Signing Up

When I signed up, I didn’t know they were getting deluged with new orders so I did not get their “rush processing”. I opted for their free shipping which waives a $9.95 fee. But after waiting a few days with no movement on the order, I submitted a ticket asking for rush processing and for them to add the $9.95 rush fee. Well it took another few days for them to send out the order. So much for rush processing. On the order it still listed the $9.95 shipping fee but no mention of rush processing. Oh well.

Getting the Right Special

The day I signed up, they changed the “buy 1 year, get 1 year free” special to “buy 1 year, get 3 months” just a few hours after I signed up. So obviously after getting my equipment and having the account set up, my next concern was whether I was getting the right deal. I logged into my account and lo and behold, I got 15 months instead of 24. So I submitted a ticket asking for the proper credit and explaining my situation. This ticket literally got ignored for 2 months. Sounds ridiculous but I’m serious - it was submitted on Aug 5th and by Oct 1st, it had no response from staff and was placed on hold so I couldn’t even add to the ticket. So I submitted another ticket with the same info on Oct 1st and this time I get a faster response. This time it finally gets resolved. The older ticket finally got a response on Oct 13, by the way.

Asking for the PAP2 Admin Password

The adapter that Viatalk sent me is a Linksys PAP2. In order to tweak some of the more advanced settings, it requires a password that only Viatalk can give you. So I submitted a ticket requesting this information on Sept 4. They ask me for verification information which I provide. Viatalk then proceeds to ignore this ticket for 3 weeks. Finally another support rep responds, asking for the SAME information that I already provided in the ticket. Seriously? Come on, now.

I provide the same info again and Viatalk disappears for another month. During this time I reply to my own ticket repeatedly. I then resort to copying and pasting a one line reply every few days asking for the password info. On Oct 23 (yesterday), the guy finally provides the information and adds that replying to my own ticket only delays the response because they answer tickets based on how long ago the last reply was.

Well, I beg to differ Mr. Iversen, because replying repeatedly actually got me a response but waiting a month doesn’t. You fail as a company when you annoy the hell out of your customers. You really have to question Viatalk’s long term viability when so many customers complain about poor customer service. How many will stay after their contract is up?

The Service Itself

The service works fine most of the time. But for some odd reason, some outgoing calls fail to connect on first try - this happens sporadically but a few numbers never work. Another odd thing is when I call my home phone using my business line, it goes straight to voicemail and the incoming call doesn’t show up on my home line. I wonder how many other people have called my home and experienced this?

Final Thoughts

Overall, it’s dirt cheap phone service ($199 for 2 years plus $2.50 per month of USF and taxes). It comes out to just $10.80 per month for unlimited calling nationwide. My home phone doesn’t get used much so I’d like to keep the cost as low as possible. I understand you get what you pay for, but for simple tickets like mine that don’t involve any technical troubleshooting, it shouldn’t take 1-2 months just to reply. All they had to do was look up the relevant info.

You could say “well, why didn’t you just call?” - you have to wait on hold for at least 45 minutes before you reach someone! Numerous people have complained that hold times are ridiculously long, many times taking hours. I think even 10 minutes is too long, not to mention 45. Do you have the time to sit around waiting on hold for that long?! And the whole point was that my issues were minor so I was willing to use the ticket system. However, I’m NOT willing to wait 2 months for a reply.

Anyone know of other decent VoIP providers? This whole support fiasco has left a very sour taste in my mouth.

More important info after the jump:

Today:
SunRocket is Toast, MEMO

Last Friday:
The SunRocket is Down for the Count

SunRocket Forums at DSLreports.com:
SunRocket Forums
A lot of ex-employees from SR have come in confirming that SR is going down.

Worst part of it all is that there has been NO official notification from SR to its customers so unless you read tech blogs or follow forums like dslreports.com you have no idea what’s going on. It also leaves a lot of uncertainty regarding whether phone service will abruptly stop and whether customers’ numbers can be ported out.

I strongly recommend anyone who is at SunRocket to sign up at a new provider whether it be VoIP or landline and start porting your numbers out of SR immediately.

I just signed up at Viatalk, another VoIP company. They have a decent 2-for-1 yearly $199 deal and you can use the code SHIPFREE to get free shipping on their adapter.

Based on comments from SR insiders, it looks like SunRocket was mismanaged. The original founders lost control to the VC’s and the new management team just messed it all up (ex-AOL chronies, so it’s not surprising). It’s sad because I was happy with SR’s quality of service. Good luck to all current SR customers!

Midnight Update:
New York Times and AP have reported on this now (here and here) so there should be no doubt left as to SR’s fate. I find it appalling the company STILL has not made an official statement. Even supervisors and directors at SR’s call center were completely unaware of problems until the last second when the call center was shut down and everyone lost their jobs! Unbelievable.

My service is still up on 2 separate SR lines. Call quality gets choppy intermittently but for the most part it still seems to be working fine. Some people have reported service stoppage.

ViaTalk Update:
Viatalk is now very backed up due to a large influx of orders from SR customers. If you’re switching I’d recommend getting the Rush processing, although I’m not sure how much faster it really is.

Now about Vonage. Their IPO has tanked. From what I read they have never turned a profit and they’re struggling to maintain subscriber growth. They’re relatively more expensive than the other small VoIP shops, but still cheaper than what the telcos are offering. But there are plenty of small VoIP providers that have very good quality and lower prices (like SunRocket). Now Vonage is being sued by Verizon over patent infringement which is sure to drive their stock price even lower. I’m sure the institutional investors of Vonage are not very happy.

And what the hell? They’re spending their IPO money on things like crappy new logos and World Cup sponsorships?? How about improving infrastructure and marketing. FIFA sponsorship (in my opinion) is better suited if you’re a large established company trying to bolster branding. Not if you’re a relatively tiny firm competing against huge telcos and trying to grab market share. I’m sure the FIFA sponsorships I see on ESPN must cost a lot.

And their logo - wow, seriously what a POS. It looks horrible and way too forgettable. The V just doesnt jibe at all with the rest of the letters. The V has that edgy, kind of non-standard look and then the rest of the letters uses a serif font. The V is sans-serif and the rest is serif. DOES NOT MATCH. And what’s the point of the random blue dot? Might as well have left it the way it was, which was fine. And the blue/orange combo is getting so cliche. C’mon my simple little blog design uses the same color combination. By the way, my blog is due for redesign. Just got to get over designer’s block.