Reviews for Future Nine

Ratings

Posted: 11/11/2009

Reviewed by: dowjones4k (xxx.xxx.102.240)

this company is terrible. i paid for a 2 year and now they will not refund my unused portion. their service is terrible as is customer service. i have reverberations and dropped voice packets. i was with ATT call advantage prior and everything was great.

right now they point their finger saying the quality of the line is bad therefore their is nothing they can do. ATT has been to my home now 3 times and made different changes just to appease me. i never had a moments problem with ATT call advantage VOIP but they are discontinuing the service.

i would recommend if you go with this company you pay by the month only and i would do it for some time if not forever.

Ratings

Posted: 08/14/2009

Not that great

Reviewed by: webafella (xxx.xxx.98.241)

The call quality was not good and most of the times people could not even hear me. I could not get through to numbers even mobile numbers in UK. I would not recommend them unless you are looking for something cheap,poor support and line quality.

Ratings

Posted: 06/11/2009

Didn't work for me

Reviewed by: cwc3d (xxx.xxx.224.44)

Future-nine has good rates, but may not be ready for prime-time (they are in Beta after all). My problem is that I would get very obvious audio dropouts. These dropouts are long enough to disrupt any conversation that I would be having (up to 1-2 seconds in some cases). I tried multiple types of analog phone adapters with different settings, as well as softphone software on my laptop, but all exhibited the same problems. I contacted customer support, and after an initial quick response, they have stopped responding, and the problem still exists. I don't think it is a problem with my local internet connection because I have no problems with other VOIP providers.

Future-nine seems to have a lot or promise, but if you rely on you phone connection it may be best to wait until they come out of Beta.

Ratings

Posted: 04/09/2009

Nice Provider

Reviewed by: remster77 (xxx.xxx.96.69)

Quality of sound is great.A little tricky getting setup. Took a few days to get phone number.Also had some issues and only customer service was via email.Took a few emails and a day and service was up and running.If you are patient and a little tech savy not a bad way to get affordable voip service.You can bring in your own hardware or order through them.

Ratings

Posted: 08/26/2009

Reviewed by: abripl (xxx.xxx.231.177)

Been with Future Nine for about 3 months. Got three accounts from them - two lines for our place and one for my mom. The sound quality is quite good - very rare to have any drops. You need to be a little on the techie side (or get a techie friend) to set things up - they don't do it for you. But once you got is setup it just keeps running. You can quit anytime after you use up your balance - unlike tenacious Vonage. Don't expect customer service by phone. It is by email and they responded every time. That is how they keep those prices down. I recommend the Bare Essentials plan for $75/year which includes 250 min monthly long distance in US/Canada. You need some extra money on the account for those overseas calls. They work only on account balance - no monthly bills (again keeps their cost down).

So you got to make your choices - Vonage type at $25/mo (and tentacles) or FN for about $8/mo ($75/yr + a few bucks for overseas).

Ratings

Posted: 11/12/2008

Great little phone company, few frills, but simple, rock-solid service and great rates

Reviewed by: John Mikesell (xxx.xxx.115.180)

This little phone company is the greatest if you do not mind configuring your own equipment. You can bring your own adapter or buy one (refurbished) from them at a very fair price. They provide setup instructions for the refurbished Linksys adapter that they provide or that you can order new from various vendors on the Internet. They've posted configuration instructions for several other brands. I recommend the Linksys adapter, as it works great with their service. I opened one account and sent the corresponding adapter to a brother-in-law overseas and opened another account for my home office. The service is just peachy. Their prices are real prices--no hidden fees, light-weight connect & disconnect fees. I never get the feeling, as generally happens with other telephony providers, that I'm being milked by connect fees, disconnect fees, equipment fees, change fees, feature fees, taxes, unexpected fees, and less than promised service.  Future-nine tells you what it's going to cost and charges you what they tell you, and they don't threaten you with staggering disconnect fees should you think of quiting. This company is still in beta, so don't expect the fit and finish or features that you expect from more established providers. However, you can weigh that against the price and simplicity, especially for international dialing, which is significantly cheaper than any of the biggies. This is great service for international access to a US telephone number and local US-dialing. Right now (Nov 08), in beta, I'd call Future-Nine a telephone service by techies for techies. While light on features that the Marketing types like to dangle in front of you, and the Web site is pretty basic, don't let that fool you. What's implemented is no-frills rock-solid. And as other reviewers point out, they get back to you within hours when you post a question. Myself, being a techie (I work at a VOIP hardware company), and having a wife who wants to talk to her overseas family, I just love Future-Nine. Believe me, I've tried a lot of different telephone service providers, so my love doesn't come easy. One caveat, for this as for any other VOIP service; the faster your internet, the better quality-of-service. My voice quality is great with cable, but I don't do a lot of high-bandwidth browsing. Note that you can adjust most adapters so that they provide better voice quality while using a little more bandwidth--I configure my adapter to give me the best quality of service while consuming more bandwidth. I don't notice any poorer Internet browsing, but then I don't do a lot of high-volume browsing.

