In today's digital age, communication between businesses and consumers has become more prevalent and convenient than ever before. However, with this increased communication comes the need for...
ACN Digital Phone Service vs CallCentric
Compare ACN Digital Phone Service vs CallCentric. Find out whether ACN Digital Phone Service or CallCentric is better for your VoIP business or home needs. The experts at VoipReview have analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of ACN Digital Phone Service and CallCentric and detailed analysis of the comparison can be found below.
User Ratings & Reviews
- 10 Reviews
- 25 Reviews
Overview:
ACN is a digital phone service provider that offers calling solutions, wireless services, utilities, and more for both residential and business use. For businesses, ACN lets customers choose between either a VoIP service or traditional wireline...
CallCentric is an internet phone service provider that uses either your computer or a telephone adapter to place calls via the internet. CallCentric allows for free calls to other CallCentric customers and low-...
Provider Info
- Website: www.myacn.com
- Headquarters Country:
- Founder Year: 2002
- Website: www.callcentric.com/
- Headquarters Country:
- Founder Year: 2003
Plans Available*
- N/A
- N/A
Users Average Rating
Recent User Reviews
I was a customer for 6 years. A few months ago, the lines suddenly went dead (voice and separate fax). I called support and they figured out the adaptor went dead. They sent me a new one. After a few months, I ported my numbers to another company. They charged me for a new month days after the porting. Then they hit me with a $90 early termination fee and a $14.99 transfer fee (each line). With taxes it came to $255. This in addition to the $55 for the month after the porting. The reason for $255 charge was because of the new equipment. Equipment that replaced their defective equipment! Stay away. A complete rip off.
TERRIBLE TELEPHONE COMPANY! Was charged $60.00 for the equipment that I was also not apprised of an extra expense when I connected with the service. Asked why the extra charge and was told it was for equipment. When I went to ask where to return said equipment, it is now an extra charge for starting and there is an extra charge to terminate service. The early termination charge was over $80.00...so that is one hundred and forty more for a really crappy service and equipment that is now more e-waste. Had been assured it would cost no more than the current service with the land line per month, it was ten dollars more per month...with the start up costs and the early end fees it was a lot more than ten bucks a month more. Was disappointed that I had to go through the inconvenience of changing #’s temporarily to port my # and was not pleased to be charged for equipment in order to use ACN's service. I would not have had to pay an extra amount to continue to use a land line without a temporary change in my phone # and I would not have been out of commission to receive calls during this time either. However, I paid this extra expense without complaint, assuming that the inconvenience of the switch and the extra expense would see some benefit to having a digital service over the land line. However, I had a number of times where the phone was not functioning at all so I had no phone service at all and a number of times that I had to wait a lengthly time to dial a number and a number of times where the dial tone was delayed in functioning as well. However, I continued to use the service without complaint on my end, even though I was finding the service much less than satisfactory than the land line that worked without fail. The reason I returned to a land line is because I had an incident with the home alarm company that highlighted the fact that ACN's service was not compatible with our alarm company’s service…and many others as well…without a large expenditure and another dedicated phone line. We have a monitored alarm system that was not in service during the entire time that we were a ACN customer. Had I had a fire, theft or emergency incident I would not have been able to use this service. Had I had issues during the times the phone was out of service entirely, I would have had to go my neighbours for 911 service. During this time my husband was out of town working most of the time and I was alone in the home. I don't use a cel phone, one cel phone bill is enough expense for us. We paid for this security service the entire time without actually having a land line connected to the service. Over 30.00 a month for 11 months for service I was not actually receiving ~ $330.00 for security I was not actually benefitting from because I was an ACN customer. Asked ACN to please, please notify their customers that their monitored alarm systems do not function with this digital service. No feedback. Had I been aware of this issue, I would not have become an ACN customer in the first place. Would expect that this would be an issue with many other customers who also have monitored alarm systems with land lines. Would like to return the ACN equipment and had expected some refund of equipment costs. Nope, there was a large charge to end a dysfunctional relationship. More e-waste in my home needing to go to the recycle centre. Have had other tech companies collect their equipment but ACN likes to download the costs onto everyone else, instead of taking some ownership of the fact that they are creating more e-waste with starting up clients and then very shortly, in my case, having them disconnect services. Had they been a decent service we would have been long term clients and the equipment would have had a lengthly service. Was not going to complain about the fact that I was left unsecured for almost a year (and paid over 300.00 for nothing). The fact that I am not the only one that would not have an alarm system functioning in the home is a larger issue so it's prompting me to add this review. The fact that the story of charges changes to suit them is pretty brutal customer service. The fact that you could be entirely without a phone all together is a pretty big problem with a phone service provider. After my last chat with customer service I don't feel they are interested in communicating the down sides of porting a land line to a digital platform to current or new clients. It would be much better customer service to recognize the safety issues that are not being dealt with in the home. ACN is going to be involved in some court cases for liability issues in the future. This is a terrible company to deal with. Don't compromise your safety - do not deal with them! Having a functioning phone is a basic safety issue.
