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

[bostonkarl]

Some posts made in this thread seem to be rather self promoting. Or promoting interests that might not be in the inerest of the buyer. That's my casual observation.

Now, let's take a look at the forum we're in. It seems to be entitled 'Hot Deals'. This appears to be a thread about SR being a hot deal or not. That's generally what's discussed in this forum -- is something a hot deal or not.

So in the spirit of this forum, I'll rewrite a statement I quoted in a previous post so that others may not be so touchy or be inclinded to generate a self serving response.

Here goes...

Don't listen to me or others who regularly post here (positive, negative, or in-between). Go to DSL reports and look at the 100+ reviews of SR. Be skeptical of both the very good and the very bad. Ask yourself what seems to be the consensus opinion?

Now, let's apply some logical deducttive skills. And let's base this on fact. SR is one the cheapest all-you-can-eat (US/Canada) providers. If a subscriber needs unlimmited minutes, SR might be a good choice. If one doesn't, there are other inexpensive options out there, including some darn attractive 500 minute plans. According to the DSLreports reviews, SR has suffered recently from well documented outages and has technical support that rank-and-file subscribers don't seem to be very happy with. SR ranks pretty low on the totem pole in these departments based on the VOIP reviews. SR's low cost may make the resultant inconvenience tolerable. VOIP may not be 100% reliable, but SR reliability is just about the lowest of all providers, again based on the DSLreports reviews.

It light of these observations, SR is an okay deal depending on one's phone usage. I disagree with folks repeatedly posting that SR service is a hot deal. That's why I post here occassionally. Oh, and I don't see a need to do that daily.


ed. quicky fix of a typo.

 

[astrosfan90]

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

To me, anything that saves me a few hundred dollars a year off the bat, and much more along the way (in the form of international calling rates) qualifies as a hot deal. Much like others have pointed out, I understand and was prepared for the fact that POTS is going to be more reliable than VOIP, regardless of which provider/company/service you choose. Such is the nature of new technology. For a few hundred dollars saved a year, it's more than worth it.

So to follow in the same vein, yes, it's a very hot deal in my personal estimation.

 

[jjm]

Georgepa - I think it's a stretch to say that SR provides any cautions to consumers. If such cautions are on its site, they are not easily found. In fact, after reading all the tabs linked to its home page, the only caution I see on its web site is the one about 911 service. I was unable to find anything on its site encouraging or even suggesting that consumers retain alternate service. Quite the opposite; SR touts itself as offering a better value and enhanced features. In my mind, the suggestion of offering something that is enhanced implies strongly that the comaprison starts with an assumption of a level field.

(I purposely limited my search to only those pages that would be readily available to the casual surfer considering its service.)

Perhaps consumers should be wary of any new technology. I certainly was and remain so. That's why I never even considered dropping my POTS line to begin with. But many others are enticed by the prospect of a cheaper service and they are not prepared for the lower reliability that goes with it. SR does nothing to prepare a potential buyer for that.

 

[georgepa]

My casual observation is that some posts are complainer-self serving instead of serving the buyer. IF SR had a policy like all other VOIPs tying up your money I could see it. For example, if someone were to go to, say, Vonage, they are subject to a cancellation fee if they decide it is not for them, plus the startup fee is obviously value that is lost forever. With SR there are ZERO costs involved, not even a dime in shipping cost. There is a 31-day trial period, but even after that one can cancel at any time without penalty whatsover. In addition the phones don't have to be shipped back, making this as red-hot a deal as there is on this site. Name another promotion that gives away free phones just for trying out a service.


