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

[laketrout]

Originally posted by: georgepa
Last time I checked with customer service SR was at 28,000. However, that was about 2 months ago. I would imagine they are very close to 40,000 by now. If you do the math, SR went nationwide at the very end of Dec. I got my "almost 30,000" number in the middle of June, less than 6 months into it. If you figure that they added a little over 5,000 customers per month during their first 6 months of existence, then they must be closing in on 40,000 by now, especially considering that they added many area codes and exchanges.

As far as I knew SR is not releasing their subscriber numbers. So these should of course be taken with a grain of salt. Regardless, I would say that SunRocket is definitely still expanding due mainly to its support and its no hassle billing/uniden phone deal. IN the end this thread really justs hows that sunrocket may have a problem here or there but that they are very reliable and that they don't appear to screw people over when things occasionally go wrong.

GOLD status - BRAVO SR! Since Early June service has been perfect for me. Glad to see them getting noticed for righting their ship.

Ridefree - thanx. right back at you

 

[Robor]

I've had Sunrocket since the beginning of Feb but just (finally) had my Verizon number ported over. I know - I'm such a slacker. Well, my home number is now ringing on my VOIP phone but the Caller ID isn't working. All calls come in as "Outside Call" but they are people I know who normally display on Caller ID. Any ideas?

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: Robor
I've had Sunrocket since the beginning of Feb but just (finally) had my Verizon number ported over. I know - I'm such a slacker. Well, my home number is now ringing on my VOIP phone but the Caller ID isn't working. All calls come in as "Outside Call" but they are people I know who normally display on Caller ID. Any ideas?

Hrm. Well I'm no expert, but I'm sure one of the many around here can help you out. If not, I'd definetly recommend calling Customer Support. Very very helpful.

In fact, wanted to share a positive experience I had with them last night. My fiancee was trying to call Argentina, and as anyone who's dialed international knows, some countries have more 0s and 1s and random numbers than others that you have to dial. The number she was trying to call was 15 digits long. She dialed it, got nothing, and after a pause the phone would beep at her and hang up. She tried a few times, and informed me that it wasn't working. She tested it by calling my cell phone, and it rang fine, so we assumed there was some snafu with international calling.

I call up CS--first of all, let me say how nice it is to be able to do that on a Sunday evening. I'm so tired of companies with CS hours of 9-6 M-F. After two rings a CS rep picks up. No stupid menu to dial through, no wait times, no BS, straight to a CS rep.

She asks how she can help me, and I explain that my international call isn't going through. She asks me the number and I relay it to her, and she checks the log and tells me that I dialed a similar one, could I repeat it. I repeat, and we determine that we left out a 1, because the number I read to her was dialed last a week ago (when my fiancee last called it), and was 1 number off of the one not connecting. I thanked her and had a laugh at myself and my fiancee, and she commented something like "I totally understand, that's a boatload of numbers to dial!". No attitude like you might expect, no "did you really just waste my time with that?" reaction that other companies might give you.

All in all the call took about 1 minute and was absolutely painless. I think this is the best feature yet of SunRocket.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[ttown]

Originally posted by: Robor
I've had Sunrocket since the beginning of Feb but just (finally) had my Verizon number ported over. I know - I'm such a slacker. Well, my home number is now ringing on my VOIP phone but the Caller ID isn't working. All calls come in as "Outside Call" but they are people I know who normally display on Caller ID. Any ideas?

It's been a while... but I think that sounds similar to my experience -- but not 100% sure because I ported in the middle of a lot of caller-id work SR was doing.
Not really sure, but I think mine was fixed when I asked that my ported number become my "primary" number. Did inbound calls to your VOIP number show caller-id info before porting your Verizon number?
It really sounds like a tech-support call/email/IM is required, regardless... but that info may be usefull to a SR Tech.
edit: man I typed that slow... astrosfan beat my "call support" response by over 10 minutes!

 

[SirPsycho]

I have a fairly old cable modem, a Best Data CMX110, and I have been having all manner of static and echo problems with Sunrocket the whole time I've had it. I've had the firmware on the gizmo updated (up to 4.52, I think), but nothing has seemed to help. I've tried it both in front of and behind the router, a Linksys WRT54GS with the most recent QoS-enabled firmware from Linksys (not Sveasoft firmware), and it didn't seem to make any difference.

