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

[laketrout]

Thats a good point. Stripping down the POTS line is an option that I don't think people realize. I didn't know it was that cheap because I just went straight VOIP but that would be more of a case to at least consider it. Not a bad alternative. Still save a lot of money.

 

[upss]

Originally posted by: laketrout
Thats a good point. Stripping down the POTS line is an option that I don't think people realize. I didn't know it was that cheap because I just went straight VOIP but that would be more of a case to at least consider it. Not a bad alternative. Still save a lot of money.

A striped Qwest POTS line in Phoenix AZ is $13.18 plus $9.60 in taxes, total of 22.78 what a RIP-OFF!!!

 

[RideFree]

"A striped Qwest POTS line in Phoenix AZ is $13.18 plus $9.60 in taxes, total of 22.78"
Brought to you by Qworst 😀😀😀

 

[georgepa]

upss-

That is probably for a "regular" stripped line. You can get more savings by going with a "metered" stripped line. Cost should be $8.50 or somewhere there, plus probably another $7 in taxes. Put it together with a SR line and you pay just a little over $30 and get lots of features, 3 phone numbers, 2 separate lines, etc. I personally decided to go with just VOIP and rely on 2 cell phones for backup, but if someone is apprehensive trying VOIP they could get it (whether SR or some other service,) keep a cheap metered POTS line and still save money. The jump to VOIP is quite attractive, saves money and adds lines and features.

 

[upss]

georgepa,

You are right, my original quote was for a regular stripped line. I just called Qwest and switched to their "metered" line for $8.50 plus $0.20 for any local calls, taxes are still almost the same. If SR service continues as it has been for the past 2 months or so, with my cell phone as a backup, I may cancel the POTS completely.

 

[bulletpr00f]

Please see my comments below:

Originally posted by: ttown

Originally posted by: bulletpr00f
I have been using sunrocket for the last 4-5 months and unfortunately i can not say good things about it. Below are the shortcomings:

1. Connection drops out in the middle of your conversation (received the same comments from other people as well)
2. Connectivity gets really worse. People can not hear me especially when there is VPN connection (might be a shortcoming with my router since the gizmo is behing the router but i do not believe so)
3. Voice mail controls (over the phone) are very primitive and lots of things are just wrong
4. Company does not meet their commitments (e.g. back in Feb, they said second line will be available by the end of Q2 and here we are at the end of Q3)
5. Two line thing does not work at all due to
5.1. you can only have one number appear as the caller
5.2 certain services are only available to primary number

Conclusion
If you have a cell phone and buying the sunrocket voip for international or long distance calls only, it is still a good deal
if you are going to use the phone daily basis, just forget it. Let me give you an example, you are on the phone with let's say comcast support and you have been waiting for 30 mins. On the 30th minute Gizmo decides to drop your connection. I was not a happy customer. Above all this happens at least 3-4 times a week. I also have the the deal from comcast where my connectivity speed is 8mbps download and 768kbps upload.

I surely don't mean to restart a dialog about this... but I do want to bring it up for the people on the verge of jumping into this deal.
I think it's obvious, but let me just say that peoples experiences should start with "My experience has been..." -- and not something like (paraphrased) "Sunrocket sucks!"

Now, on to MY experience...
Issue 1: I have frequent calls lasting 1hr+ and have not had a connection drop.

• Just couple days ago, I was in a conference call with other people and literally my connection went kaput after the 5th minute of the conversation.
  
  Issue 2: "connectivity" has not been an issue for me -- except for the limited periods of downtime about a month ago, plus a couple hours a few weeks before that. "...gets worse" sounds like a router issue to me, but I may be wrong. I'd try moving the gizmo in front of the router before dissing on sunrocket.
  • So you did have some downtime. Come on front people, raise your voice!!! Moving the gizmo in between the cable and router is not an option for me as the gizmo serves a website on port 80 (a non-sense design mistake)
    
    Issue 3: "primative and lots of things wrong" ? Don't really know what advanced features I've missed out on all my life, but it works very well for me. Maybe a sophisticated business needs more options.
    • From another message I have posted: how about getting "your message is saved" no matter which key you press or horrible voice quality
      
      Issue 4: I've only heard rumors of the "second line" -- and have done enough research on the gizmo to guess that it will likely happen someday. It will be cool if/when it comes. If you're life/business depends on it, it might be best to wait till it's actually a stated spec. of the service.
      
