 Review by EGeezer 
UPDATED: 262 days ago
member for 6 years, 2831 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
 Mount Sterling,Madison,OH
 $35 per month
 about 6 days
 "Order ease, time to live, uptime"
 "Firewall/router config, support docs not up-to-date, Voicemail retrieval"
 "So far, so good."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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ATT CV over Time Warner Road Runner
Update 10/16/2005- Clarification on contract price - $33 includes;
$29.99 Base price for Callvantage Service plan
Federal tax .91
State tax 1.65
Local tax .37
Total $32.92
Prechecking, my RR speed is 3 Mbps down, 420Kbps up, so plenty of bandwidth available both ways for VoIP.
Ordered ATT CV Sept 2, installed Sept 8 on my existing time Warner Road Runner broadband. I did not port my POTS phone number, although it was available for porting.
I need reliability, so went with ATT CV based on the feedback from a business in my town who has been using it with success.
The Centillium TA set up nicely, but when I put my Netgear FVS318 on the LAN side of it, I started encountering DNS lookup errors and delays. manually entering the RR DNS at all devices and PCs did not help. Knowing that double NAT can cause problems occasionally, I didn't call ATT CV on this issue.
I saw in ATT's web pages that Safe Forwarding was not supported with the Centillium. It worked, but documentation said it was not supported, so I called ATT CV support to resolve this issue because a backup in case of a service outage is important to me.
Their customer service is in Kansas City MO per their tech. Wait time was a 2-3 minutes, largely due to getting through the lengthy greeting. Tech support was friendly, fairly knowledgeable, helpful and responsive. The level one tech hot-transferred me to level 2, staying on the line to be sure I had the correct person on the transfer. Level 2 sent out a D-LINK via FedEx along with prepaid UPS return label.
It arrived in three days, over weekend. I installed it, the D-LINK seems more configurable than the centillium. Safe Forward works and it also resolved the DNS issue I had. I am now able to run my FVS318 behind the D-LINK so I have QoS control to segment the TA from my LAN and prevent dropouts due to bandwidth contention between the TA and LAN PCs. File transfers while on the phone do not seem to affect calls. I have experienced only one dropout, which was to a cellphone that was in a questionable signal area, so it was likely the cellphone that lost me.
For those who may want to use their own system, I notice you can't disable VoiceMail.
ATT CV has a feature that allows you to have audio files of voicemails sent to the user as emails. My test emailed voicemails were cut off at the end. Maybe a glitch. We'll see.
Voice quality is good. Callers/callees don't notice any difference between it and my POTS line.
911 setup was already done by ATT by the time I checked on it. ATT had the correct name and address in the ATT system. I have alternative 911 - tested it and it went to the call center, but not as a 911 call and my name and number don't show up on their system, so I will have to give the 911 dispatcher our name, address, town when I call. Since my ATT CV number is not in my location's rate center, that's to be expected I guess.
NOTE - People with POTS level 911 requirements need to know that alternative 911 typically routes to an administrative phone number at the call center, and not to the 911 dispatchers directly. The initial conversation may be with someone who is not a trained 911 call taker.
As a backup I have our local dispatcher's phone number and speeddial in my VoIP telephone and in my cellphone, so I can call the locals directly (Nice thing about small towns, you can do that!). Your requirements may be different, so consider them carefully.
FYI, I am using a Uniden TRU 8866 2-line system, it works just fine in handling my POTS and ATT CV connections.
To retrieve voicemail externally, I have to dial a different number and use a PIN and enter my phone number and password. This is an inconvenience of having to remember yet another number and PIN.
So far, after 40 days or so, I haven't had any outages as far as I can determine. After returning form a trip (the equipment was powered off) I had an instance of a callee indicating poor connection. Since I had not booted the equipment in order, I shut down and rebooted the Modem, TA, Router in order and had no problems after that.
I will update this review as I evaluate the service.
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UPDATE 31 AUG 2006:
Had an issue a few months ago where I was experiencing call drops, one-way loss of audio etc. the ATT people worked with me to adjust buckets, troubleshoot, replaced the TA, but the problem still existed. A week or so later, I experienced internet loss. Time Warner sent out a tech who recabled from the distribution box ot the modem, and replaced the modem. after he left, I started losing connection every half hour or so, so called TW and got a new modem. Problems fixed. the internet and ATT have been rock solid to date.
A pleasant surprise, I learned ATT CV's price has dropped $5 per month to $24.99 per month for my package of one line plus unlimited US/Canada long distance. Per the support rep, I had to go the the web site to change the plan to get the new price. Did so, showed up on the next bill.
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Update 3 MAR 2007
Service still good, callees can't tell I'm using VoIP service.
Called 3 MAR 2007 to support on a FAX question and the truncated voicemail, I observed the call center is in Missouri, Phone connection excellent, service rep was knowledgeable, friendly and articulate and answered my question.
RE: the truncated voicemail problem - The support rep verified the voicemail WAV files were complete and suggested I check media player settings, buffer may be too small. On inspection, Quicktime was opening the WAV file. I removed Quicktime completely, updated WINAMP and the voicemail problem was resolved. I can now retrieve full voicemails over the web.
Putting the D-Link behind the Netgear router has worked well to eliminate those phone rings and 911 reconfirmation nags after momentary internet drops.
I have a 1.5 KVA UPS to power modem, router, TA and phone. Lost power for about 3 1/2 hours recently, the system stayed up just fine, since my internet connection didn't drop during the outage.
Bill is now
Basic service charge 24.99
Universal connectivity charge 1.57
State tax 1.45
Local tax .32
total 28.33
UPDATE 11 DEC 2007 -
Service and call quality still excellent, price the same.
ATTCV changed the call log page, I can lo longer copy and paste into a spreadsheet, since it's trashed with icons. I suggested to tech support that they provide an export to CSV function, but that went in one ear and out the other.
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