What are the chances that my old cable modem is making any difference in the connection quality and reliability? I see lots of messages from people who have said how great Sunrocket has been for them, how clear the calls are, and I wish I could say the same. This is basically my last-ditch effort before switching back to regular phone service, as I have to have a reliable phone connection available to me as I am a telecommuter, and I also have my first-born child on the way any day now. I have a cell phone if I need to call 911 or something, but it's just getting a bit old now after six months of trying.

Also, I'm a Cox Communications subscriber in the Phoenix area, in case that helps.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[ttown]

SirPsycho --
try doing a "ping sunrocket.com" from a command prompt. What are your ping times?
I get consistent high-80's/low-90's. If your ping times are MUCH higher, or erratic, that may be usefull info. Also try a "tracert sunrocket.com". I get to SR in 7 hops. Not sure what it would take to degrade quality -- but you may as well find out the count.
Go HERE and run the speed test down near the bottom of the page. I get ~1500kbps down, ~200kbps up. I think the minimum is around 100kbps up. If you have much less, your ISP may be the problem.

That you have the same problem with the gizmo before or after your router indicates 1 of 3 things:
1) your modem might be going bad
2) your gizmo might be going bad
3) your ISP is lame

You might also want to check your connections between your cable outlet and modem; and modem and gizmo. Maybe try a different network cable running off your modem. Maybe clean the coax (both ends) with a little alcohol. (or replace it, if you have a spare)
As a last resort, maybe ask for a replacement gizmo.

edit: maybe upgrade the firmware on your modem, if possible. Or, if you have a neighbor/friend/work with fast internet, try the gizmo there and see if the results are the same.
edit2: is the static only on the wireless phones? Try using a wired phone -- in case it's just radio interference.

good luck

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: ttown

Originally posted by: Robor
I've had Sunrocket since the beginning of Feb but just (finally) had my Verizon number ported over. I know - I'm such a slacker. Well, my home number is now ringing on my VOIP phone but the Caller ID isn't working. All calls come in as "Outside Call" but they are people I know who normally display on Caller ID. Any ideas?

It's been a while... but I think that sounds similar to my experience -- but not 100% sure because I ported in the middle of a lot of caller-id work SR was doing.
Not really sure, but I think mine was fixed when I asked that my ported number become my "primary" number. Did inbound calls to your VOIP number show caller-id info before porting your Verizon number?
It really sounds like a tech-support call/email/IM is required, regardless... but that info may be usefull to a SR Tech.
edit: man I typed that slow... astrosfan beat my "call support" response by over 10 minutes!

I'm 99% sure my incoming calls were correctly CallerID'd before I had my number ported. I'll give their CS a call when I get a chance. I'm such a "put it off to tomorrow" person. Thanks!

 

[hbcsc153]

Hello!

I am looking for some thoughts.

I was messing around with VOIP and signed up with Earthlink's Unlimited Voice (really remarketed Vonage) and thereafter got the offer for Sunrocket. During the testing I just forwarded my Verizon number to the VOIP number as I didn't want to change the phone number. There was not much of a difference in service, so I signed up for the $199 annual package since March.

As I am still not (and am not) able to transfer Verizon number I have lowered it to basic (Still cost $32) with forwarding to VOIP number. It has been decent all along. But recently I am seeing some "Issues". With forwarding turned on, the Verizon phone rings once, and then forwards. I am hearing a number of times that it does ring once, but nothing shows up on the VOIP side. I check the Sunrocket log and don't see any missied calls, etc.

Also, recently (in the last week or so) reliability of the service is questionable. I see the "Gizmo" having some of the lights off frequently. It is not the cable connection as I am on the net at the time. My setup is modem->gizmo->Linksys WRT54GS. I have a UPS powering all items. I have upload of about 4700 and 360 down.

Any thoughts?

Regards,

Emil

 

[ttown]

hbcsc153 -
It sounds to me like your verizon service isn't forwarding immediately. I don't have any experience with anything Verizon -- but I'll guess that somewhere there's more configuring to do in order for forwarding to be immediate. It sounds like the configuration is something like "ring once, then forward". Does your verizon come with voice-mail? (and do you have a bunch of messages??)

Regarding the SR service over the last week+, I have been closely monitoring my gizmo for any signs of downtime, or lost connection to sunrocket.com, (via a specialized monitoring app) for at least 2 weeks prior to last Friday evening (when I turned it off) and have seen no downtime. I don't pay attention to the lights on the gizmo, but I'll take a guess that they probably go out every time the gizmo re-reads it's configuration from sunrocket -- and may stay unlit for many minutes, even though the gizmo is fine. I haven't noticed how often the "resets/re-reads" occur -- but I DO know they happen.
Try to make a call the next time your lights go out. If you can't, then there's DEFINATELY a problem.