Jim-

You misunderstood. Nowhere did I imply that SR provides cautions. They may not implicitly state that they may be subject to their own outages, but come on. That is not the typical idea behind VOIP. Yes, SR had some outages in the past, but hardware upgrades and redundancy installs are supposed to keep them to a minimum, and if SR did the necessary that should be the case. The caveat is that if you lose electricity or your own Internet goes out (my Verizon FIOS had an all-day outage for all of Florida three weeks ago) there is no VOIP phone. As I said earlier, if someone does not understand or is aware of those basic caveats that come along with VOIP those people should either educate themselves or, if they need 100% dialtone (unrealistic with any VOIP) move on and enjoy the free phones that come with the bargain. It works for many, for some it doesn't. Complainers trying to scare people with "Stay away" messages should do so with services that make you lose money (i.e. Vonage, Voicepulse, etc.) rather than a service that is awesome if it works well (as is the case for many here) and even if it does not work out for whatever reason gives a great value-add in form of phones for the trouble of trying it out.

 

[Robor]

Well, as far as "Hot Deals" go I think SunRocket does not qualify simply because they do not deliver as advertised - Anyone recall the, "Out to build a better phone company", we hear on every call to support? Seriously though, I switched to SunRocket as a POTS replacement because of the money saving and features. The saving is there but the features are flaky and the service too undependable. I shouldn't have to reboot my cablemodem and/or gizmo every other day because inbound callers are getting fast busy signals.

I understand there are those in this thread that haven't had poor experiences like mine but that doesn't help me. I'm giving my account of my SunRocket experience and if it serves as warning then maybe it should be. I've had nothing but problems with my SunRocket service and calls to their tech support didn't help. In all of my calls to support I had one callback. I was never offered a Gizmo swapout and when I mentioned others having problems suggested asking for a firmware upgrade it was denied. I was told they don't just upgrade firmware on request. I had to fill out some long form and run tests to prove my broadband connection speed was fast enough. IMO that's BS. If I'm having problems and several calls to tech support haven't fixed them and a firmware upgrade *might* fix it then update my device.

I know that VOIP is new technology but I also know a few Vonage and Roadrunner VOIP customers who are not "techies" and have no complaints about their service. Most of the people in this thread are techs and if we're having problems with SunRocket you know something is wrong. I'm still waiting on my Vonage device to arrive. I'm going to give them a try for a month and if the service is good I'll keep it. If not, it's back to Verizon POTS for me.

 

[bostonkarl]

If all a subscriber wants is free phones, get 'em from SR. The title of the thread could be 'Get Free Phones from SR'.

If a subscriber wants VOIP service, well, once again I'll point to the DSLReports reviews where SR ranks overall third from the bottom out of 15 providers listed; SR also received the lowest rating (out of the 15 VOIP providers) for reliability. I can assure you that I did not write all of these reviews; mine is actually a rather middle-ground one compared so some unhappy campers.

Whereas I want VOIP service, not just free phones, I view the SR deal as okay given the service reliability issues. Not OMG this stinks. Not OMG this is white hot that I must write fifteen hundred breathy posts about. It is an okay deal.

One point of view might be that I have composed a complaint post. Another point of view might be that this is a informative post based on facts for someone interested in VOIP service beyond the initial freebies. I have attempted to write a post that references a whole slew of evidence (100+ reviews) that backs up my statements.

(BTW, there was a confirmed brief SR outage this afternoon, most likely in preparation for the firmware push that is supposed to occure between midnight and 6AM. It didn't affect me, but people that got kicked from their calls weren't thrilled.)

 

[RideFree]

"The title of the thread could be 'Get Free Phones from SR"

I am shocked! I'll bet no one thought of that before. However, for some, there is a damn good phone deal tied to the free phones.

 

[lazarus000]

does getting SR mess up your tivo/replaytv/sattelite/home security phone connections?


ie tivo downloads the tv schedule each night ... will it dial through SR just like a normal phone line?

 

[jjm]

SR does NOT sell itself as a POTS replacement. In fact they make clear that IF you choose to make it your POTS replacement (as many have done and are happy with) then be sure to have some sort of reliable backup available, preferrably a pared down, measured POTS line or cell.

Georgepa, where exactly does SR make it clear?

As I said, I think you might be overstating things a bit.