      Issue 5: My 2 lines work fine and as promised. It may be confusing what the "signature line" is. It is NOT a true second line that can be used for a second outbound call while the first line is in use. It's just like having 2 different phone#'s that will ring your ONE phone (but better, because you can manage the second number seperately -- like forward it to another number and set up different mailboxes).
      • It looks like my message is giving the impression that I missed what is being offered or not. To be clear about that, anything offered within this package, I assure you I have used it many many times. As you were I was also a very exited customer mocking around all the stuff 6 months ago. As I understand your comment on the signature line, SR specifically said the phone 2 jack on my gizmo will be usable for a second line by Q2 meaning you WILL be able to make two calls at the same time or receive them simultaniously.
        
        
        I'll also note that my internet service specs. are roughly 1/3rd of what bullet's are -- and my experience has been excellent. Sound quality is excellent for me, and I have none of the issues the minority of others do.
        • I hope you are right, because i just burried another 50 in to this endless hole to get a WRT54G thinking the darn this just does not work with DL X24s.
          
          Bottom line is; if the idea of paying only $199/year for an experience like mine sounds good to you, you don't have anything to lose in trying it. I really have no problem at all recommending SR to anyone, with any experience level (even my parents!). If you are one of the unfortunate minority that can't get acceptable performance and are unwilling to ask for help (either here, BBR, or SR tech support), then box it up and send it back. SR offers a worry-free return policy, so you've got nothing to lose.
          
          hth

 

[bulletpr00f]

Originally posted by: georgepa
GTFan-

Honestly, Ride4free has a point. There is definitely a smell with this one. It is just that in my business I have seen people do the darndest things and click or erase where their mousepointer doesn'n belong, then impatiently blame the service or computer or software, so I give "benefit of the doubt" that user error or wrong perception are at work here, not anything sinister.

It would buttress bulletpr00f's point if he could point to a single discussion about these issues on any forum where posters hang around. In absence of that it becomes more of an exercise in and a battle of semantics. Nobody can truly disprove that some SR rep did NOT tell him that the free second-line option was coming by the end of June. Given my experience inquiring about the issue several times (and posting about it here and elsewhere) it is highly doubtful, but truly disproving I can't. Still, that post as well as some of the previous ones in which it got somewhat "heated" show that there may be less "true, honest" bad will against the service rather than posters "popping up" out of nowhere, bashing, then disappearing as quickly as they came, undermining their credibility and critique point to an extent. Not that there aren't any true issues with the service, but some of the stuff that has been written in the past was as far-fetched as the current "issue" we are dealing with.


My score chart from my point of view:

Name Caller ID - fixed

Call Logs - fixed (unfortunately for me)

Voicemail notification to cell - fixed

Uptime - we'll see, but I am cautiously optimistic that the capacity upgrade to triple did a world of good on that score, even though implementation led to the worst outage SR has had to date.

Fax issues - A thread on BBR shows how the gizmo setup can be tweaked for very good fax success

Failsafe/Failover option - still missing Supposedly in the works

2nd line port open up - in the works. I was told after the summer, possibly, but nobody knows if it comes with a small fee or free.


"It just works." 🙂

I apologize for not responding earlier due to my work schedule and my best trials to stop submitting any further responses. I do not wish discussion to be pulled to different directions from its roots as I sense it happening from georgepa's responses. So below are my comments again:
1. Dropping connections during conference calls and others. (Based on input from different people (especially thank you MOOT) seems like this might be my D-link router.) However, there are already four people and others including georgepa mentioned that the service was down during certain periods.
2. Almost everyone is confirming not lit "voice" light that requires gizmo reboot.
3. "OVER THE PHONE" voice mail controls are very premature and nothing like analog service providers or what your cell phone offers.
4. Apperantly I'm the only one who has been told "phone 2" jack on the gizmo would be active by Q2 of this year and now "according to georgepa" Sunrocket might be asking extra $$ for it.
5. Second "signature" line functionality is not very useful, beucase:
* caller id number both for second and first line are same (A business case, i make a phone call as a business call but my home number appears. I get a call back for my home phone, my kid answers the phone .. woppsies i lost business)
* certain services e.g. signature messenger service are only available to primary numbers

Again, thank you for the info and links MOOT, these might be issues with all VOIP providers. Bottom line is they are issues. I will also post my comments to website you sent.

 

[bulletpr00f]

Originally posted by: RideFree

Originally posted by: GTFan
What's obvious here is that this was a conversation between A and B, and you need to C your way out.
This is not, and should not, be the 'I worship the SR god' thread, no matter how well it works on your piddly-assed account. It should be a reasonable discussion of the SR deal, all points considered.

