Service is down

**bubbanc** · 07-28-2009 10:22 AM

So was the cause of the issue with the database clustering failure ever determined?

**GeekJedi** · 07-29-2009 08:24 PM

Originally Posted by samham

Tim,

Could you confirm the duration of this outage (I'm showing 02:33:51am-09:07:12am) and will you be issuing refunds for the outage minutes?

Sam

Based on some rough calculations, you were out for 394 minutes. I don't know what plan you're on, but for the ease of calculating, let's just say you're paying $10 month. I suppose if it means that much to you, VOIPo could issue you your refund of $0.089 for the minutes your phone was down.

Should they send you a check?

**scott2020** · 07-30-2009 09:53 AM

When the city cut my father's cable TV line (phone, TV, internet all in one) Charter didn't come out to fix it for 4 days. They have no intention of giving a thought about a refund. Their attitude is you should be happy we came to fix it so quickly...

I understand VOIP outages are going to happen, but my concern like others here is that no failover happened. If my service is down for a number of hours I'd rather people calling me get a voicemail box, or even just ringing. If people hear my number has been disconnected it causes many more issues.

**ptrowski** · 07-30-2009 09:55 AM

Originally Posted by scott2020

When the city cut my father's cable TV line (phone, TV, internet all in one) Charter didn't come out to fix it for 4 days. They have no intention of giving a thought about a refund. Their attitude is you should be happy we came to fix it so quickly...

I understand VOIP outages are going to happen, but my concern like others here is that no failover happened. If my service is down for a number of hours I'd rather people calling me get a voicemail box, or even just ringing. If people hear my number has been disconnected it causes many more issues.

That's the tough part though. If the actual provider is down, there is not a way AFAIK for that to happen. The calls can't connect to anything, hence the fast busy, wrong number etc that I heard the other day. I received different messaegs depending on what line was used to call.

**christcorp** · 07-30-2009 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by samham

Tim,

Could you confirm the duration of this outage (I'm showing 02:33:51am-09:07:12am) and will you be issuing refunds for the outage minutes?

Sam

THE FOLLOWING OPINION IS NOT ENDORSED BY VOIPO!!!!!!

I tell you what. The most expensive plan; month to month is $15. Throw on another $3 that month for tax, title and 1st born child. While I'm at it, because I'm lazy right now; I'll throw another $2 into the total to make it an even $20 for a month's service.

$20 divided by 31 days in July equals $0.65 per day.
$0.65 divided by 24 hours in a day is $0.03 per hour for you to use the phone.
I'll round off an say the outage was for 7 hours.

SEND ME YOUR ADDRESS AND I WILL PERSONALLY SEND YOU $0.21. (The damn stamp is going to cost me more than that).

Sorry for being a prick, but I've been involved with voip for many years. And it NEVER EVER ceases to amaze me when a glitch happens; even for a couple of hours; that the whining, bitching, and complaining starts. For God's sakes; it's a freaking phone. So what if the phone doesn't work every once in a while. If it's that important to you, get a POTS line. Have a cell for backup. Stop being such a geek with the technology and realize that it's just a tool to make your life a little easier. With 365 days in a year; that's 8760 hours. If the system broke for 87.6 hours (3 days and 12 hours NON-STOP); the uptime rate would still be 99%. What the hell do people expect from a company.

Now you know why I'm an engineer and not in Public Relations. Sorry for going ballistic, but I've been listening to this same crap for EVERY SINGLE VOIP PROVIDER on the planet. And YES, they all have had their days on occasion. Vonage, Packet8, Sunrocket, Callcentric, ALL OF THEM. Oh good lord!!!!! Time to get another beer and go watch "So you think you can Dance". Argggggggggggggg Later... Mike....

**ptrowski** · 07-31-2009 06:23 AM

Jesus Mike relax....
So someone asked, big deal.

**christcorp** · 07-31-2009 07:53 AM

ski; we've been in the voip world together for quite a number of years. I truly respect you; both personally and your technical input. I even consider you an "Online Friend". Whatever that means. LOL!!!

But lets be real here. It's not even just the money. Customers of ALL PROVIDERS go through the whole complaining process every time the provider has a glitch. Everything from complaining to wanting to know if there's a better provider out there to move to. It's gets VERY VERY FRUSTRATING! Especially considering that most of the people have no concept of perspective. Here is the perspective. Do whatever people want with it.

1. There's 8760 hours in a year. If the provider was down for 87.6 hours (3 days 15 hours NON-STOP); they'd still have an uptime rate of 99%
2. Those 87.6 hours of downtime is equal to 7.3 hours per month for 12 months.
3. For every 3 months that go by without an outage; in theory; the provider could be down for 24 hours and still maintain that 99% uptime rate.
4. VoipO; and probably the vast majority of voip providers don't come anywhere close to being down those types of numbers. Most, including VoipO, is probably closer to the 99.9% uptime rate.
5. Even at the highest month-to-month voip plan; the price is approximately 1/3 that of a POTS line. $20 vs $60 a month.
6. At the NORMAL type voip plans with specials; voip prices are closer to 1/4 of POTS. $15 vs $60.
7. Some people's expectations are very unrealistic. If a provider had a 99% uptime rate; meaning DOWN for a total of 87.6 hours, they would be one of the WORST voip providers available. And yet that's a 99% uptime rate. Complaining about BETTER than that is UNREALISTIC.

I will definitely try and "Cool my Jets"; but the vast majority of voip customers; of any provider; needs to put their voip usage, voip provider, price, and total down time into perspective and stop whining because the service went down for a couple of hours. Especially when it's a rare occasion and not the norm. later... mike....

**ptrowski** · 07-31-2009 09:07 AM

aww shucks Mike, you will make a guy blush.
I understand 110% where you are coming from, and some of the guys made the point above. Would I ask for a refund on 2 hours out of a year so far? Not me personally, but it never hurts to ask for something.

Don't ask for something and you would never receive anything.

**scott2020** · 07-31-2009 11:23 AM

I would never want a refund for any outage, and I love VOIPo's service and reliability. I have tried many providers and settled on VOIPo because of their support and reliability. I only wonder that if the entire VOIPo infrastructure goes down, are there other options besides "disconnect" messages or "number out of service" type of things. Maybe upstream carriers can do something with VOIPo or whatever. I doubt that the world will come to an end if a caller gets strange messages for a short time, at least it would not for me. I accept the general internet-based telephone risk in exchange for price savings and more features.

**caseydoug** · 07-31-2009 11:34 AM

A refund doesn't make sense. But if my VoIP provider were out even one hour per month, I would switch (or my wife would switch

). A couple of dropped calls in a month, or a couple of times picking up the phone and having no dial tone would lead me to keep my POTS line, perhaps using VoIP as a second line only. This is interesting, because my cell phone service is no where near this good. Calls drop, or voice quality suffers, and we just grin and bear it. But with a home phone, we have gotten used to 99.999%.

I think the remarkable fact is that we HAVE dropped our POTS line, and use only VoIP in the home. And my wife still lives here.