 

[mindblendeR]

SURPRISE SURPISE!!!

SUNROCKET SERVICE IS DOWN NATIONWIDE AGAIN:

Text

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: lazarus000
does getting SR mess up your tivo/replaytv/sattelite/home security phone connections?


ie tivo downloads the tv schedule each night ... will it dial through SR just like a normal phone line?

You should have no issues with your normal internet service working with SunRocket. It would go...

Cable/DSL modem >> SunRocket Gizmo >> Router >> PC's, TiVo, etc

That said, I had intermittent issues with the SunRocket Gizmo in front of my cablemodem. I can not confirm it was the Gizmo causing the issues but I must say I strongly suspect it was the problem because my internet service was very reliable before the Gizmo.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: mindblendeR
SURPRISE SURPISE!!!

SUNROCKET SERVICE IS DOWN NATIONWIDE AGAIN:

Text

I put my Gizmo back in operation (behind my router) until I have another phone service other than my cell phone. I'm in the Tampa Bay area and was getting outbound fast busy signals last night. I didn't bother doing anything about it and about an hour later service was back up. SunRocket can't keep having these issues and plan on keeping subscribers or attracting new customers. Being $8 cheaper than other more reliable VOIP providers and offering 2.4Ghz phones only goes so far.

 

[TotalEclipse]

SunRocket will be performing routine system upgrades to the Gizmo software between the hours of Midnight and 6AM EDT over the next several days. If you find your phone service is affected, please power cycle your Gizmo and give the service approximately 30 minutes to return. If after 30 minutes your service has not returned, please contact Member Services at 800-786-0132. Thank you for your patience.

Worked for me

 

[Mythman]

For me, the savings far outweigh the minor lapses in service. I say minor because my wife and I rarely use the phone for anything other than calling her Dad in Alabama every now and then. We're not "chatters" and we don't have a business to worry about. Our cell phones are even minimalist in nature - $12.50/month with 45 mins of "free" time.

 

[georgepa]

Nobody likes having to reboot a gizmo "all the time" but nobody has to. I sure don't. Most here don't. Robor had to. Sure, it sucks that customer service did not call him back on that issue right away. Still, his problem was not at all common and indicative of a hardware problem, perhaps a faulty gizmo. SR lost him as a customer because they dropped the ball on the "calling back" end of things. Still, his particular problem is unique to himself and a few others with hardware issues, possibly even issues not related to SR (router, cable modem, network slow due to undetected viruses, etc.) The only lesson to be learned from Robor's experience for a prospective customer is not that the service is not good in itself (it is for most of their customers or they would not be customers) but that if a hardware related issue makes service not as good as it typically is for the customer core to try look for causes yourself to an extent and look through sites like this one here for "helping hands", not necessarily rely on tech support to call you back. Is that a weak point SR has? Sure. They grew very fast and their outsourced tech support is helpful in many ways, but in specific circumstances not on the ball. The service itself has been good for most of us, if you look just at the participants of this thread alone, minus the two big outages.

When someone points out dslreports rating it needs to be said that SR was at the very top of all providers before having a big hardware related outage. Service at that point was considered stellar by many and it was reflected in very high ratings. At that time haters like some of the folks showing up here questioned the integrity of dslreports because SR's rating was so high and customers seemed extremely satisfied. Well, service is at the same level again for most of SRs customers. The lowered ranking reflects customer dissatisfaction with the two outages, but if you look at reviews since the last big outage most of them have shown a positive track again. So, Bostonkarl, don't get too hung up about lower ratings for SR on that site as a result of a couple of big outages. Previous strong ratings certainly did not deter the haters from belittling them and claiming them to be a product of bogus reviews bringing them up into lofty regions. Now we are to believe that all the "bad" reviews that brought down the ratings on dslreports are legit, despite the fact that many are from names that have never participated in any discussion and have just signed up that day to give their assessment.

