Comments for blog.limedaley.com/post/voip

Comment #134

2007-02-03T00:47:17Z

Yeah, when does your credit card expire? Have you been paying it, or has your credit card been reversing the charges? It should be pretty easy to get them to stop charging it, if it isn't, you should switch to Citibank, which is the best credit card company I know of.

Comment #133

2007-02-02T23:52:09Z

"They have been charging my credit card since 2004 until Jan 2007"

...That's a long time...

Comment #132

2007-02-02T20:29:47Z

I would not use Lingo, the company ripped me off, please read on:

I contacted Lingo to sign up for their service. They took my credit card info and signed me up for an account. I never received their product to connect up to their network. They have been charging my credit card since 2004 until Jan 2007. I could not use their service because I had no means to connect to it: they had to provide the box, they never did. I escillated my complaint to the executive level, they cited their contract that said billing starts 3 weeks after signing up. A company that bills it's customers, does not provide the product required to use their service, and then will not do ANYTHING to compensate is not a company that I would want to do business with. My email is posted (john.govern@gmail.com) and I will be happy to forward my email correspondence to anyone to prove what I am saying is true. I cannot comment on their service because I was NEVER able to use it. My question to you is: Is this the kind of company that you want to do business with? I cannot recommend anyone else because I have never used their services, I just know that Lingo ripped me off.

Comment #131

2005-08-18T19:32:16Z

I know it's scary not to have a land line; it was having two cell phones to fall back on that made it easier on my nerves. The good 911 service relieves one worry; the other is power failures, but I suppose you are less likely than we are to have a hurricane knock yours out for a few days. We don't have to worry about ice storms, though!

Comment #130

2005-08-18T17:16:30Z

Well, just made the plunge. Speakeasy was going to charge $40 extra if I don't port our Verizon number now, but instead get a different number, and then switch later.

So, I decided to go ahead and switch it, since I have more faith in Speakeasy to actually get it right. But, it means we won't have a land line at all.

Comment #129

2005-08-16T22:00:36Z

I hope Speakeasy works for you! I'm particularly happy about the 911 availability. We have AT&T's CallVantage which has had none of the problems you've had with other services, but their 911 -- while better than many -- isn't yet up to what Speakeasy claims. If you don't like Speakeasy, you might look into CallVantage and see how their 911 works in Pittsburgh.

Comment #128

2005-08-16T20:19:45Z

I called to cancel USA Datanet today, and they convinced me to talk to their tech support, who of course blamed it on my ISP. They tried to say that I had my router hooked up wrong, and so that is why it is broken some of the time.

I called Speakeasy to double-check that USA Datanet doesn't have any ground to stand on, and found out that the reason Speakeasy wasn't able to offer me service before is that they have always adhered to the then-non-existent FCC rules that say you have to have real 911, which Speakeasy now has in Pittsburgh.

Another reason I didn't want to go with Speakeasy initially is that they used to charge a "disconnect fee" if you cancelled within a year, so if the service didn't work, and you cancelled it the day after receiving the phone, you had to pay $200 or something. They no longer do that, and don't charge you anything, as long as you return their modem.

Last reason I wasn't going to sign up with them is that they told me their VOIP box wouldn't work if I wasn't on their DSL connection. It turns out the reason they say that is because 911 won't work from someone else's DSL (it would be directed to the East Liberty police station, which probably isn't where I am) and they won't guarantee the quality of the line (which they do guarantee the voice quality to be the same as a landline if you are using their network). The sales guy said it works technically, just not from a policy standpoint, and they won't support it, etc. but will work as good as anyone else's VOIP box.

They seem pretty smug about it, that all other VOIP companies are scrambling due to the new FCC ruling, where Speakeasy doesn't even have to think about it. A mark of a good company, I think, that they only offer reliable service, and don't let you give them money if the service won't work correctly.
Time to cancel USA Datanet and switch. If Speakeasy doesn't work, then I am done with VOIP for a long time.

Comment #127

2005-07-29T15:32:41Z

I actually have already signed something from USA Datanet, so it appears that they are trying hard to not get sued, although, from what I understand, all providers have to have 911 capability or else cancel the service.

Comment #126

2005-07-29T15:26:47Z

We received the equivalent notice from AT&T CallVantage, though it wasn't so scary (their 911 service is better, though still not ideal), and we didn't have to sign and fax anything, just acknowledge that we had received it.

Comment #125

2005-07-29T11:56:15Z

I guess I should just give up on VOIP...

From USA Datanet:

Thank you for choosing USA Datanet's All Talk Plan. The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") recently adopted rules prohibiting
all providers of Voice over Internet Protocol ("VoIP") services from offering VoIP services unless they also provide access to E911.
Under the FCC's rules, subscribers are not permitted to opt out of E911. The rules will become effective on November 29, 2005.

Unfortunately, due to the limitations of your area, we have been unable to offer you Emergency Services. We are working diligently to
gain coverage in your area and expect to be able to offer you VoIP E911 in the coming months.