Ratings

Posted: 09/30/2008

Provider with a good future

Reviewed by: Harry (xxx.xxx.165.166)

Future-Nine is a VoIP provider whose product is still in Beta, but generally available nonetheless.  What that means to users is that there are features that are planned but not yet implemented.  In the mean time, however, they provide a VERY inexpensive product with good sound quality and, thus far (2 weeks) reliable service.  Although they have no live, real-time support, support emails receive rapid attention and get quick responses.  Future-Nine does not have its own softphone to download, but there are many free phones available on the web and the website does give configuration information.  As for hardware, they sell used PAP-2T ATA devices for about the same price as new ones on Amazon.  Their all-inclusive plan is only $13.50, however, and that can't be beat.  They also offer a pay-as-you-go plan with domestic and Canadian calls at 1 cent per minute, and a 250 minute plan for $7 monthly, including a DID number (normally $5 a la carte).  Each of their monthly plans can be purchased for a year at the prices fo $75 and $135 respectively.  Although they don't offer "free second line", I suspect a user can create one via the clone line feature of the PAP-2T.  Their web site is not the most clear, nor the most artistic and the FAQ's fail to address many issues of interest.  Nonethe less, I would highly recommend this provider based on my experience with them.

Ratings

Posted: 09/08/2008

Honest(!) provider, things just work!

Reviewed by: vikram17

My experience to-date with VoIP providers was horrible... providers that overcharge, invent fake "taxes" like "regulatory recovery fee", raise prices arbitrarily, and just plain dishonest. They advertise one price, and you get another... to say the least I was wary in my search of a new provider.When I saw Future Nine, I wasn't too impressed with their website. It is a bit lacking and not too easy to navigate through. I did however immediately noticed they mention that they do not charge any fees other than advertised which was an immediate point for me. And looking at their prices, too, I don't think I've ever seen a cheaper provider... I don't know how these guys make money!So, anyway, I figured I'll give it a try and signed up for an account. Inside their web console they let you buy credit with Google Checkout or PayPal. You can't use credit card directly, but you can use it through Google Checkout. But hey- all the better... I'd rather give Google my card info than any provider these days - at least I know that if something goes wrong they can't charge my card at will!Their web console has this link "sip info" you can use if you BYOD. Took some time to find, but after I figured it out, it took 2 minutes to setup my adapter (PAP2). They also have a FAQ entry for some device configurations. I brought my own device, but it looks like they sell PAP2's for $45 including shipping for their users - great price on that too.. would've got it if I needed an adapter.I've had them for 4 months now, and I must say I'm impressed. Call quality has been the best I've ever experienced with VoIP. Incoming calls have Caller ID Name unlike most other providers I tried, and best of all - there are no surprise bills!!! they advertise $13.5/month and for a change that's what they actually deduct from my credit every month!! :)I've had to contact support only a couple of times to ask about a couple of settings in my adapter, but both times I had an answer within a few hours and it completely fixed the issue. I don't know about other adapters, but for PAP2 these guys know what they're doing it seems...

Ratings

Posted: 03/11/2008

Reviewed by: Anonymous

Positive experience.