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

[ttown]

been unstable since about 7pm for me in western WA

quote:
Sunrocket is currently experiencing an inbound and outbound service degradation. Our engineers are working diligently to find a resolution as soon as possible. Thank you for your continued patience in this matter. Please check back later for updates.

 

[dsng0403]

It is back now!

western WA..

 

[georgepa]

I just got to sit down and check the board. I tried calling a 1-800 number to test the service since it is too late to call someone. It connected fine (it is a free infoline with News, Sports, etc. 1-800-555-TELL.) I tried a few times and it connected fine. Does that mean whatever issue they had is resolved? I had upgraded my firmware to the latest one (4.56,) so I don't know if that is the reason I am not noticing a problem or if it just ok for all.

 

[SLEEPER5555]

looks like that site is down (the one with the cgi file) , so there is a master password and the "welcome" password i used is just for user level updates?

 

[astrosfan90]

I can load the website with no problems.

 

[EvilYoda]

My phone's giving me a busy tone too, voicemail or outside number.

 

[INXSible]

Almost 1 Year has past, and SunRocket still does not offer local #'s ...
I'll hang on to BroadVoice's service

 

[EvilYoda]

back up working for me.

 

[astrosfan90]

Yeah, mine's working fine, I had a friend of mine who's staying with me for the weekend test it out for me. Worked for him as of when he got up at 10am EST, dont' know about before that because I didn't test it.

 

[Jlensbo]

Originally posted by: ElGuache
Is it just me or there is a problem with Sunrocket again.
I can't make a phone call and I already check all my cables.
I rebooted everything and still not working.

***********************************************************************
Unfortunately, it's not just you.

My wife has never been sold on Sunrocket (she doesn't pay the bills).
"Today my mother couldn't call me again!" she whines. "Why don't _I_ pay for normal phone service?"

By "her" paying for "normal" phone service means, of course, that I will pick up for paying for something else, so it is far from being a wash.

Each time that Sunrocket goes down I have to get grief from my wife. I bought her a cellphone, but that's not working. She wants a reliable phone on the wall that rings when someone is trying to call her!

Please, SunRocket... get it right before she forces me to give up on you! She could care less about economics when her sick mother is trying to call her and can't get through! I'm behind you all the way... I realize the advances that you've made and the (low) prices that you charge, but the end-users (my family) could care less about the money *I'M* saving... they want a "normal" phone service!

 

[mm60]

Originally posted by: georgepa
Well, it wasn't a direct hit of some kind. My FIOS modem/router died on me after a storm, so I called Verizon and they came out the next morning to replace it. He mentioned that the modem must have gotten killed by the lightning storm. So, my internet is back up and I notice my gizmo still gives no dialtone, even though the voice light was on. Whatever killed the cable modem obviously made its way through to the gizmo itself. I had my gizmo replacement within one day via overnight shipping by insisting that I did not want to wait for a level 3 tech to call me and that I was a computer tech (which is true) and checked all connections. The guy put me on hold for a minute then when he returned he said "Ok, we'll ship you a new gizmo overnight." He made me go through plugging in another phone with another phone cord just so he could document that we tried a fix "in his presence," and then the order was put in.

If someone has a problem where SR tries to defer you to a callback from a Level 3 tech insist that you are a tech or that you had a tech look at it. That should be enough to get immediate action.

I just bought a UPS with broadband protection for the very same reason (on sale in COMPUSA this week for $69.99 http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=318456&pfp=BROWSE ). I have my cable modem and gizmo plugged into the battery backup slots and the cable connection routed through the surge protection connectors. I tested running my SunRocket connection after disconnecting from the mains and it works fine. Hopefully the surge protection feature will help in the case of power surges or lightning strikes

 

[laketrout]

Originally posted by: INXSible
Almost 1 Year has past, and SunRocket still does not offer local #'s ...
I'll hang on to BroadVoice's service

Bummer dude. In due time hopefully they'll move into your neck of the woods. All is fine now by me though I wasn't around for the issues reported earlier.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: Jlensbo

Please, SunRocket... get it right before she forces me to give up on you! She could care less about economics when her sick mother is trying to call her and can't get through! I'm behind you all the way... I realize the advances that you've made and the (low) prices that you charge, but the end-users (my family) could care less about the money *I'M* saving... they want a "normal" phone service!

Sorry to hear that man, that stinks...out of curiosity, what cell phone provider did you get her? I have a cell phone as a backup for exactly this sort of thing, but I don't imagine it'd be an effective backup if it didn't work!

 

[Jlensbo]

We,ve got Sprint as backup, wich works fine all the time. I just meant that having a backup doesn't "cut the cake" with her, if you get my frift...

 

[georgepa]

jlensbo-

In addition to cell phone you may want to give her some more options. For instance, you could set up another service on the computer via softphone that gives you another incoming number (and very inexpensive outgoing in a pinch.) I use STANAPHONE on a laptop with a USB phone and it is getting regular use in our house. The free numbers they give out are NY area numbers, and one area code happens to be her only siblings' (brother plus wife and 2 kids) area code. So, they now call her using a local number (845 area code,) call quality is the same as POTS and the SR phone is still free to make outgoing calls on for someone else in the family. Best of all, incoming is absolutely free.

