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Travis has just finished up part one of his multi-part VOIP showcase. The first article focuses on the VoicePulse VOIP telephone service. Reviews of Vonage, Packet8, Callvantage, and others are soon to come.

Read the article here!

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If anyone has any questions feel free to drop me an email or start a discussion here.

Hey,

I had a comment about your VOIP review. You said towards the end that 911 is a major factor in VOIP being unpopular.

Well a couple of months ago when i was checking out VOIP services, one service (not sure if all of them or just a few or if it was only this one that does this) had a question at setup as to where your actual zip code was. It made it clear that regardless of where you wanted your area code you needed to put down your actual zip code. The reasoning was that it used some type of software so that if you dialed 911 it would go through to the correct location and show your address.

It was something similar to how cell phones work when they dial 911, but different. It also made it clear that if you used your VOIP service anywhere else but your residence, you would experience no problems, only that if you dialed 911 it would route your call to the location where your zip code was.

Just thought I'd let you know that VOIP is trying to compensate for the fact that you won't have 911 service. Sorry i don't know more about how it actually works, it was a long time ago.

Correct, a few VoIP providers offer semi-solution to 911.

http://www.vonage.com/features_911.php
http://www.usa.att.com/callvantage/faqs/about_911.jsp

Definately not a good solution for people that travel with their VoIP box. But a decent solution for the household. If your VoIP provider does not offer 911 service you have two other options:

1. Some landline telephone lines will still provider "911 only" service when the line is disconnected.
2. A cell phone. Any cell phone will work(even deactivated ones), as long as the phone is getting a signal.

Travis has done an excellent job of describing the technicalities of joining Voicepulse. However, he has obviously never had to deal with their "customer support."

First, CS is ONLY by e-mail. It is not possible to speak with a technician unless they call you which they never will. Sometimes they simply ignore support requests or questions. Other times they start out like gangbusters and then disappear. I have an issue that began over a week ago. They really seemed to be trying to fix it for a day. Now I hear nothing and the problem persists.

Clearly this is a management decision. I guess they think they'll save enough money by ignoring customer service to improve their profits.

There are some features which they continue to promote on their website that have not worked for the several months that I have had them.

All in all, there are too many headaches dealing with Voicepulse. Why do I stay with them? Well, I'm locked into a phone number for my business and there is no LNP.

Until they improve their customer support --- including establishing voice support from the getgo, I'd stay away.

I had several questions prior to signing up for the service all of which were quickly answered by customer service (via e-mail).
The adapter arrived the day after I signed up.
It worked worked out of the box - in front of my firewall, behind my firewall, with NAT, and without NAT.
The documentation, although slim, covered all the required information and some that I did not expect to see ( Linux iptables information for example ).
I substituted the VoicePulse service as the default outgoing line and no one has noticed the difference. One call did have an echo, but it is not clear what caused it; there was no echo on a followup call.
I have not used 911 on my land line and do not see it as a major issue. I just made the local Public Safety number one of the speed dial numbers (same as I did on the cell phones).
I pluged the adapter into the same UPS that protects the DSL router.
Overall, I am very impressed with the service and would not hesitate to recomend it.

I'm a newbie in VoIP, and I've just signed up with Lingo in Texas.

I signed up a week ago, and it seems I'll get my equipment only next week, so I would say the equipment passage through time is pretty slow.

The Pros I found so far:

They have the best deal, and they have a one-month money back guarantee, and no contract, so I think it's worth a try. If one mentions David Paul in Houston when signing up up, you will get a $25 discount (and so will I... )

Their customer service is good; I sent an e-mail and never got a reply, but they answer their toll-free number quite quickly, and their staff are pretty knowledgable and friendly. I found that one customer service calls was routed via VOIP to Canada, but I didn't notice a difference (I realized it only by the representative's accent and asked him where he was speaking from!)

I have already set up the Voice Mail (my new assigned telephone number is working already and good and adequate for most purposes) I like the fact that you can upload two .wav files, one for "busy" and one for "no answer," an unusual touch, since it appears most providers allow only one message for both.