 

[hbcsc153]

Hi ttown!

Thanks for the response. From what I remember reading about Verizon forwarding that it is "feature" for it to ring once (just to remind you that call forwarding is turned on). Only service is call forwarding on that line, and no voicemail. It has worked for months, but seems to be a bit more flaky recently. When I do hear the ring and nothing comes through, I do check to see whether I get a dial tone on the Sunrocket line, and I do get the dial tone.

When the light does go out, there is no way to make a call.

Emil

Originally posted by: ttown
hbcsc153 -
It sounds to me like your verizon service isn't forwarding immediately. I don't have any experience with anything Verizon -- but I'll guess that somewhere there's more configuring to do in order for forwarding to be immediate. It sounds like the configuration is something like "ring once, then forward". Does your verizon come with voice-mail? (and do you have a bunch of messages??)

Regarding the SR service over the last week+, I have been closely monitoring my gizmo for any signs of downtime, or lost connection to sunrocket.com, (via a specialized monitoring app) for at least 2 weeks prior to last Friday evening (when I turned it off) and have seen no downtime. I don't pay attention to the lights on the gizmo, but I'll take a guess that they probably go out every time the gizmo re-reads it's configuration from sunrocket -- and may stay unlit for many minutes, even though the gizmo is fine. I haven't noticed how often the "resets/re-reads" occur -- but I DO know they happen.
Try to make a call the next time your lights go out. If you can't, then there's DEFINATELY a problem.

 

[ttown]

hbcsc153 - Did your gizmo lights go out within a week or so prior to last Friday? If so, was it just once for a minute? or often, for many minutes? I know for sure SR has done some tinkering with the gizmo configuration stuff -- so maybe your gizmo is in trouble. Try unplugging your gizmo power, then plug it back in and dial ##3332858 with a phone attached to the gizmo. (That's code for "reset")
Since my service has been up 100% for that time period, combined with no other similar complaints here or at BBR, it leads me to suspect your specific connection or gizmo. The next time you notice your lights out, jump to the command line from a pc and try pinging sunrocket.com -- just to see if there's network trouble. I'd be concerned about missing calls, too.
If you have trouble over this coming week or so, give me a PM w/when it happened (w/timezone) and I'll check if my monitoring shows anything unusual.
Feel free to PM me for chatting about this further.... to avoid cluttering up the thread with diagnostic chat.
edit: Oh, and when you check for dial-tone -- don't just check for a tone -- actually dial a number to see if goes through. (like a theaters 'now playing' number) Back when SR had outage trouble a month or so ago, I'd get a dial-tone but outgoing calls would seldom work.

 

[Robor]

I'm totally down right now. When I called support earlier there was a messge about an outage. Considering this is my first day with my home # ported over I can't say I'm very happy about an outage. Uptime is not very impressive at this moment.

 

[GTFan]

Must be local, working fine for me in the ATL.

 

[Robor]

When I called national support earlier there was a message about the outage. Apparently the outage is over because I rebooted the Gizmo and my incoming calls work but still no CallerID.

 

[imported_Sinster]

I have a question and I apologize if it has been posted already. I've locating the answer but going through 66 pages is long and drawn out. Well my question is and it might be a DFQ to boot... I don't need to config the "Gizmo" to my network? Like assign a IP address, dns, or a gateway etc?

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Sinster
I have a question and I apologize if it has been posted already. I've locating the answer but going through 66 pages is long and drawn out. Well my question is and it might be a DFQ to boot... I don't need to config the "Gizmo" to my network? Like assign a IP address, dns, or a gateway etc?

Nope - the Gizmo should get everything it needs through DHCP.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: Robor
When I called national support earlier there was a message about the outage. Apparently the outage is over because I rebooted the Gizmo and my incoming calls work but still no CallerID.

What time did you notice that? I got home around 7 pm, the same time as your first post, and used mine immediately with no issues.

 

[georgepa]

For most people SR worked without a problem. I read that some people had problems where their calls went immediately to voicemail instead of ringing their home phones. I tried as soon as I saw that and my wife picked up. She had received calls before and after as well, so the issue never affected us. It was not an outage, since, as we all know, outages are always accompanied with the dreaded failover problem where users don't receive even voicemails for about 30 minutes. They may have been testing portions of the new firmware they are about to implement, possibly related to the often-requested improved failover ability. Somebody at BBR reported to have received a beta firmware (newer than the one we currently have) that is currently being tested by Sunrocket to fix a special issue he was having.