I find that a very adequate backup situation.

I did not have to make or receive calls the other night, but yesterday I tried to call my wife and the short outage that happened (after 3 PM) gave me a busy signal. I called the STANAPHONE number and she answered. She didn't know there was an outage on the SR line, but I told her I was on my way to my next client and then called SR's 1-800 #. By the time I talked to a CSR the outage was over with (I guess it must have been a 20-minute thing or so.) I asked about the outage from the night before and was told that SR was putting in new servers and switches and something went wrong. Now, keep in mind that CS (Level 1) is handled by an outsourced outfit, CallTech, so I am not sure if they know exactly what is going on over at SR. I was pressing to find out whether the failover issue was the reason that new equipment is being installed, but the CS just said that they were not being told, that SR has been "secretive" about what exactly led to that nights outage, whatever that means.

 

[Robor]

Well after using Sunrocket for a month I still don't have incoming CallerID and my outgoing CallerID identifies me as "Out of area". This is after 2 calls to tech support where they investigated and said they'd look into it further but never did. I haven't cancelled my POTS Verizon service but I've already ported my number over. I'm regretting it right now.

In short, I'm not very impressed with Sunrocket. I'd say you get what you pay for but considering they are not living up to their advertised features that wouldn't be true.

 

[ElGuache]

Is any one having problems with the system again, right now?

 

[SLEEPER5555]

yep she is dead again!

 

[gfeaster]

Originally posted by: georgepa
jlensbo-

In addition to cell phone you may want to give her some more options. For instance, you could set up another service on the computer via softphone that gives you another incoming number (and very inexpensive outgoing in a pinch.) I use STANAPHONE on a laptop with a USB phone and it is getting regular use in our house.

What are the "upfront" costs of this backup to SunRocket? How much for the USB phone, for example? Just curious; I'm not wanting to start a debate.

 

[georgepa]

Hi gfeaster-

The USB phone was $15 (from Computer Geeks.) They sold a bunch, some posters in this thread bought one as well when they were blowing out lots of these.

Here is one of these on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-VoIP-Phone-AU-1...9QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


Stanaphone itself is a free service. You get a NY area phone number for free and all incoming calls are free. If you want to make outgoing calls they charge very competetive rates. Check out their site. Great backup for any VOIP service:

Stanaphone website

Keep in mind that you can use the USB phone for other services as well. For instance Skype (good if one of your friends uses Skype a lot,) when Sunrocket offers softphone support, MSN IP phone, etc.

 

[jjm]

I have had SR a few months now. It is fine when it works, but I think there are way too many outages. Most seem to be less than an hour, but there seem to be too many of them.

 

[ttown]

gfeaster-
if you're looking for absolute minimum costs -- it's worth mentioning that (all?) usb phones are just a glorified speaker,mic and "soundcard" all wrapped up in plastic box that happens to look like a phone. If you already have a decent soundcard (full duplex) and a PC headset, then all you need is the softphone software. There's free/cheap stuff out there -- like X-Lite from xten and many others, i'm sure. Then there's whatever service you want to use...

You might check out the voip-buster thread for a very low-cost "backup". (disclaimer: I have not personally used it, so....).

fwiw... i bought the phone mentioned by georgepa at the geeks, and it works great for me on my very average laptop.

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: jjm
I have had SR a few months now. It is fine when it works, but I think there are way too many outages. Most seem to be less than an hour, but there seem to be too many of them.

Jim, I wonder if some of the outages are regional?
To my knowledge, I've only had one outage since the "big one" that got us all the big ten points. However, I'm also on Comcast HSI and it seems like at least twice a week we have to reboot the cable modem and the router.
Since everybody is not as old as I am, they may not remember when Ma Bell would have outages that lasted a week or more and lesser outages. Of course, Bell Systems has been "ironing out" the POTS for over a century. Additionally, my business model is no longer tied to any phone in particular, so unremitting phone service is no longer critical to me.

Another thing that makes me smile whenever I cut S/R some slack is to simply remember the $1000 /month phone bills for my two business lines and the )*(%$&^Y)( box that the phone company leased to me back in the mid '70's.
Puts it all in perspective.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: RideFree
Jim, I wonder if some of the outages are regional?
To my knowledge, I've only had one outage since the "big one" that got us all the big ten points. However, I'm also on Comcast HSI and it seems like at least twice a week we have to reboot the cable modem and the router.

I've wondered this as well. I briefly noticed the one last week, but it was over with very quickly, and I didn't have any problems over the weekend at all.

In other news I made my first call to Russia over the weekend. Crystal clear, no delay/echo as one might expect, and frankly it sounded like I was calling my next-door neighbor. Amazing to me, especially when I think about what it was like to call a third world country on a POTS line, say, 10 years ago.

 

[maxcom]

i'll stick with Bell South's all you can eat for $25 a month