Thank you for lowering yourself to the level of the Thread Police.
Did you happen to notice that all of Bullit's posts were to this thread? (And AFAIK, quite recently - also, there is also no profile for him so I don't know when he registered.)
Did you notice that I did not wade into this until Bullit started the mud-slinging at George?
It's not that George needed the help, but it seemed to me that Bullit might be a shill.

If you had said the same words as bullit, I would probably not have commented as you've been a regular contributor to this thread since the beginning. But Bullit just burst upon the scene and his style made me very suspicious...but, hey, I'm a conspiratorialist.

Let Bullit fight his own battles...he seems quite capable. 😀😀😀

I'm just feeling sorry for you man .. you need treatment .. serious one .. Yes I have a conspiracy to affect SR's business on anandtech.com .. 🙂.

 

[ttown]

bullet... the gizmo does not serve a website on port 80 on the WAN side unless you logged in and turned it on. The web interface is only accessible from the LAN port, if that's the only thing you're concerned about.

issue#2, regarding "connectivity" -- yes, when SR had the big snafu during their tripling of capacity I and many many others experienced down-time. I assume your gripes regarding "connectivity" are something on-going, and not related to 1 or 2 specific days about a month ago. I've monitored SR/my gizmo literally 24/7 for the last 3+ weeks and my gizmo has shown no signs of service interruption.

regarding your issues with voice-mail quality and/or suggested features -- let SR know. My impression is that they are listening to suggestions to make their product better.

edit: OK. The emphasis you put on having better "line2" functionality makes more sense to me now. Maybe during the interim while you/we wait for a real "seperate" line2, a second SR account may be worthwhile. When the second phone port is available, cancel one SR account.

Hope you have better luck with a linksys...

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: bulletpr00f
I'm just feeling sorry for you man .. you need treatment ..

Hey! I'm already taking all the drugs I can get my hands on.
😀😀😀
Yesterday, I had my first dropped call via the S/R connection. Seriously!
I'd gotten so used to it on my T-mobile cell phone that I nearly did not notice.
T-mobile never used to drop calls out of the blue, although they did have areas where the reception would go south. Their service is not as good as it once was.

Bullet, I'm gladdened by the fact that you now appear to be concerned with trouble-shooting ;?) rather than mud-slinging, as it first appeared.
I am anxiously awaiting your report on the success or failure of the switch to Linksys. Linksys is a proven commodity here. Your continued investment of time and money in perfecting your S/R VoIP is testament to the thousand of us who have had a very positive and rewarding experience with that which appears to have perplexed a few.

 

[georgepa]

bulletpr00f-

Thanks for coming back here. Too many people write complaints, then disappear.

Let me answer your points:

>>>>1. Dropping connections during conference calls and others. (Based on input from different people (especially thank you MOOT) seems like this might be my D-link router.) However, there are already four people and others including georgepa mentioned that the service was down during certain periods.

There was an outage, but it was on 7/11/2005. Since then there haven't been any outages reported. If you had outages happening since 7/11 it is restricted to your setup. I would surmise that indeed your router is not liking the setup, as you already suspected.

>>>>> 2. Almost everyone is confirming not lit "voice" light that requires gizmo reboot.

Could you elaborate on that point. It seems in contrast that almost everyone is getting a stable voice light throughout. Mine hasn't gone out in a very long time (unless I accidentally unplug the power cord.) Most everybody has had a stable voice light that does not require rebooting the gizmo. One user claims that his voice light went off on him a while back but that has gone away and he speculated that it may have been something else with his router. If you have this happen continously it probably points to faulty hardware (i.e. gizmo or router may need replacing.)



>>>>>>>>>> 3. "OVER THE PHONE" voice mail controls are very premature and nothing like analog service providers or what your cell phone offers.

Honestly, SRs voicemail beats the pants off anything analog service providers or cell phones offer. I don't really "get" what you are complaining about here. I can:

- Dial 00 on my phone to get into my voicemail
- Call my phone number from anywhere, then hit * and get into my voicemail menu
- Have SR forward all my voicemails to email, so I can play my voicemails from any computer that is on the internet
- Have SR notify me when a new voicemail arrives (on both numbers) via cell notification, Instant Messaging, SMS (cell text messages,) Pager
- Voice message screening "as the messages are being left" with the option to intercept or reroute a call in several ways for both numbers.
The features once you are in your voicemail are quite varied as well.