For most of us service has returned to the same status it was before the two outages hit, you know, when SR was rated second-highest of all VOIP providers on dslreports. Not perfect, but for the money the best VOIP out there. TRUST us when we say that we could ALL switch to another provider within a moments notice. There IS no penalty, there IS no cancellation fee, there IS no tied-up money ANYWHERE. Make your point and move on. We are all aware by now that you consider the service "so-so, just okay" and that you are actively looking for another provider. Others have a better assessment of the service. It is called a difference of OPINION. Please don't continuously bash those whose opinion differs from yours as "shills" or having a "sales agenda." It is inflammatory hyperbole that should not appear in chat threads unless you can prove your notions without a doubt. In my case, I have stated multiple times: For me and my family and also the people who have signed up with SR it has worked quite well so far. Selfishly I welcome it if someone writes "I am done with SR" because it probably helps the service grow at a more measured rate. They are still growing rapidly from what I have read, but some of you going elsewhere because you really don't need a lot of minutes or are looking for "greener pastures" help keep the pace from breakneck. I am sure SR wants the fastest growth possible, but I want growth to be a bit slower so they can keep up with demand. I live in a community that has experienced growth at a breakneck speed and it is not desireable IMO. I would have rather seen growth a bit slower so services can keep up with increased demand. Same with my phone service.


1. The service is free to try. Anyone interested in VOIP should try this out to see if it works for them, as it has for most. The incentive is the free phones and the low price. If it works well, great. Join the club. There are many people who consider it the best VOIP for the money. If it does not work out for you at all then move on to another provider or stick with your landline, but keep the free phones for your troubles of trying it out. IMO chances are good you'll be satisfied.

2. If it does not work well right off the bat see if you can possibly make it work well using sites like these. Educating yourself about the service and how it can be configured well for maximum usability can make your experience a good one.

3. If occasional outages are unacceptable this may not be for you, despite the potential for savings. If your hardware setup makes a good experience impossible because of incompatibilities this may not work for you, but you won't know until you try (without obligation or cost.)

Jim-

Anyone interested in VOIP has to know by now that there are caveats. If the Internet goes out you lose service. If there is a power outage chances are you can't use your phone. VOIPs don't spell those caveats out because they are common knowledge. This is different from the hot water Vonage found themselves in when customers could not use 911 with them as it was not explicitly spelled out that 911 service was not available with Vonage. Knowing that VOIP may go out where landline does not is as "assumed" as the knowledge that one needs high-speed internet to make VOIP work at all.

 

[spacelord]

Well put georgepa. I too endure the occasional outage, but the cheapness keeps me mostly happy with Sunrocket.

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: lazarus000
does getting SR mess up your tivo/replaytv/sattelite/home security phone connections?


ie tivo downloads the tv schedule each night ... will it dial through SR just like a normal phone line?

I'm surprised no one has responded by now.

While TiVO may or may not work, there is absolutely no cost to try it yourself and find out first hand.
Best case scenario = works great, saves you a ton of money over POTS.
Worst case scenario=does not work, you keep free phones and POTS.

 

[lazarus000]

Originally posted by: RideFree

Originally posted by: lazarus000
does getting SR mess up your tivo/replaytv/sattelite/home security phone connections?


ie tivo downloads the tv schedule each night ... will it dial through SR just like a normal phone line?

I'm surprised no one has responded by now.

While TiVO may or may not work, there is absolutely no cost to try it yourself and find out first hand.
Best case scenario = works great, saves you a ton of money over POTS.
Worst case scenario=does not work, you keep free phones and POTS.

thanks ... it's rather surprising that VOIP hasn't found a way to include all the people who have some kind of analog connection.

i would think that cuts out a large section of the population


i looked around and it's not just Sunrocket it's just about all of them... i guess Vonage has a beta test in the works right now to solve the problem.

 

[bostonkarl]

It seems like some folks simply just can't face facts. These posters quote things like "most people" this and "most people that"... without any sort of backup to their claims. They sound like a comercial -- or marketing material received in junk mail. Saying something is so doesn't make it so. It makes you think they have some sort of vested interest in the company (referals, anyone?), doesn't it?

