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Review by cbrain 
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 9.5 years, 3546 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Silver Spring,Montgomery,MD
 $22 per month (month by month)
 about 8 days
 "Low bandwidth, easy install, network friendly, nice ATA, improvements in 2004."
 "Latency/conversation lag – tech support, customer service, accountability"
 "Slothful company, reliable since 6-04, falling behind competition in 2005"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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***update-8-17-2005***
It is now over 2.5 months since my number ported. My number can be called from the entire world except Packet8’s network. The problem has been assigned to an upper level P8 engineer. I make contact 2 times per week. Packet8 declared it fixed 2 times but both were in error. This is a simple matter of updating a routing table and Packet8 could fix it in far less time then they spend communicating with me. They tell me it is a know issue and I’m not the only one. I take comfort in that. My other experience with P8 support was in September through November 2003 when they accomplished nothing. They are consistent. I remain hopeful.
***update-6-14-2005***
This week Packet8 re-assigned my number to a new Packet8 customer. The same number they ported to SunRocket 2 weeks ago. If you dial this number from Verizon, SunRocket or most carriers, it rings my new SunRocket line. This same number dialed from Packet8 rings the new P8 customer.
same number, 2 customers »[Packet8] Ported to SR and re-assigned the same number
***update-6-5-2005***
I terminated my Packet8 service as of 5-31 and ported my number to SunRocket. The porting took 34 days and I did not hear of any lost calls. P8 gave consistent information throughout and handled the cancellation well. There were several service outages this past month but the overall reliability for the past year was good. I tested Packet8 and SunRocket side by side on the same multi line phones. SunRocket quality was unquestionably better in every way. Calls completed faster and there was no conversation lag. SunRocket does use about 3 times the bandwidth.
LNP & cancellation »LNP - Packet8 to SunRocket sucess
***update-4-26-2005***
Packet8 voice service has been reliable for the past 12 months. Quality is good except for the high latency or delay on conversations. This delay is barely noticeable on P8 to P8 or P8 to PSTN calls but uncomfortable on calls between cell phones or other high latency networks. Packet8 made real progress in the first 6 months 2004 but then nothing. The basic service works well, but several features don’t work. Features & improvements promised for over 18 months still have no estimated completion date. P8 recently got fax to work to about 50% of other machines (consistently works or fails to same machine) but TiVOs never establish a successful connection.
P8 seems to be falling behind the VoIP pack and has just announced the addition of a $1.50/number/month recovery fee starting May1.
***update-6-20-2004***
P8 is making consistent improvements and is now a viable alternative to the ILEC’s with a cell backup. P8 started monitoring their network 24/7 in June. Quality remains good and network reliability is much better. Only a few outages in June which were quickly fixed. I have not contacted support since my original review.
***update-4-7-2004***
Past 3 weeks call quality remains good but system has been very unreliable with several problems and long outages each week. Most outages include voicemail. These problems are all P8, my connection has been good & 100% uptime. While P8 price is good it can only be a secondary service.
***update-3-15-2004***
Service level remains good. If this keeps up P8 is a winner
***update-2-12-2004***
Packet8 service has substantially improved in the last 4 weeks.
----Original Review – service started August 2003 ------------
Online ordering was simple and the ATA arrived in just over a week. I plugged the ATA into my switch, the phone into the ATA and made several calls. Disconnected a wire pair from the PSTN and reconnected to the P8 ATA to enable service throughout the house. The service works well about 60% of the time, acceptable another 20% and unusable the rest. Support has never resolved a single incident and generally gives canned answers, often several days after the request. I am on a Comcast cable 3000/384 connection, Motorola Surfboard modem using a FreeBSD box as my router/firewall/DNS/QOS/traffic shaper. Shaping & QOS makes a large improvement, P8 packets get priority over all other network traffic. At P8’s request I sent several detailed tests & logs to support. P8 couldn’t find anything on my end causing the problems. I’m not sure they could even understand the reports I tried several ATA firmware upgrades with mixed results.
P8 shows promise and is an Interesting toy but is not ready to be your only phone service.
*MOnOwall is a major reason for my success with VoIP. If you don't love your router, try it. »m0n0.ch/wall/
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