There is nothing rudimentary or primitive about the voicemail that is set up here, quite the opposite. I used to have the premiere package Verizon offers and I could not do half the things with that voicemail that I can do with SRs. I would be interested in finding out exactly what voicemail features you have seen with analog or cell companies that are more advanced. I assume that you don't use SRs voicemail correctly to arrive at the erroneous conclusion you have. But even if so, the voicemail Verizon and every other POTS I have seen offers is quite primitive compared to even if you just realize a small portion of the VM capabilities of SR. (and most VOIPs)


>>>>>>>>>> 4. Apperantly I'm the only one who has been told "phone 2" jack on the gizmo would be active by Q2 of this year and now "according to georgepa" Sunrocket might be asking extra $$ for it.

Agreed.


>>>>>>>>>>> 5. Second "signature" line functionality is not very useful, beucase:
* caller id number both for second and first line are same (A business case, i make a phone call as a business call but my home number appears. I get a call back for my home phone, my kid answers the phone .. woppsies i lost business)
* certain services e.g. signature messenger service are only available to primary numbers


Let me help you get more out of your signature number: In regards to the first part of your complaint you may call your business clients directly from your CALL MANAGER inside of your SR login page. Just add the business clients into the CALL MANAGER, then click CALL next to their names and they will see the SIGNATURE NUMBER appear on their caller ID. Business calls, here bulletproof comes. 🙂

Second part of your complaint: Say, a business associate calls your SIGNATURE NUMBER (assuming that is the number you chose for your business line) your boy would pick up thinking that it is a call for the Household Number, right? Well, to solve that problem simply go into your SR login and change the ring of your SIGNATURE NUMBER. You can select a few different ones. Most people choose two fast rings instead of the typical ring. Now, when someone calls your SIGNATURE NUMBER (the one you gave out to associates) it will ring differently. Your boy will know to stay away from picking up on THAT ring. If you are not home your voicemail (the business one you set up for the SIGNATURE NUMBER) will answer those calls. If you happen to be home you can answer with your "business smile" ready, knowing that it can only be a business client calling with that particular ring.

It is incorrect that the voice message screener won't work with the SIGNATURE NUMBER. It does. It is just that you can't have two instances of the voice message screener running simultaneously. So, if you are running the voice message screener on your PRIMARY NUMBER you won't be able to open it simultaneously for the SIGNATURE NUMBER. If you are concerned about business messages you could just open an instance of the screener for the SIGNATURE NUMBER only. If you want both numbers monitored simultaneously you can do it by downloading USCREEN, a very similar looking Call Message Screener from Ureach, set it up for your signature number, and then open BOTH the SR Voice Message Screener (on your primary account) and USCREEN (on your signature number) for easy live voice message screening of both your numbers. I can provide the link to USCREEN upon request, although I had talked about it and linked to it a few pages back in this thread.


Hope those tweaks helped your business out quite a bit.

 

[RideFree]

George,
Seriously, one of the most comprehensive attempts I've see at pouring oil on the troubled waters.

With reference to 4. "Apperantly I'm the only one who has been told "phone 2" jack on the gizmo would be active by Q2 of this year and now "according to georgepa" Sunrocket might be asking extra $$ for it. "
I had seen the post in the thread claiming this but never for a moment believed it. S/R might be great, but they are not that magnanimous. Vonnage gets about $8 for the second line, as I recall.

 

[GTFan]

I've been active on the SR threads here, at FW, and at DSLreports for a while now and I have never seen anyone say that the 2nd line activation was promised in Q2. There has been speculation sure, and perhaps someone claiming that the odd CSR might've said something about it, but never a documented promise from SR.

Of course, I could've missed that thread. I did a quick search at DSLreports just now but the forum search function there is awful.

 

[georgepa]

Ridefree-

>>>>>>I had seen the post in the thread claiming this but never for a moment believed it. S/R might be great, but they are not that magnanimous. Vonnage gets about $8 for the second line, as I recall. <<<<<<<<<<<<

Hang onto your seat, Rf, Vonage charges a whopping $24.95 plus $1.50 line charge plus about $3 in fees and taxes for that second "outgoing" line, the same line that SR is working to implement as an additional outgoing line. Almost $30 is charged by Vonage for the privilege of having a second outgoing line. If SR gives it away for free they'll be at 100k in no time.

Here is the link to the prices:

http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=add_number



The lower price Vonage charges is for a "virtual phone number," a signature line without being an outgoing line. It is feature-poor compared to SR's signature line, does not have it's own voicemail box, is basically just a distinctive ring. SR gives it away for free, Vonage charges $4.99 plus $1.50 line charge plus fees and taxes for a total of close to $7.50.

 

[RideFree]

When Vonnage was in it's infancy, I had both the primary line and the secondary line.
One was a 303 line and the other was a 321 line. Mayby the second line was $14 or so. It showed up as 321 in caller id. 303 did also.

