My Quest for VoIP

So, I mentioned last week that I am not happy with Packet8.net. They have asked for a second chance. I'll let you know how that works out.

But, I know that I shouldn't put all my eggs in one basket so I decided to look around for other services.

Voip.com has a softphone service that I signed up for. Here is my experience:

What Impressed Me.

Unlimited calling for $14.95 per month. With no set up cost.

I was also very pleased that the first month was free. Not a, "Pay for your first month, and if you don't like it, we'll give you a refund." It was a no payment up-front option.

Where it started to go downhill.

After I started the account, I clicked on the download button in my account and it was a broken link. I had to go out of my account page to find the download. Finally I got the softphone installed, received my phone number and got everything to work... or so I thought.

I found that I could call out with no problem. My friend indicated that the quality was good and that he thought it would do.

I had him call me and the call didn't come through. It went to my voice mail.

I fiddled with it and tried again. No luck.

User Forums.

So, my next step was to contact support. They have user forums, so I looked there first. I read through countless posts about people who had problems, but there didn't seem to be a resolution. I was a little concerned when by noon there were already 50 problem requests in the user form.

There was something in a few of the forums about firewall blocking, but there was no indication as to what ports to open up or how to make it work.

I tried to post my own question in the forum to get an answer, but I had to login to post. When I used my username and password, it wouldn't let me in. Maybe it required a different account for the forums... it wasn't easy to understand.

Calling them.

I finally decided to give them a call... which I absolutely hate having to do. You shouldn't have to call for support on an internet based service.

When I went to the contact form of the page, I had to answer a few question first. I am sure that the goal was to limit the number of callers that get through, but it was a pain. I knew that I couldn't get it to work. I knew that I needed support.

When I finally got the number and called, I was number 2 in the queue. I was number 2 in the queue for about 10 minutes then I was number 1 in the queue for another 10 minutes.

The gentleman that answered the phone was nice enough, but didn't understand the product and had no point answering for technical support. As we started to talk about the issue I was having, he decided that he wanted to recreate it... good idea. He called my number and experience the same problem. His response was that it seemed as though the service was being blocked.

I knew that.

I asked him how to fix the blocking problem on my router. He wasn't exactly sure. I told him the forums were less than helpful on this subject. Then he said, "The person in the forum... I can't remember his name... he is the one that is responsible for the product. He is the one you should ask."

hmmmmm.

I told him that it really shouldn't be this hard. It should be an easy process. I told him that if I couldn't figured it out relatively soon, then I would have to cancel the service.

To my surprise, he said, "I don't blame you."

At least there was honesty in his answer. He recognized that if it was hard, I shouldn't be responsible to pay or even have the service.

So, since he couldn't help, forums couldn't help and my knowledge wasn't enough, I canceled the account.

In the end.

This service seemed to have good sound quality for what I needed... but only worked on outbound calls for me. Seven digit calling doesn't seem to exist. I couldn't figure out how to call into my voicemail. I couldn't get any semblance of technical support.

It may sound a little arrogant to say, but I consider myself a reasonably smart person when it comes to internet technologies. I figure if I can't figure it out, then there must be a decent number of other people that can't.

So, no to VoIP.com.