I rarely give 5 stars to anyone, but CallCentric earned them. We were using PhonePower (1 or 2 stars, arrgh!) and learned that our home phone had been ringing busy for over a week and important calls had not gotten through. After much hassle with PP, I found CallCentric and got a new number. Getting setup was easy and the online customer support was prompt, professional, extremely competent, and patient working with me on customizing my account. My original home number (for 20+ years) was ported from PhonePower to CallCentric with assistance from CC support. Here are the benefits to having "unbundled" services from Callcentric: #1: My configuration now is: calls to the orig number are forwarded to the new CC number. That is Inbound only, $1.95/month, not calling out on it. New number is both In and Out, a "normal" phone number. We also have a number used by an alarm system, Outbound only, saving more than $29/month with most Voip servcies. #2: CallCentric allows me to customize features that most Voip providers do not. We have a new CallerID of our choosing; SMS texts can go straight through, as expected, forwarded to a mobile, or emailed -- our choice. When calls come in, they are filtered to deal with spam and then there are special "Call Treatments". Calls from MY doctor's office rings on the home landline AND simultaneously on MY personal mobile. Calls from my wife's family can go straight to her mobile and even not ring on the home phones. There is an option for "hunting": if a phone doesn't answer, the call goes to a second number (mobile) or a third, ... And the caller does not know about the treatments. A call to our original number is answered (or sent to voicemail, etc.) and they do not know what phone we answer. Might be away from the house on a mobile, the caller does not know that. Get a DID number for a family member and customize call treatments for them. Bottom-line: CallCentric has the highest quality network I have ever experienced, superb technical support, excellent custom features, and unbundled services so I pay only for what I need. I am paying less than 1/5th of what I would (did, sigh) pay for the same three numbers at PhonePower, Verizon, and many others. Reviews from 10 years ago may read differently, but CallCentric is world-class these days.
I wanted to totally rid our lives of att: directv, att landline, cell phone service. My Son is an IT professional and he suggested signing up with CallCentric. I feel I'm medium advanced when it comes to technology. It was not a simple procedure to get a VoIP adapter, sign up for the service, and then all is going to work properly. Insure when you start the process, "don't disconnect" your present land-line service until all is completely done. With CallCentric you can "PORT" (keep your existing phone number) which I did. But it takes many days for the number to port. I disconnected my att service the day I signed up with CallCentric and sent the port request. Big Mistake! I was without land-line telephone service for I think 2 weeks. One of the items that's very confusing with CallCentric is that you have to purchase 2 services: You must pay for one service to receive inbound calls, and purchase another service to place calls. Don't know why CallCentric would require this, but that's the way it is. I purchased a Grandstream GS-HT802 telephone adapter off Amazon for $40.00. I'm not advocating this particular adapter, but it's working well for us. It's simple to hook everything up. You run a wire from the telephone adapter to your internet router, plug in your present phone to the adapter, plug the adapter into an electrical outlet, and you're good to go. I have 3 cordless telephones. I plugged one of the phones into the adapter and placed the other 2 phones in convenient locations. Once the number ported and I figured out that I had to purchase 2 services: Inbound and outbound, everything is working perfectly! I purchased the DID - Personal Unlimited option for $6.00 per month for inbound calls, and the North America 500 for $7.00 per month for outbound calls. So around $13,00 monthly. Believe I was paying att $45.00 per month for land-line service. With CallCentric you get a bunch of free stuff: anonymous call blocking; voice mail; call treatments. Remember: When you place any call you must press the number 1 first, along with the other 7 digits. The service does not recognize 7 number dialing. Overall, I'm very pleased with CallCentric and highly recommend the service.