![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
VoIP
This is a boring telecommunications post, so many might want to skip over this entry now.
I have VoIP service from most of the major providers. Mostly to play with their service and features.
I have a number of moble phones and set up a system with VoIP service so that when I get an incoming call, my mobiles all ring. That way, I can grab whatever mobile I want to use that day and I do not have to do any reprogramming of forwarding. But, I had some problems...
I was using a Vonage line as the incoming line. It has the feature that will allow you to forward a call to multiple phone lines at the same time. But, it limited the number of lines to 5 and I had more lines than that that I wanted to ring. It also delayed the forwarding, ringing the Vonage VoIP line one ring before ringing the other lines, which delayed forwarding the calls to the mobiles. The other feature I wanted was the capability to forward calls from select (nuisance) numbers directly to voicemail. Vonage doesnot have a feature to support this, but Voicepulse does. Voicepulse does not have a simultaneous forwarding service. It does have a call hunt service, but that service will not ring the next set of numbers until at least 10 seconds of ringing on the main VoIP line, and it limits forwarding to 3 numbers (in each grouping in the hunt sequence). So, I started looking at other solutions...
I first looked at my Packet8 service. It has simultaneous forwarding. It did not see in the fine print that of the numbers, only one can be a PSTN number. The rest have to be Packet8 numbers. It did not matter because my packet8 service was not working. Incoming calls got a fast busy and outgoing calls got a regular busy. Grrr. I looked at their online technical help and no help article addressed these symptoms. So, I had to call technical support. Oh, I had called their technical support before once and it took forever for them to answer... Well, it took forever again, and their on-hold message was very annoying. It was a man that kept saying how valuable I was as a customer and they will be with me in a moment. A moment that lasted 15 minutes. Technical support told me I was cut off because of a billing issue. That is nice. No indication of that in any of the billing information on their web site. Outgoing calls gave no indication of this... He transferred me to billing. Another 45 minute wait on hold. Billing tells me that they have not submitted my bills to the credit card since December. I called them more than a month ago because they had another billing problem: they did not have the up-to-date expiration date for my credit card (and they never told me about it then, either, they just cut me off). It turns out that after the new credit card expiration date was entered into their billing system, they never sent the outstanding balance to my credit card. So, they cut me off again. This was all very annoying.
While I was on hold, I started looking at the website for my BroadVoice VoIP number. Wow! They have some really cool features. You can forward up to 10 simultaneous numbers and forward immediately. You can have selective forwarding so that certain numbers are forwarded to a different number. You can have it send email to you with the number and calling name information when you receive a call. You can reject anonymous calls. This has all the features I need (not sure why I did not switch to using it before). I am now using the BroadVoice number as the main number, forwarding to my mobiles and screening out nuisance numbers to voicemail. BroadVoice has a really cool set of features.
I have VoIP service from most of the major providers. Mostly to play with their service and features.
I have a number of moble phones and set up a system with VoIP service so that when I get an incoming call, my mobiles all ring. That way, I can grab whatever mobile I want to use that day and I do not have to do any reprogramming of forwarding. But, I had some problems...
I was using a Vonage line as the incoming line. It has the feature that will allow you to forward a call to multiple phone lines at the same time. But, it limited the number of lines to 5 and I had more lines than that that I wanted to ring. It also delayed the forwarding, ringing the Vonage VoIP line one ring before ringing the other lines, which delayed forwarding the calls to the mobiles. The other feature I wanted was the capability to forward calls from select (nuisance) numbers directly to voicemail. Vonage doesnot have a feature to support this, but Voicepulse does. Voicepulse does not have a simultaneous forwarding service. It does have a call hunt service, but that service will not ring the next set of numbers until at least 10 seconds of ringing on the main VoIP line, and it limits forwarding to 3 numbers (in each grouping in the hunt sequence). So, I started looking at other solutions...
I first looked at my Packet8 service. It has simultaneous forwarding. It did not see in the fine print that of the numbers, only one can be a PSTN number. The rest have to be Packet8 numbers. It did not matter because my packet8 service was not working. Incoming calls got a fast busy and outgoing calls got a regular busy. Grrr. I looked at their online technical help and no help article addressed these symptoms. So, I had to call technical support. Oh, I had called their technical support before once and it took forever for them to answer... Well, it took forever again, and their on-hold message was very annoying. It was a man that kept saying how valuable I was as a customer and they will be with me in a moment. A moment that lasted 15 minutes. Technical support told me I was cut off because of a billing issue. That is nice. No indication of that in any of the billing information on their web site. Outgoing calls gave no indication of this... He transferred me to billing. Another 45 minute wait on hold. Billing tells me that they have not submitted my bills to the credit card since December. I called them more than a month ago because they had another billing problem: they did not have the up-to-date expiration date for my credit card (and they never told me about it then, either, they just cut me off). It turns out that after the new credit card expiration date was entered into their billing system, they never sent the outstanding balance to my credit card. So, they cut me off again. This was all very annoying.
While I was on hold, I started looking at the website for my BroadVoice VoIP number. Wow! They have some really cool features. You can forward up to 10 simultaneous numbers and forward immediately. You can have selective forwarding so that certain numbers are forwarded to a different number. You can have it send email to you with the number and calling name information when you receive a call. You can reject anonymous calls. This has all the features I need (not sure why I did not switch to using it before). I am now using the BroadVoice number as the main number, forwarding to my mobiles and screening out nuisance numbers to voicemail. BroadVoice has a really cool set of features.