Once you fully understand the Notice, please sign and fax a copy of the attached Acknowledgment of Receipt of Notice of Limitations of All Talk Emergency Service as soon as possible. If we have not received your fax by Friday, August 5th, your service may be suspended because the FCC requires that we obtain your affirmative acknowledgement that you have received and understood the Notice or we cannot continue to serve you.

Comment #124

2005-07-28T15:57:51Z

It seems that some people say that local phone companies are already required to provide 911 access to unused phone lines.

I guess it is kind of hard to check to see if it works, without cancelling your phone service.

Comment #123

2005-07-26T20:37:05Z

"Dead" cell phones supposedly work for 911, so you could keep Heather's old one in the house for that purpose. It wouldn't work with a dead battery, though....

911 is definitely a problem. It doesn't always work well with cell phones, either. Instead of (or in addition to) requiring VOIP companies to provide better 911 service, perhaps the FCC should require local phone companies to offer a "911 only" phone line. Even if the VOIP companies get their E911 working as they are supposed to, the phone still won't work without power.

Comment #122

2005-07-26T19:16:59Z

Responding to SursumCorda's comment about the answering machine - we also realized that you can't pick up in the middle of a message, though we don't screen calls, sometimes we might not get to the phone before the answering machine picks up.

The VOIP voicemail is nice, as it emails us a .wav file, in addition to letting us get the messages the regular way.

It also comes with a million different call forwarding options, and caller id, which we haven't ever had before, but our phones support it, so I guess we will see what we think of that.

Comment #121

2005-07-26T19:13:52Z

We signed up with USA Datanet; We have used them for cheap long distance ($1 maximum per call to any state northeast of us), and I thought I would try them for voice over IP as well.

There are two reasons I didn't go with Speakeasy, one, they don't give you a trial period, so even if it doesn't work on the first day, you have to pay a $300 cancellation fee, or else keep it for a whole year. Two, their customer service has been going downhill lately, I don't know if it is just in the "business" service, everything did get worse when I upgraded my connection. I will be downgrading shortly, since we now have our server colocated, and don't need fast DSL to our house any more.

USA Datanet doesn't have 911 service in Pittsburgh, and I am not sure what I think about that. The phone book says to call the operator in an emergency, so perhaps that would work. 911 also works on our cell phone, though the cell phone usually stays with the car. I might think about keeping Verizon on a minimum plan, though it seems pretty silly to do that for just 911.

USA Datanet has a two month trial period (though you don't get all of your money back), and there also aren't any contracts in terms of length of service, etc. Since they are not our ISP, the phone can be taken anywhere, as opposed to Speakeasy.

Comment #120

2005-05-24T13:25:39Z

I haven't talked that much with you since you have your new service, but I think Heather agrees that the quality has gone down.

Comment #119

2005-05-24T02:03:20Z

Does it sound as if we are on a cell phone when you talk with us? We have been very happy with our VOIP (CallVantage). The only complaint I have so far (after three months' experience) is that we can no longer screen calls, because we can't hear messages being left on voice mail until the caller is finished.

Comment #118

2005-05-23T19:58:15Z

I have given up on VOIP. I have yet to find anyone who has VOIP that it doesn't sound like they are on a cell phone, or have major outages, etc.

Maybe the service will be better in a year or two.

Comment #117

2004-11-17T19:49:56Z

To continue the apparently never-ending saga, I just reconciled our credit card bill, and Lingo charged us $30 this month for no apparent reason.

Citibank has reversed the charges, but before they do that, their standard question is, "Have you called the vendor to straighten this out?".

I said that I didn't think that would do any good, since Citibank has already had to go take the money out of Lingo's account before when they wouldn't return my money.

Comment #116

2004-11-10T19:30:00Z

SpeakEasy just told me that their VOIP service isn't working in Pittsburgh yet, due to FCC regulations regarding 911. I think the idea is that Speakeasy has to be able to tell 911 what my address is, since 911 can't trace the call over the internet.

Our current internet connection no longer uses our phone line, and just this morning the upload speed was doubled, because I am now hosting a couple servers for DynaVox, and they use up a lot of bandwidth. We do get DSL for free, and lots of people at the company like how much easier these servers are to use than the old ones, so I guess the pros and cons even out.

Comment #115

2004-10-27T16:53:27Z

Just be sure your DSL still works, so we can come visit! :)

Comment #114

2004-10-27T13:55:23Z

I have started the process to use Speakeasy's VOIP service.

I somehow had misread their cancellation fee, which is still annoying, but it is only $45, so that is a little better than I had been thinking. I still don't understand why they don't have a trial period.

Since they will be the people who provide my internet connection, they guarantee the quality will be land-line quality, so that is better than Lingo.

The first step is to get "OneLink" which means my DSL line won't need a phone line through the local company any more. It will be interesting to see what the phone guys think when they see my phone box, since I did some weird things when I signed up with Lingo to make all of our phones connect using the Lingo adapter.

Comment #113

2004-10-05T16:56:59Z

If it weren't so annoying, that would be hysterical. Sounds like one of the better e-mail jokes -- someone is going to copy it and send it around. You'll probably still be hearing the story five years from now.