The engineers were not at all happy with the e-mail from CEO Kevin Bennis. He told me that if it would have gone through them it would never have been sent, as it did not quite make clear that the issue has less to do with redundancy but more with the controllers creating a system-wide meltdown. I am not sure how their system is as far as redundancy, but from the explanation I was given it is clear that even if they had everything in triplicate it would not have mattered, it was a software breakdown at the controller level.

6. The engineer mentioned that within the next 3 to 6 months many new features for the different VOIP offerings (low-priced limited minute plan, unlimited plan, small-business plan) will be added/unveiled. He didn't get too deep into them, he just mentioned that for instance they'll have a feature that makes SR truly portable with E-911 instantly setting up automatically for the "new" location. Sounded like some sort of GPS tracking deal, just not via satellite but the internet.

7. Suprisingly to me, according to this guy Sunrocket is actually a BYOD service. He said that they just don't advertise it as such because of the extra tech support needs. Sipura can be configured with Sunrocket, he mentioned that he himself has set up 2 Sipura's with SR. Most BYOD devices will work, from what he saw on the compatibility list there are 2 devices that don't work with it. He said for anyone with a BYOD device to call Sunrocket and request help with a BYOD device (i.e. Sipura.) They would then have a Level 3 tech give a call back who will walk the customer through the setup. I don't have a Sipura, but anyone here who owns one may give it a try and report back to us to let us know if setup is indeed that easy.

 

[RideFree]

It would seem to me that others (i.e. Cisco) would work as a BYOD. If so, it may be possible to port nearly anything over to S/R like, Vonnage, Packet8, VoiceWing, etc.
They ain't gonna sit still for this.

On a second note, Cisco's acquisition of Sipura sounds as good to me as FleaBay's acquisition of Skype.

 

[jjm]

Dundevil, I don't mean to pick on you, but your posts (lthe last one, in particular) seem to indicate that you tolerate a lot of bad service from different firms. As a consumer paying hard-earned dollars, I tend not to be so forgiving. In fact, I think if we consumers don't press these issues, and vote with our feet when necessary, there is little incentive for firms to improve. Just my thoughts as they relate to SR.

 

[RideFree]

Don't let the mild-mannered avatar fool you. He's a NBK and is the reason Rodney Dangerfield still gets no respect.

 

[bostonkarl]

SR had a major outage last week into early this week. Make that outages. It sucked. The overall SR customer satisfaction rating took a beating over at www.dslreports.com as folks updated their reviews according.

On cue, the SR astroturfers have pounded the various message boards in full force spinning thinly veiled marketing spew; my advice is to be very, very careful what you read and believe.

My opinions is that SR has its good and bad points. It has features I like. It doesn't have certain features (*reliable* fail over or call forwarding/soft phone) that I would like. Perhaps they'll arrive soon. Perhaps they'll be delayed. I'm of the "i'll believe it when I see it" school of thought.

SR can be tried out without a connect fee -- you get an adapter and phones for free! It's GREAT that one doesn't need to put money out upfront to try a service. In that manner, SR is putting their money where their mouth is. The price per month is lower than most unlimitted services, but let's get real. It is less by about the cost of a Manhattan or two, at least here in DC. If SR's reliability issues aren't worked out, the small difference in cost (at least to me) is penny wise pound foolish.

 

[10Gauge]

Zactly!

I am not so disturbed by their occasional hardware failures, but
For a COMMUNICATIONS company,
their customer communications could be, SHOULD BE!, WAY better!

I think their CEO is a bit out there in the ether somewhere.
Like SOOoooo many companies (think Comcast), they spend
a fortune ATTRACTING customers,
but next to nothing in trying to KEEP them.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: 10Gauge
I am not so disturbed by their occasional hardware failures, but
For a COMMUNICATIONS company,
their customer communications could be, SHOULD BE!, WAY better!

this is exactly why i had to cancel. that and I needed something more reliable it seemed.. nothing matches land line reliability for me yet. I finally got my refund.. or so they say. It's only been what, 4 months or so? Honestly, after 2 months, I took it as a gambled loss. Unfortunately, the card I use was stolen (had some google adwords charges of $7k...) and I closed it. I think that's the card they're going to try and credit. my wonderful luck strikes again.

