Calls dropped, one way calls, and registration issues.

[VOIPoTim]

I have two accounts (one for me and one for in-laws). We live a mile away, same ISP (time warner); pretty much same everything. My service works for 8 months without any problems (I used supplied adapter for a few months to make sure that the service was good. Once I was comfortable, I switched to BYOD - first old Sipura, and now OBiHai). Never had a need to call support. Wrote a review for DSLR. I was very happy with it and convince my in-laws to switch to VOIPo as well.

My in-laws have constant problems. With BYOD adapter voice quality is just terrible. Once I switched to provided adapter, it is good for a few days, then it's bad. I called support twice; they tweaked something - and the quality improved for a week or two but then it's bad again. I know it's not ISP (even if they weren't able to fix it) - they have another adapter on the network, that they use for international calls (with Call With Us). For troubleshooting, I also set up an IPKall to this adapter. So, whenever voice quality is bad on VOIPo line, first thing I check is to call their other phone - and invariably, it sounds much better there.

Unfortunately, they don't speak English, and in order to troubleshoot with Voipo support I need to be in their house during business hours, which is not always possible. So, often by the time I am ready to call support, the problem goes away. However, the reliability is just not there.

Unfortunately that's really just the nature of VoIP in that there are so many variables that one person could have a good experience with a provider and their neighbor could have a bad experience. The variable could be something as simple as the model/firmware of the router the two people use.

Comparing provider to provider doesn't really help in that kind of scenario though since all VoIP networks are completely different and the way they handle things + the carriers on the backend can dramatically affect things. There's not really standardization per say between different providers even if they're both using the SIP protocol.

[ymhee_bcex]

Unfortunately that's really just the nature of VoIP in that there are so many variables that one person could have a good experience with a provider and their neighbor could have a bad experience. The variable could be something as simple as the model/firmware of the router the two people use.

Comparing provider to provider doesn't really help in that kind of scenario though since all VoIP networks are completely different and the way they handle things + the carriers on the backend can dramatically affect things. There's not really standardization per say between different providers even if they're both using the SIP protocol.

Well, your first paragraph contradicts the second one... if it's "as simple as the model/firmware of the router the two people use" then it would be similar experience for both VoIP providers. I agree that today's troubleshooting tools are inadequate; VOIPo tech asked me to run ping; hoping to glean something useful. Several years ago, when troubleshooting with VoicePulse, we were running pingplotter and it gave more useful information.

But from business development perspective saying "nothing can be done" will inevitably push customers to combine ISP and VoIP service from the same provider. This would be the only way to avoid finger-pointing!

[VOIPoTim]

Well, your first paragraph contradicts the second one... if it's "as simple as the model/firmware of the router the two people use" then it would be similar experience for both VoIP providers.

Not sure how this is contradictory? I'm saying the reason one person can have an issue and another not could be as simple as them both having diff router firmwares.

Like I said all VoIP providers have completely different networks so a different router firmware could work well with one VoIP provider and not another. All providers would interact with a different firmware differently since their networks aren't similar.

[ymhee_bcex]

Not sure how this is contradictory? I'm saying the reason one person can have an issue and another not could be as simple as them both having diff router firmwares.

Yes you do. And that would not explain why the same person1 (with the same router1) would have consistent problems with one provider (VSP1), and not have problems with a different provider (VSP2). So, in the second paragraph you are saying that comparing provider to provider doesn't help. In other words, this is unfortunate router1 / ISP / VSP1 combination and - although router2 / VSP1 and router1 / VSP2 combinations work fine - VSP1 (which happens to be VOIPo) has no ability to troubleshoot the problem. It is much more logical to assume that VSP1 has a problem on specific account that is not related to router or ISP. Otherwise, it makes a very difficult sell to less technical users.

Regardless, my bigger concern is that there are no troubleshooting tools that would allow me to pinpoint the problem...

[GreenLantern]

As someone who has numerous voipo accounts, I have some experience with this.

We have setup dozens of new accounts just in the past few months.

The installs are all over the country, from California, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Delaware, Florida, New York, etc.

They all have mostly identical equipment (pbx phones and routers), but a wide variety of local internet providers... Comcast Cable, AT&T DSL, Verizon Fios, etc.

Many of our locations have high call volumes, and at various time have had the problems described by original poster above... mostly outbound calls failing, but also toll free issues, voipo to voipo issues, and some inbound issues.

For example, on failed outbound calls, our equipment logs show "forking errors" coming from IPs (servers) on voipo's network, or voipo's host network, or whatever.

We've purchased new routers and hired an outside consultant to check our network, etc. Everything was solid and setup correctly.

Next, we thought it might be our voip equipment, since it was all the same. But even switching the equipment in a test location did not help.

So then we tested one of our locations with a different voip provider. We set things up so we could dial 9 to use voipo and dial 8 to use the alternate voip provider.

I hate to say it, but sure enough, the various calling problems literally vanished by using the other provider... and no other changes required.

As a result of the positive results, we've begun switching accounts over to the alternate voip provider.

In each case, the problems went away simply by switching to the alternate provider. It didn't matter what type of equipment, internet, city or state, etc.

Honestly, there are still features about voipo that we prefer over the other provider, and we do like voipo's people.

But as the original poster said, ultimately, the features and service simply have to work correctly, or what's the point?

Hopefully voipo can identify the deficiencies in their setup, carrier, whatever, and resolve them soon.

[djrobx]

I'm having a lot of these troubles lately too. I created a trouble ticket and they supposedly switched the network that I'm on, but it didn't make any difference.

It comes and goes. I've made calls all morning today without a single hitch, but sometimes it gets so bad I give up and use my cell phone. The connection itself is always crystal clear with no garbling once established, it just has fits of problems where I either don't receive or can't make calls.

I never once had this problem with either CallVantage or PhonePower. With PhonePower I had the same Grandstream HT502 ATA. I also didn't have this problem with VOIPo during the first year or so. I also changed ISPs (U-verse to TW Cable) which also meant changing my router, and it didn't make a difference. It acts like some sort of capacity issue of some sort on VOIPo's end.

[redoneusa]

I have been using VoIP in many different flavors since starting with the very earliest Packet8 equipment. Having used PhonePower for many years I am interested to see what my VoiPO experiences will be. I will have the two services side by side for a while.

In addition I currently work in the industry and have gained quite a bit of experience from the many different vendors out there. The nature of voip and its variances means that for every one poor user who cannot get it working right I bet you will find 50-100 that have no issue.

Whatever provider or technology you use those those calls have to work well.