 

[Jlensbo]

Originally posted by: sat4fun
N/A in my area, but according to the map I am inbetween two areas that are serviced. I should have service soon.

Where did you find a map? I've been waiting for availability for my second number in the 757 area code.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Jlensbo

Originally posted by: sat4fun
N/A in my area, but according to the map I am inbetween two areas that are serviced. I should have service soon.

Where did you find a map? I've been waiting for availability for my second number in the 757 area code.

https://www.sunrocket.com/sign_up/viewAvailabilityMap.do

 

[RideFree]

Looks like Wyoming may have to wait a while.
20 years of negative population growth.
Buy high, sell low!

 

[astrosfan90]

Just back from a week away, and have to report that I came back to a problem with my SunRocket service. It wasn't working.

Upon further inspection, it turns out that my cats decided to play in the mess of wires hooked into my entertainment center and managed to step on and turn off the powerstrip the gizmo was plugged into! :-D Plugged it back in and it works fine.

Thought it was amusing though. Is it wrong to say I was almost relieved when I first discovered it not working? I feel like it's worked so well since I got the service a few months ago that something had to go wrong sometime, but still nothing that I've noticed. It's kinda strange I guess. With every other similar service I've had (cable, cell phones, POTS lines, etc) I've had to spend hours on the phone with CS in the first few weeks or month of service. Still not had to call them with SR. The only thing I've ever noticed since day 1 was the fast busy after dialing, but it only happened 2 or 3 times and I haven't had it happen in weeks.

 

[Daniel]

Originally posted by: georgepa
bulletpr00f-

Thanks for coming back here. Too many people write complaints, then disappear.

I'd hate to be one of the ones that complained and never posted the resolution... Well after trouble tickets almost weekly from almost the begining of the year until the begining of August they finally just said they couldn't port my phone number over. Why? I don't have the slightest idea but after all the frustration I wasn't about to argue the fact. They gave me a full refund for the $199 yearly prepayment since I haven't been able to use the service properly and told me to keep the gizmo and the phones.

I wish I knew why it was such a problem, people were always nice on the phone but through all this I only got 1 person to ever call or email me back. Fortunately that person was the same one that processed my refund.

 

[georgepa]

Daniel-

Right now number porting may be related to E-911 centers. You may not be in an area that can be served by E-911. I am not sure what the deal is, but I have had similar observations in the Tampa Bay area. My phone number ported fine, so did all the referral ones I tried until about a month ago. All of a sudden a customer who lives only 5 miles away from me was told he could not port his number "due to E-911 not being available." That customer had to send SR back, even though he really liked it. Another customer was told that it wasn't going to work, but she was ok with just using SR numbers. My last 2 referrals had no trouble with the port. No rhyme and reason unless there is something about how far E-911 centers are away from a particular address?

 

[laketrout]

Originally posted by: Daniel


I'd hate to be one of the ones that complained and never posted the resolution... Well after trouble tickets almost weekly from almost the begining of the year until the begining of August they finally just said they couldn't port my phone number over. Why? I don't have the slightest idea but after all the frustration I wasn't about to argue the fact. They gave me a full refund for the $199 yearly prepayment since I haven't been able to use the service properly and told me to keep the gizmo and the phones.

At least they didn't hassle you over the money and they let you keep the free stuff. Unoftunate that it didn't work out but across the whole US I am sure it will happen some places and it soudns like they handled that correctly instead of stringing you on and taking your money, ya know?

Hopefully the issues will be fixed soon for you. You already have the equipment...🙂

 

[kingFEMA]

Yeah!

Any luck with the no dial tone thing? I have two Gizmos now, after SR sent a replacement. Both have the same problem.

1) I connect a land line into the "life line" port and a phone into the "phone 1" port. When the gizmo is unplugged the land line passes through the gizmo and I get a dial tone. When the gizmo is plugged in... no dial tone.

2) Both gizmos voice lights turn on, but no dial tone.

3) I tried connecting the gizmo behind and in front of my router with the same result. Voice light turns on, no dial tone.

Customer service keeps scratching their heads... any suggestions.

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: Daniel
I'd hate to be one of the ones that complained and never posted the resolution... Well after trouble tickets almost weekly from almost the begining of the year until the begining of August they finally just said they couldn't port my phone number over. Why?

Daniel,
Is there any possibility that you had a "pick-lock" left over on your line from the 'old days'?
I did and was lucky enough to "stumble" across that info when I called Qwurst to complain about them dragging their (fee)feet in porting me over. It took them nearly two months to "figure out" what the problem was.
😀😀😀
Anyone else go through this?

 

[ttown]

kingFEMA
you have PM with some tips