 

[imported_troyconrad]

Just logged into the SunRocket site (researching using a SIP-baed softphone with SunRocket's service) and noticed that my account was given an additional 10 rewards points as of Sep 15 2005. So either someone I have mentioned Sunrocket to has finally signed up but not told me yet, or it's a credit for the recent string of service outages. I'm guessing we will be seeing an official email soon if its the latter.

 

[GTFan]

Originally posted by: georgepa
I7. Suprisingly to me, according to this guy Sunrocket is actually a BYOD service. He said that they just don't advertise it as such because of the extra tech support needs. Sipura can be configured with Sunrocket, he mentioned that he himself has set up 2 Sipura's with SR. Most BYOD devices will work, from what he saw on the compatibility list there are 2 devices that don't work with it. He said for anyone with a BYOD device to call Sunrocket and request help with a BYOD device (i.e. Sipura.) They would then have a Level 3 tech give a call back who will walk the customer through the setup. I don't have a Sipura, but anyone here who owns one may give it a try and report back to us to let us know if setup is indeed that easy.

If you (or anyone else) here finds out what the params are for BYOD with SR, please post them in the thread. I've got a cheapo Belkin ATA that I'd like to try with SR just as a comparison. Thanks.

 

[imported_troyconrad]

The Sunrocket SIP proxy may be 67.133.234.125.

Also, a customer service rep I talked to today (researcing SIP settings) confirmed that 7 digit dialing is coming soon. As a matter of fact, she claimed that the software upgrade that was supposed to enable this is partly what caused the recent service problems.

She also mentioned full second line support and the enhanced failover are coming in the next one to two months.

 

[georgepa]

On cue posters who have not participated in any kind of discussion over the last few months and have not helped out with any kind of technical support show up here throwing around insults at other posters, as if only their personal opinion counts. It would hold some water if the poster were an active participant in threads, but this way it is just lame.


troyconrad and all-

7-digit dialing now works. They must have activated it just this morning. Try it on your phone. It should work for all.

 

[laketrout]

Yay 7-digit dialing! Now my fingers will live a much happier life of relaxation...

 

[georgepa]

GTFan-

You may want to call SR tech support and tell them that you want to configure a BYOD device. As I mentioned in a post above, according to the SR engineer that should result in a callback with a walkthrough from SRs tech support. I don't have an extra device, so I can't try out if that was a correct statement by him.

I'll PM you with more.

 

[ajf3]

Hey all,

Anyone having problems with their Uniden phones? I have a couple of reoccuring issues...

1. Phones seem to 'lose' the base. The handset will look ok - ie. not say out of range or anything, but it won't acquire a signal or ring when trying to use it. Popping the battery in & back out usually work - sometimes I need to use the 'replace base' system option to get it back online.

2. One of the phones will only work in hands-free mode - ie, regular talk button yields no sound, but the hands-free button will pipe sound through the speaker.

Also, does anyone know where they are with faxing now? Didn't know if they got the other protocol working yet.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: troyconrad
Just logged into the SunRocket site (researching using a SIP-baed softphone with SunRocket's service) and noticed that my account was given an additional 10 rewards points as of Sep 15 2005. So either someone I have mentioned Sunrocket to has finally signed up but not told me yet, or it's a credit for the recent string of service outages. I'm guessing we will be seeing an official email soon if its the latter.

I also have 10 new rewards points in my account.

 

[georgepa]

ajf3-

Faxing works well. Requires a few minor modifications to the gizmo setup. Do you know how to get into your gizmo?

 

[RideFree]

Faxing works just fine for me. Never had a problem. Never "hacked" any Gizmo settings.
However, I did re-boot a couple of times recently
6-YO Panasonic/digital ans. mach.

 

[georgepa]

Ridefree-

Most of the older fax machines work fine without modification. I have an HP Laserjet 3150 All-in-one, connected it, and it has worked perfectly right off the bat, never given me an issue. However, some of the newer machines require certain gizmo modifications, specifically for T.38 support to be turned off, Silence suppression to be turned on and the jitter to be changed from dynamic to fixed. Once those three modifications are made I have yet to encounter a fax that does not work reliably with SR (tried 9 so far, not saying there is no chance that a fax unit may not work that I have not tried yet.)