Is there any non-horrible VOIP?

July 17, 2007 11:07 AM

Now that Sunrocket seems to have gone titsup, I'm once again looking for a VOIP company that's not hated by most of its users. Preferably one with a limited-minutes/lower-cost option, and one that's got at least a chance of being around for a year or so. Any suggestions?
posted by EllenC to Technology (13 answers total)

Your best bet is something similar (if not), grandcentral.com.

You can then forward the calls to any number of your choosing from any provider.

There have been many threads recently pertaining to these same issues, grandcentral is unlikely to go away as they were just acquired by google. Use inviteshare to secure an invite.
posted by iamabot at 11:56 AM on July 17, 2007

Do what now? I have Sunrocket service in Illinois, and I've had zero service interruption that I know of.

*scratches head*
posted by jammer at 12:30 PM on July 17, 2007

You'll have to scan through thread on fatwallet but it does have a few recommendations for carriers with good/decent deals. It also has other relevent info for Sunrocket's former customers.
posted by inigo2 at 12:32 PM on July 17, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks. I did search, but I guess I was using the wrong terms. Grandcentral sounds like a really good way to at least get around the problem of the long-term viability of the VOIP providers. Their support and service quality are still issues, but I don't guess I'll find any good news there.
posted by EllenC at 12:33 PM on July 17, 2007

Well, hell. That explains why I haven't been able to get through to my home number all day. Crap.

I just had business cards printed with that number, too. Hope it's portable.
posted by Corky at 12:43 PM on July 17, 2007

FYI, GrandCentral is not currently accepting new accounts. Also, AFAIK, they're not a true VOIP service- they'll route calls and provide VM, but not a live phone connection.
posted by mkultra at 12:47 PM on July 17, 2007

Vonage offers a 500-minute plan for $14.99 per month plus tax (it comes to about $19 per month for me). Incoming calls don't count toward your 500 minutes, nor do calls to 800 numbers or voice mail. And if you go over 500 minutes, it's only 3.9 cents per minute after that.
posted by Dec One at 1:13 PM on July 17, 2007

jammer -- SunRocket ceased operations last night. If you're still up, it might just be a matter of time before it stops working. Or maybe they'll transfer everybody to other providers, who knows.

My service returned this afternoon, but I'm going to try Viatalk - I dunno if they're any good, or if they're going out of business too, but they're offering six month contract buyouts for SunRocket customers.
posted by drobot at 1:15 PM on July 17, 2007

We've been happy with packet8 for about 2 years now. They've slowly gone up in price, but for like $23 unlimited it's pretty darn good. Voice quality is excellent too.

They've got a downloadable client and such too, so you can use it on business trips w/o having to cart along the ethernet adapter.

I know someone who uses their videophones to call home to Israel, free unlimited for like $28 or whatever a month.
posted by TomMelee at 1:17 PM on July 17, 2007

I'd recommend ViaTalk. That's who Mrs. Dr Gonzo and I use at home, and I would say that we are generally happy with the service. They had a deal where 1 year was $199 and you got a 2nd year free when I signed up. That was for the unlimited local and long distance. Not sure what their current promotion is, but generally if you wait a bit that one always seems to come back. They have excellent support, and they have their own forums as well as the ViaTalk forum over at DSL Reports. They have lots of neat features and a very good control panel that you can login to and change all sorts of things. We had a few problems when we first signed up, but nothing that didn't seem par for the course when first setting up VOIP service, and the issues were fixed quickly.
posted by drgonzo2k2 at 1:59 PM on July 17, 2007

I have ViaTalk. I like them, but I would only recommend them if you don't mind rebooting the router every once in a while. Otherwise, things get a bit... flaky sometimes. Like, echo on the line, or caller ID not coming through, or calls that ring but give you only dialtone when you answer.

If you want to be your own phone company they're great -- they will give you the admin password for your telephone adapter, and there's lots of fun stuff you can do that way.
posted by kindall at 3:38 PM on July 17, 2007

I've been happy with les.net, though they're definitely aimed at people who are capable of rolling their own PBX with Asterisk or something similar (though, they'll work with just an ATA adapter). Les is a friendly guy, too, who's been running an independent ISP since 1996.

Because they're a Canadian company, and don't really market towards end users, the FCC fees and taxes and e911 overheads don't apply. This makes them exceedingly cheap. A US dial-in phone number costs $3.99 a month, with unlimited inbound minutes. Their outbound rates are OK, but not really competitive with Voipjet.
posted by toxic at 6:33 PM on July 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Vonage is fine if your Internet connection is good. If it isn't, no voip is going to work well.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:29 AM on July 18, 2007