Reviews for Bandwidth.com BandwidthVoIP - Basic

Ratings

Posted: 09/21/2009

avoid Bandwidth.com at all cost

Reviewed by: phippsw (xxx.xxx.148.192)

We have used their managed VOIP services and have had trouble from the start to the finish over a two year period. Our phones are at multiple locations and cost us @$350 per phone, so the initial investment caused us to stick around to try and work through the pains. We have had trouble with phones and they continue to bill for them even when they can't get them to work. When we asked for a refund for unused service since they couldn't get them to work they forced us to pay for the the months of inoperable service. They then held our numbers hostage and threatened to shut our phones down without allowing us to port them elsewhere if we did not pay them in full for the non-working service. They ignored the FCC laws, requiring them to release our numbers, when their was a billing dispute. They even billed us for an extra 40 days on each phone that didn't work after we told them that we wanted the phones disconnected since we couldn't use them. They said that it's in our contract to request disconnect 40 days in advance. I believe that this is meant for phones that actually work though. This company has the worst customer service of any company I've ever worked with. I highly recommend running from these guys as fast as you can. This was a nightmare of an experience. When someone holds your numbers hostage, and therefore your business is held hostage, you have no choice but to pay what they want. This is a very unfair and unethical situation that the FCC will not be able to help you with in any way. They know it's a problem but just don't have the power to police these guys. Be careful!! Better yet, stay clear of these guys!!

Ratings

Posted: 06/30/2009

Phonebooth consistant outages of service.

Reviewed by: unclebeen (xxx.xxx.241.37)

I'm writing this while in the midst of what is now going on 50 minutes of outage of the Phonebooth service. I fear I'm in store for a repeat of events from 3 months ago, when this happened at least once a week from 10:30am to about 11:30am for about 3 weeks, where outside callers try to call in and don't hear a ring, just dead air, on our side we hear the ring and pick up, but we can't then hear the caller and they can't hear us. Bandwidth.com eventually seems to "fix" the problem, but fails to keep their promise of issuing an explanation of what happened and what measures they've taken to fix it permanently; then it happens again almost as clock work the next week. Beyond that, we seem to have intermittent trouble with the phone service fairly constantly, especially if the call is outside of a few hundred miles of our location.

We've done everything they've recommended to insure quality service, like we got a Tier 1 internet connection through them, put the entire phone system on a separate dedicated LAN, yet, after doing all that, we kept dealing with the exact same periodic disturbances in service that we were experiencing before we did that.

I don't know if their SIP Trunks avoid all these issues, but I guess we'll find out, because the Phonebooth service apparently doesn't work reliably enough to be used in a real world environment.

Personally, I'd recommend staying away from the Phonebooth experiment until you start seeing a stream of positive reviews about its quality from long time customers. We've been a customer for more than 6 months now, and they definitely are making improvements, but the service is just not reliable and not worth the risk, and we're going to have to go to something else.

Ratings

Posted: 11/17/2008

Reviewed by: garydean (xxx.xxx.153.99)

After speaking with multiple companies I choose bandwidth.com. The sales rep that I worked with was knowledgable and answered all my question and concerns. I moved from an old Panasonic system that I inherited with the office space that I leasing. After paying a local phone guy a small fortune for setup and a couple of changes I decided it was time for a change. I like to feel that I'm pretty tech savy and along with a little help from their customer support was able to get my hosted phonebooth up and running. It's early, but so far I'm very happy with my decision.