I would imagine that new firmware to have support for phone port 2 built-in as well as improved failover capabilities.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: georgepa
They may have been testing portions of the new firmware they are about to implement, possibly related to the often-requested improved failover ability. Somebody at BBR reported to have received a beta firmware (newer than the one we currently have) that is currently being tested by Sunrocket to fix a special issue he was having.

I would imagine that new firmware to have support for phone port 2 built-in as well as improved failover capabilities.

I talked to Customer Service last night and asked about the failover--was told that they're currently working on it and it's scheduled to be released sometime this fall. Did you hear anything else?

 

[georgepa]

Well, technically fall starts in less than a month.

Someone on BBR stated that Sunrocket has loaded a new firmware on his gizmo to fix a call release issue. According to that poster it is a beta of a firmware that is currently in a testing phase. There are two issues that SR is working on fixing or adding. #1 is the opening of BOTH voice ports so outgoing calls can be made from both ports of the gizmo, basically the addition of a completely separate phone line. Secondly the failover issue. Can improved failover be programmed into gizmo's firmware? I believe so. Thus, the firmware upgrade that this beta preceeds may address both of these issues.

I have been PMing the user who has received the new firmware to get some more info about how his firmware differs from everybody elses current firmware release. I'll let you know if I hear back from him.

 

[M00T]

Originally posted by: georgepa
Well, technically fall starts in less than a month.

Someone on BBR stated that Sunrocket has loaded a new firmware on his gizmo to fix a call release issue. According to that poster it is a beta of a firmware that is currently in a testing phase. There are two issues that SR is working on fixing or adding. #1 is the opening of BOTH voice ports so outgoing calls can be made from both ports of the gizmo, basically the addition of a completely separate phone line. Secondly the failover issue. Can improved failover be programmed into gizmo's firmware? I believe so. Thus, the firmware upgrade that this beta preceeds may address both of these issues.

I have been PMing the user who has received the new firmware to get some more info about how his firmware differs from everybody elses current firmware release. I'll let you know if I hear back from him.

Failover would be designed to forward calls to voicemail if your gizmo lost internet connection. There's nothing you can do at the gizmo level to improve failover. Nothing.

If your internet connection drops, the session border controller waits 30 minutes before timing out and notifying the sip servers that your endpoint no longer exists. This is how it is, and a firmware update will do nothing to change it. Sorry.

 

[georgepa]

It would not be solely on the gizmo level. If SR has been working on implementing a solution to the failover issue they may be adding simulring as the most desireable solution to take care of the problem. It would also add a feature folks have been asking for aside from failover. A feature upgrade alongst those lines would have to be programmed into the gizmo's cfg file and supported in the gizmo's firmware, IMO. It is of course easier said than implemented, but for practical purposes calls are sent to two (or more) end points simultaneously. If one end point is out of order the other one still receives the call, thus you have failover in case one of the two (or more) end points is taken away. Since the controllers don't notice that an end point has ceased to exist for 30 minutes the challenge is to program a system that sends the calls to enough end points to cover for any contingency, and, if simulring is not programmed at the user end to actually jump to another number in the list (or to the Voicemail number) if a predetermined number of rings did not result in a connect, either to the gizmo port or the forwarded voicemail.

I guess we'll see what kind of solution they come up with.

I am curious, though, to know what you believe Sunrocket will have to do to solve the problem. Are you saying they will have to replace the controllers to get this done? I am wondering how much hardware they have to replace, or whether this can be achieved via software fixes.

 

[georgepa]

Sunrocket - It just works.


<had a double post. Since they can't be deleted I was trying to fill the blank space with something intelligent...... >

 

[imported_Sinster]

How is the bandwidth affected?
A friend of mine has CHarter VOIP phone and it uses a seperate cable line and he stated to me that it uses a seperate signal.

 

[ttown]

Originally posted by: Sinster
How is the bandwidth affected?
A friend of mine has CHarter VOIP phone and it uses a seperate cable line and he stated to me that it uses a seperate signal.

Many people claim their bandwidth is noticably affected with the Gizmo plugged into their modem -- and some have been able to tweak things to minimize the affect.
I personally plug the gizmo into my router and I don't notice ANY decrease in performance -- although technically, there must be (I think ~100kbps up/down DURING a call). I suspect gamers or other bandwidth intensive users (like file-sharers) would be most likely to notice.
Not sure what "seperate signal" means that your friend was talking about. I sure hope he wasn't conned into getting a seperate cable line. (And instead is talking about a seperate network cable running from his router.)