trb_1217@yahoo.com (tgreen) wrote in message
news:<telecom23.572.12@telecom-digest.org>:
> Ringo,
> I am looking forward to your review. I recently went through a similar
> VOIP company comparison and I settled on Sunrocket. They are a new
> company, but so far I have had a good experience. I tried them out
> because it seemed pretty risk free -- no sign up, activation, or
> cancellation charges. I hope you have a good experience. I think
> VOIP is going to get pretty big over the next year.
Hi everyone,
Well last night the Packet8 router (or whatever it is) arrived, and in
about 10 minutes it was activated and I had a dialtone. The first
thing I did was run a speedtest on DSLReports.com, and I was sitting
at around 2.4Mbps down and 350Kbps up (nothing else on network
active), which is about normal for me.
I made my first call to my landline (SBC), and the first thing I
noticed was the delay. It was generally less then 1/2 a second, but
it's enough where two people will step on one another while talking.
I called the Packet8 tech support, and they said there generally is
some delay, but it's should be no more then 50-100ms, which is hardly
noticeable. Mine was more like 1/4-1/2 second delay. This doesn't
sound like a biggie, but it breaks-up the casual flow of conversation.
I then started firing-off some of my other applications, like iTunes
(stream is 128K), Azureus (limited to 5K upload and 1500K download),
email, and all my other web-based apps I usually run. With all this
running I did another speed test, and I was down to about 1.1 Mbps
down and 300Kbps up, which is still well within the 20Kbps or so
required by Packet8.
The sound quality is excellent, and caller ID, voicemail, and
everything thus far works great. I even updated the firmware in the
router, but the delay is still there. If anything is the killer it'll
be the delay -- but I'll give it a full try for the next few weeks.
I didn't sign any contract or anything, but it's free for the first
month if I don't like it and send it back -- given I don't go over 300
minutes. The reasons I want to drop SBC is mainly because I'm paying
$37/month and most VoIP services are closer to $20-$25/month. Plus my
SBC line likes to quit working when it rains, and though I've told SBC
exactly where the problem is they still haven't fixed it.
Bottom line, the delay is annoying, but outside of that the service
works great. I'll post another review later after I use it for a week
or so.
Ringo
Ringo Langly (rlangly@gmail.com)