 Review by espaeth 
Posted: 1.1 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 2026 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Minneapolis,Hennepin,MN
 $12 per month (24 month contract)
 about 7 days
 "Many features (simulring, CNAM / CID, custom call routing, network down forward), the service was cheap"
 "The service became too unpredictable to trust, still have to pay monthly fees when you pay for annual service"
 "What started out in 2006 as a great move from Vonage ended in 2008 as fleeing to restore basic service"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I first signed up for ViaTalk in November of 2006, leaving the Vonage $14.99 + fees 500 minute plan for the $199/2years "unlimited" ViaTalk plan. For the first 18 months the service was great for the money. I had the occasional issues with my PAP2 connecting to one of the servers, so I played the same musical call manager game as everyone else changing from Chicago, to Richmond, to Houston every few weeks to get the adapter back online so I could use the phone. Even when the adapter went offline my calls seemed to be forwarded to my cell phone okay, so I didn't have any serious complaints about the service. (It was cheap, afterall!)
Starting with the move to the new OpenSIPS platform, my account with Viatalk became cursed. I had simulring setup so calls would go to both my home and cell phone, but 1 out of every 3 calls from my office to home would result in dead air even if I answered on my cell phone. SIP URI inbound calls would go straight to my Network Down number. The OpenSIPS servers would issue 2 identical INVITE requests and then issue a CANCEL right before a packet sending the RTP session details, resulting in the call being dropped. Outbound calls directly from the PAP2 registered to megatron or galvatron would have hit or miss outbound CID, and calls to 800 numbers often ended in a "The number cannot be completed as dialed" telco error messages.
The issues I was seeing and trying to diagnose via Wireshark captures finally pushed me to setup an Asterisk server at home so that I could get better real-time debug information. Installing Asterisk on my Linux box I use as my NAT gateway / firewall allowed me to establish 2 legs of the RTP session to eliminate NAT from being a factor to the ViaTalk servers. What started out as a plan to get enhanced debug information eventually became my platform to leave Viatalk entirely.
This month my number was finally ported away to CallCentric, and I closed my ViaTalk account with 2 months of "free" 2nd year service remaining. Viatalk was billing me $3.45/mo for 911 services + regulatory fees. With those fees my monthly cost was $11.74/mo with Viatalk.
I've replaced that with:
CallCentric 'Unlimited' DID $5.95 (main home phone line)
VoiceStick Asterisk Plan $2.99 (old cell phone number, e911 service)
Les.net DID $0.99 (contact # to list on my domains I own)
My monthly spending for 3 numbers is $9.93, and with 1.05c/min PAYG termination I can still make almost 3 hours of outbound calls for what I paid for a single month of ViaTalk service. Plus using Asterisk I have the ability to implement things like DISA, IVRs, and do all kinds of cool call routing.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of ViaTalk |
|
ViaTalk
(39)
(39)
(63)
(109)
(62)
·
·