Calls to USA, Canada, UK and other W-Europe countries are free with the $20 plan -- that's a great deal - and you can get a virtual number in any of those countries. You can add a second number for a low cost (just 5 bucks for a USA number), and the assigned number can be in any of those places.

Cons:

No toll-free number.

No three-way calling, but you do get call waiting.

Internet access to their site to set up your options online is very slow during the day; busy, I guess.

One glaring omission is being able to set up "do not disturb" to work during certain times, eg: from midnight to 6am every day. However, you do have the option of forwarding the call at preset times (before you ask, no, you can't forward to voice mail :P )

I planned to use Lingo for my home business, and I wanted two mailboxes (one for product inquiries and one for business associates) but there's no option for creating two mailboxes. The voice mail is adequate, but I wish for more options. Luckily my phone handset has voice mail with two mailboxes, but what if my cable goes down?

If you would like further comments, especially when the equipment arrives, please let me know!

Dave

PS: I spoke yesterday to a person on Montreal who had a Verizon VoIP connnection, and the call quality was great. He tried Vonage, but the calls didn't work well with his cable connection for some reason. I believe that's an unusual case. He said he has a stutter on his cable connection very rarely (avg. once a week for about 10 minutes.)

Hi, No1Dave Again....

The Pros I found so far:

They have the best deal....

Their customer service is good....

Re: voice mail, you can only upload low-quality voice mail, but it's adequate.

Calls to USA, Canada and land lines in UK and W-Europe are free.

Cons:

Quality of the calls vary on a call-by-call basis. I have cable internet, and I just changed my ISP from Earthlink to Road Runner, and there was no change in the quality. I did notice that if I get my software firewall to stop traffic to my computer entirely, the quality seemed to get a bit better but that could very well be an overactive imagination!

No three-way calling as yet.

No option to get "do not disturb" to work during preset times.

Overall, although this a good second phone, don't remove your primary phone.

If anyone wants to call me to try out the connection, please call (832) 495-4082. I work at home, so I'm mostly at home (unless I have a business presentation or out on an errend). If I'm not, mention "Lingo", leave your number and request a call back.

Regards,
Dave

Okay---seems either the other posts tried Voicepulse early on or are in limited usage areas.
I have been on Violcepulse now for over 6 months---the good, bad, and ugly of it is:
yes equipment arrived within two days and was up and running within 5 minutes.
However. there are very frequent periods of outage or inability to use it!
Either callers get nothing but some tones or the line signals busy sometimes for hours even when I am not there and could not possibly be on it! Despite the fact that it "should" have call waiting anyways and does not. I take that back once in the six months it did actually work!
There are frequent periods when it is dead (nothing) for me to dial out on not even a dial tone or I get the dreaded busy signal when I know the callee is not on the phone or they have call waiting and I should not be getting a busy signal either way!

Tech support does respond within a couple of days to your emails and the number they give also provides the same support, you give them your equipment life history and hardware and they give you a list of things to "try" none of which has anything to do with the problems callers to you
should be experiencing but you try them to no avail none the less and then it falls by the wayside...apparently forgotten and certianly not FOLLOWED UP ON BY VOICEPULSE SUPPORT after that!

As far a quality goes the best I can hope for is equalivient to a bad cell phone conversation. As a matter of fact I have resorted to basically using the call forwarding to my landline so I can carry on conversations with my callers. I call them, repeatedly yell for them to call me back and answer it on the landline...only good thing I get from it is my callers don't pay longdistance!
My advice; get it only as a secondary to your landline to cut down on long distance calls, get the area code for where ever you call or your calls come from or to and have it forwarded to your landline or theres'!
NOTE! Even this does not work for overcoming the busy signal and nothing noises your callers frequently get when calling you!!!

I just changed to Broadvoice.....a lot better so far as phone is concerned, but be careful of overcharges!

I signed up with them, and changed my number (which is supposed to be free). I just found that they're charging me $11 for a second number activation and monthly cost, but I have only one.

According to the bill, I have only one number and there is a credit of $11 due to me, but the final account does not reflect that.

It's VERY difficult to call them - the line is always busy.

My advice is, use a "virtual credit card" if you sign up with them (or any VoIP company) to avoid surprise overcharges.

Dave