Some folks keep this up even when their posting is way out of line with what mainstream SR subscribers are stating on a well respected public forum. Perhaps they believe that if they write super lenghty posts here somehow that will change reality. It certainly doesn't change the 100+ reviews that people have taken time to write elsewhere. Certain folks are more than happy to reference dslreports when all is rosey, but when the meltdowns occur, well then, somehow the information on that well established site is suspect. Somehow they feel as if their viewpoint is more important or matters more even though it is divorced from reality.

Lets review the bidding, shall we? SR currently is DEAD LAST for reliability for all VOIP providers, and it is deserved. SR ranks 12 out of 15 overall and it is deserved. Documented outages remain ongoing. I point to dslreports as a reference rather than say, unsubstantiated, "most people this" and "most people that". I think it better to critically read the good and bad reviews of other users rather than listen to market tripe, especially from folks who have stated that they have benifitted considerably from SR's referal program.

When SR received good reviews and ratings it was well deserved. When SR works, the call quality and feature set is great. Lets hope SR can clean up their act and pull out of the nosedive.

I'll say it again. If you're interested in obtaining VOIP service (beyond the freebies), don't believe me or other regular posters here on this forum, but head over to the very well regarded dslreports forum and read what people are saying. There are lots of opinions; be wary of the insanely good and the nasty hateful bad. See what the consensus is.

Be informed before buying.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: RideFree

Originally posted by: lazarus000
does getting SR mess up your tivo/replaytv/sattelite/home security phone connections?


ie tivo downloads the tv schedule each night ... will it dial through SR just like a normal phone line?

I'm surprised no one has responded by now.

While TiVO may or may not work, there is absolutely no cost to try it yourself and find out first hand.
Best case scenario = works great, saves you a ton of money over POTS.
Worst case scenario=does not work, you keep free phones and POTS.

I responded earlier...

"quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: lazarus000
does getting SR mess up your tivo/replaytv/sattelite/home security phone connections?


ie tivo downloads the tv schedule each night ... will it dial through SR just like a normal phone line?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You should have no issues with your normal internet service working with SunRocket. It would go...

Cable/DSL modem >> SunRocket Gizmo >> Router >> PC's, TiVo, etc

That said, I had intermittent issues with the SunRocket Gizmo in front of my cablemodem. I can not confirm it was the Gizmo causing the issues but I must say I strongly suspect it was the problem because my internet service was very reliable before the Gizmo."

 

[labgeek]

Originally posted by: georgepa

(10/31/2005 04:23 PM )
...
They may not implicitly state that they may be subject to their own outages, but come on. That is not the typical idea behind VOIP. es, SR had some outages in the past, but hardware upgrades and redundancy installs are supposed to keep them to a minimum, and if SR did the necessary that should be the case.
...

I've been reading this thread for some time now and find the circular nature of the thread somewhat amusing. I personally use VoIP from another provider. And since I have over 2 years worth of credits for referrals, I'm not likely to change anytime soon. But I do like to keep up on these things.

One of the recurring circles that happens is someone like the above talking about outages "in the past". But then a day, two, or maybe a week later, I see another thread like

Originally posted by: mindblendeR
SURPRISE SURPISE!!!

SUNROCKET SERVICE IS DOWN NATIONWIDE AGAIN:

Text

That was posted 5 hours and 8 minutes after the "in the past" comment. So what does "in the past" mean to everyone exactly? I take it as there were problems but they've been corrected. That's clearly not the case here. I've watched this thread for too long to believe that "in the past" means it's better now.

I also take exception to the terms "rewarded" and "reward points" in connection with the outages, though I understand exactly why those were chosen. Rewards carry a positive connotation. A more appropriate term would be "comensation points". They are in effect giving you something to repay you for something they failed to provide "in the past".