Ratings

Posted: 06/13/2008

So far so good

Reviewed by: far182

Good sales proccess.  Not pushy at all and very friendly.  They are one of the more expensive solutions around but their reputation for quality and reliability are top.  They standardize on the Edgemarc ALG Voip gateways which I have experience with.  This says alot about how much they care about voice quality.  With the Edgemarc the phone quality is as good as a PRI.Ordered a T1 and 10 Unlimited Two-Way SIP trunks from them.  They promised 45 days from order to install and delivered in about 35.  The T1 is a Qwest T1.  I required a very basic extended Dmarc, but they still wanted to charge me over $300 extra for it.  Considering I wanted the provider to be completely responsible for the quality of the solution, I decided to pay for them to-do it.  While waiting for the install I checked my online portal.  I noticed they had forgot to add my Suite number on our building address.  Worried that this would cause problems I emailed and called my install coordinator about it and was promised it would be resolved.  He did update my address on the online portal, but somehow their system still had our address without our suite number.  Since there are about 45 companies in our building, when Qwest came out to install the extended Dmarc they didn't know where to go.  They didn't do it.  I had to call into bandwidth.com and have them coordinate sending Qwest back out to-do the Dmarc.  Not that big of a deal, but worth noting.Also, I was getting worred because we still hadn't recieved our router.  The install coordinator said they were delayed because of a backorder on parts.  He promised that when it came in he would overnight it to me.  The router came in and they configured it.  But instead of overnighting it, it came ground shipping.  This took 8 days to get to us.  Again, not a big deal but worth noting.The router came in and I plugged it into the T1.  The T1 lit up perfectly.  Though the LAN side IP was not set correctly by them (they have you fill out a questionair on how you want it).  The next day I worked with the Activations team and they reconfigured the router per our needs and internal network.  Working with them took a lot longer because the router wasn't pre-configured correctly, but their service was top notch.  These people are very nice and really know customer service.  Ontop of all that they are very technical and know how to-do their jobs well.  This is a rarity in ISP's.Once activated we placed many test calls and they were fantastic.  The service is absolutely stunning.  Also, the Internet is very speedy and feels like a Teir1 provider.Sadly, we had forgot to test DTMF before ending our call with activations.  We soon found out that DTMF wasn't functioning.  I called into support and was quickly greeted with yet another very nice and friendly support person.  They took my ticket and said someone would get back to me in 1/2 hour.  As they promised, a tier2 tech did call us back.  We worked on the issue for a few hours and foundout that our PBX had DTMF compatibility issues with the voice provider they had us on.  Their level3 tech put us on one of their other providers and this solved the problem.All in all the experience has been great and the service is very high quality so far.  If choosing again, I would for sure go with Bandwidth.com.  Great quality phone and Internet and friendly customer service.  There might be a few mild bumps getting started, but all in all they are a great fit for us.If you need a rock solid service, Bandwidth.com is a great choice.

Ratings

Posted: 04/14/2008

Exelent Customer Service

Reviewed by: Anonymous

Ratings

Posted: 01/29/2008

Issues

Reviewed by: Anonymous

We run an in-house PBX, found 1 engineer of 4 that actually tried to help us solve our problem with dropped calls, and DTMF tones NOT working. Billing couldn't care less that our experience sucked. We had crossed calls where we were discussing confidential client information and then all of a sudden we were talking to someone else and our vendor was talking to someone else. Installation instructions are wrong - I had to fix them on their site. Engineers weren't even aware of instructions on their site. Currently looking for a new provider.

Ratings

Posted: 01/26/2008

Just installed... felt like a Beta tester

Reviewed by: Robert

This company means well but its processes procedures and communication with the customer leave A LOT to be desired. Port dates were wrong. Equipment did not ship, the still did not ship. The gateway we paid to have configured arrived unconfigured taking my time and that of the installation tech on the phone. It is still not completely set up. The initial installation coordinator did not return calls. We still have no documentation for the system.

Ratings

Posted: 01/03/2008

Cancellation is a nightmare

Reviewed by: Anonymous

Seconding the review regarding cancellation.. I knew in advance it would be difficult, so I made sure to start the process 2 months before the end of the contract. Opening up the disconnect request was tricky, and obtaining a confirmation took a while.

When the contract eventually ended, we got billed for the full last final month of the service, instead of just the portion of the month until the end of the contract. Getting a rebate for the unused portion of the month was difficult but possible. It took about a week.

The icing on the cake was receiving a bill for the month AFTER our contract expired. After all this, they still tried to bill us!!!!!

I've called them twice over a couple days and I have still not been able to talk to somebody there who can handle the situation. They tell me they are "investigating" it and that they will contact me.

Very sad.

Ratings

Posted: 12/11/2007

Reviewed by: Morgan

Service is OK when it works. When there are problems you have a big problem. Tech support staff are horrible, don't care if your business is unable to communicate.

Ratings

Posted: 02/14/2007

Very Bad Customer Service

Reviewed by: Anonymous

Be very careful with this company. I just had a nightmare ending my contract with bandwidth.com. I called many many times to make sure I ended the contract correctly and on time. Despite following the instructions given to me by their customer support, I ended up paying for an extra two weeks of service that went beyond my contract. You must call them EXACTLY 30 days prior to the end of your contract to cancel. If you call too early they will charge you cancelation fees. If you call too late, they automatically start billing you month to month and you will end up paying for service you did not want or need. Very shady.