Great Service @ Affordable Price

Ratings

Posted: 06/12/2009

Reviewed by: pgprivacy (xxx.xxx.108.114)

I 'm going to post my whole review after this little blurb. First I have been in the computer field since I was a teenager and am 29 now. Before making your mind up whether to get PhonePower based on the mixed reviews\horror stories? Think about this saying "There are two sides to every story and somewhere in the middle you will find the truth?".

With any service that goes over the internet there are going to be hiccups. In a perfect world the internet would be perfect eg. ISPs would clear congestion immediately on their networks, servers would not crash, there would not be any mis-communication, people would meet each other in the middle over disagreements. Since this is NOT A PERFECT world and s#$t does happen, it takes alot less effort to smear a company on the internet then it does to work with them.

Before you order PhonePower take the time and do some preparation. A good place to start is by running this test a few times spread out over 24 hours.

http://speedtest.phonepower.com/repeat.html

If you need some help interpreting and\or unsure about the results give them a call. Most people would agree taking 10-15 minutes to help ensure trouble free
service is alot better then porting your number, then b!@#ching that PhonePower, ISP, etc. screwed you over?

Next VoIp is NOT perfect! I will repeat NOT PERFECT! If you ISP is experiencing packet loss, jitter, congestion, your call(s) may sound like s@#t? There is generally not much that can be done about this? For instance out of hundreds of calls we make a month, we might get one that has a slight echo. Granted our ISP is not the best but is certainly not the worst.

Lastly, remember why you are switching to VoIp? TO SAVE $$$... It usually is a trade off between quality of service vs. cost and features. Will Verizon give you Caller ID, Call Waiting, Voice mail, 5,000 long distance minutes, plus the ones in the link below for 20.00 or less? Just something to think about before someone reading this feels the need to whine because there service "sucks"

http://www.phonepower.com/services/voip/features.aspx

If you like this review, have something to add, need a little extra help, etc. feel free to contact me at this url.
http://www.dslreports.com/useremail/u/1387637

---MY REVIEW---

I ordered my service on the 26th and put in a request to have my number ported ASAP. My number was ported without any problems; in fact Verizon hit the button within an hour of getting my device.

Hooked up my device to my Linksys WRT54G and my voice had a 5 second lag and was choppy. Tech support called me back 3-5 times after being disconnected and trying different options. The DDWRT firmware showed that I was using 70kbps of upstream bandwidth? After giving up on phone support simply because I was so frustrated because it was so time consuming I decided to see if someone on Live Chat could help me.

Well I decided to re-group my thoughts and started out by asking him if anyone had problems with the Linksys WRT54G. In fact they had and he said it had to do with the SPI setting not turning off. I remembered turning it off before but nothing happened. So I’m like what the hell I’m going to give it another shot. That made all the difference!

To give back to the community I made some screen shots to show people my setup with a Westell 2200 in bridge mode. Just follow them and you will be good to go. Also make sure to setup a DHCP static IP and a DMZ.

»www.mediafire.com/napster

Concept is the same for most any router to work with PhonePower the location of the options are just different. As an added bonus I added a voice mail they left me to show how friendly\laid back they are. I asked to be called back in the mourning and the rep made it with 11 minutes to spare.

Special thanks to DSLR label PcInTech (www.wildcatrecording.com) who runs an indie record label out Massena and cleaned up the audio for me.