Lastly, I use VoIP as my primary line and use cell phones as they were designed to be used - as mobile communications, not as backup to the tried and true land line. VoIP to be accepted large scale has to come pretty damn close to the reliability of the old POTS offerings from the Bells. Several in this thread talk about the outages as if they are common to all VoIP carriers with this frequency. They aren't. I cannot tell you of a single time that I have personal direct knowledge of my VoIP provider having an outage in the past year. The only times I was down, it was a localized ISP provider that affected me and/or my neighborhood. I raised enough hell and it was fixed, and hasn't happened again. The VoIP provider was functioning as they should the whole time.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: Mythman
For me, the savings far outweigh the minor lapses in service. I say minor because my wife and I rarely use the phone for anything other than calling her Dad in Alabama every now and then. We're not "chatters" and we don't have a business to worry about. Our cell phones are even minimalist in nature - $12.50/month with 45 mins of "free" time.

Same boat here. Website reviews this, website reviews that. Blah. I know my personal experience, and I've not had any reason to complain about SunRocket since the first day I got it, besides those two outages (one of which I was never home to notice). Both times I was compensated by SunRocket with reward points.

I'm sticking with them. The service has been great, and I expect that SR's hiccups are a thing of the past now.

 

[labgeek]

Originally posted by: astrosfan90
I'm sticking with them. The service has been great, and I expect that SR's hiccups are a thing of the past now.

I can understand the sticking with them - that's a personal value vs. hassle question. And "service has been great", that's an opinion. Can't argue that... you can disagree, but his opinion is that it's great. But how can people just keep jumping to the conclusion that "SR's hiccups are a thing of the past now" when they had an outage LESS THAN 24 HOURS AGO. That's what I don't understand.

 

[jjm]

Georgpa - I give you the benefit of the doubt, thinking perhaps there is just some over-zealous praise on your part. But I think your attempt to justify a direct statement you made by explaining it away as "everybody should know this" seriously undermines your credibility.

And, as others are pointing out, SR's problems are not all in the past. They appear to be here still.

I accept that to you (and others) the price vs. quality trade-off is okay. But some do not share that view with you - and for equally valid reasons. Why are you being so defensive about SR? It will sink or swim depending upon whether or not enough people think it delivers a good price/performance value. Nothing more or less. So far, it's still kicking, so it must be able to generate enough customer interest to keep going. Long-term, who knows? I suspect that if other services deliver greater reliability, even at a slightly higher price, SR will fall away. That's what competition fosters. Last I checked, that's what capitalism was supposed to force.

And the free phones are a non-issue. They are a small up-front benefit. From the text in these posts so far, I think the large majority of users (you included) are far more interested in long-term savings. In fact, I suspect most people had a perfectly good set of phones they could have used if they just transferred the service. SR was simply trying to make it easier to try its service. Great for them, but the phones are not exactly a windfall. I think, and others seem to agree as well, that the phones certainly don't make up for poor quality phone service.

Defend SR as much as you like, but stick to the facts. Show some balance and deference to those who legitimately have a different opinion based on different experiences. In most of the posts where SR is taken to task, some decent justification is offered.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: labgeek

Originally posted by: astrosfan90
I'm sticking with them. The service has been great, and I expect that SR's hiccups are a thing of the past now.

I can understand the sticking with them - that's a personal value vs. hassle question. And "service has been great", that's an opinion. Can't argue that... you can disagree, but his opinion is that it's great. But how can people just keep jumping to the conclusion that "SR's hiccups are a thing of the past now" when they had an outage LESS THAN 24 HOURS AGO. That's what I don't understand.

My phone's been working when I needed it to. Not really in reference to anyone in particular, but I really have to take everything I read about the service (opinion-wise) with a grain of salt. So I listen to what's said, but at the end of the day, when I pick up my phone at home and call Moscow for a cheaper rate than I'll get anywhere else, and with crystal clear quality to boot, I have a hard time finding a reason to complain.