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Review by dausub 
Posted: 4.8 years ago
member for 5.3 years, 1 visits, last login: 4.1 years ago
 Matteson,Cook,IL
 $19 per month
 "Price - if you're one of the ones that signed up during the $19.95 promo"
 "Service"
 "The Bell companies have nothing to worry about if every voip provider treats its customers like Broadvox"
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Here's one for the books, I've been having problems with Broadvox off and on for the last few months. However, for the most part, until two weeks ago, they were very responsive.
My unit went out (search this forum for DTA 2102) on 1/14/05 (Saturday). I immediately placed a ticket and left a message. Now, I understand that there's no weekend support, but when I didn't here from anyone Monday afternoon, I called. No response. It wasn't until 5 days later (3 business days) that I spoke to someone. In this case I initiated the phone call. Broadvox did not try to reach me.
After explaining the problem to a Customer Service rep, she asked me for the ip address of my unit. This was not possible as the unit would not boot (only the power light comes on). I updated my ticket and placed another call. From this moment, each time I called I would remain on hold for approximately 9 minutes before the system would disconnect me. Finally, I received a response from Broadvox telling me to reset the unit. (Also, I must add that I requested a new dta and a credit for 1 month of service.) I updated my ticket on 1/24 to say that the reset did not work and that I wanted a new dta and a credit for 1 month of service. No response from Broadvox.
From 1/24 to today, I added tickets and tried to contact Broadvox by phone. Each time I tried by phone, I was disconnected after 10 minutes on hold. In order to try and resolve my issue, I sent emails to Sales and Customer Service stating that I wanted a new dta (shipped overnight)and a credit as my service had been down since 1/14 and that if I didn't receive a new unit, I will be forced to cancel my account. Can you believe I still did not hear from Broadvox?
Today, at about 9:30 cst, I sent an email to Sales stating that due to their inability to resolve my issue, I wanted to cancel my account. Guess what? Within an hour, my account was cancelled. Additionally, all of my tickets concerning my issue had been closed. Interestingly, they listed the resolution on one ticket as "did not send new device." Not one response offered an apology or any offer to keep me as a customer. I responded to Broadvox and asked if they didn't want me as a customer, why didn't they tell me two weeks ago so I wouldn't have wasted my time adding tickets and spending all my time trying to contact them via the phone.
I had only been a broadvox customer for about 6 months. My account was billed directly to my credit card. One month I updated my card info and accidentally entered the wrong expiration date. The following month when the payment didn't go through, Broadvox emailed and called me. I immediately corrected the problem and paid the bill. All I asked for was the same treatment.
In all my years of dealing with service providers, I have never received such poor service. What makes this situation even worse is that Broadvox service became worse after they announced the price increase. It's almost as if they are trying to get out of the residential business.
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 Review by chadrob30
Posted: 4.8 years ago
member for 7.6 years, 3536 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Fort Smith,Sebastian,AR
Contract price not specified.
"Price, ease of install"
"Website, static in calls, cutting out when talking, poor quality in general"
"If price is critical go for it, otherwise stay away..."
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Got BVD about a week ago. It was easy to install with my router, etc....calls sounded good for awhile. Now I can't call across town without the other party complaining about cutting out....called my wife yesterday and heard about 20% of what she was saying...got home and tried moving the phone adapter away from computer, used a corded phone, still the same results...overall, I would give them a 4/10....
The website is a complete joke. Hard to navigate around and know where you are going. I haven't had to start a ticket yet but from what I read at this site it's a nightmare....I can't review tech support since I havent used them.
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Review by BizCoach2
Posted: 4.8 years ago
member for 4.8 years, 11 visits, last login: 4.6 years ago
Brookfield,Fairfield,CT
$20 per month
 about 3 days
"outgoing calls work"
"voicemail is broken and the DTA slows my internet access"
"Won't work for me"
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Update after a week - things are getting worse. Voicemail hasn't picked up all day today. Call quality is slightly worse and I still can't get the phone and my network working toegether. I'm starting to think that may not be all their fault - but the voicemail problem is and that's a deal killer.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Update after 3 days. Turns out the adapter made my internet service srew up. When it's plugged in about half the sites I go to time out. Tech support won't answer the phone - just made me leave a message and their response to tech tickets is pitiful.
Another problem the voice mail won't accept faxes like it's supposed to.
I'm hoping there's a very simple solution to all of this and as soon as I get to the right person I'll know what it is. If not I'll have to cancel.
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Had to cancel today. Voicmail hasn't been working fo days - sometimes it rings forever, sometimes says that number is not in service, sometimes says the subscriber is not availible. Also trouble tickets take so long to get responeded to and when they are they are so misread that they think the problem is solved when it's not.
I'm now convinced that the internet access problem mentioned below is not their fault, but I can't have a service like this without voicemail.
-=-=-=-
I've had it for a couple days. I ordered it on the 10th, it shiped on the 12th and arrived on the 14th. Plugged it in as they said and it worked right away. Voice quality is great. I've had no problems with outgoing calls.
I've called from my cell phone and another land line - a good portion of the calls never made it to voice mail - just rang 10 times or so and ended. I've submitted a trouble ticket but haven't heard anything yet.
Also, and I'm not sure this is related - my internet access has been having problems. They seemed to start they day I got the phone. The problem is about 40% of the pages I go to time out.
I have their unlimited residential service for $20 a month. I'm on Charter Pipeline Cable modem with dynamic IP
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 Review by gdm
UPDATED: 4.8 years ago
member for 8.4 years, 4720 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Bartlett,Dupage,IL
$20 per month
about 4 days
"Call Quality is outstanding and hasn't gone down yet besides my DSL going down:("
"Portal, FAQ's and features are lacking at the moment."
"For the price and quality you can't beat it!!!!"
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******Update 1/14/05**********
Well after using the service for 2 months the voice quality was great but that was about it. Do to the lack of basic features mainly I decided to drop BVX today. I am moving and plan to go with VoIP for my main line. WIthout having basic features working like Caller ID with name, 3 way calling, voicemail it just wasn't worth it. I think BVX is a good company and maybe in 6-9 months everything will be working properly and they will have more features. Also hopefully the website, portal, knowledge base, etc. will be up to par.
I plan on going with Vonage once my internet is up at my new place.
**********************************
I signed up with BVX on 11/15 and ordered the unlimited plan. Total cost for shipping and everything was $61.85. One thing I didn’t like about the order process is it should state clearly you will be getting a email/call requesting verification of order. I got a email Tuesday night 11/16 at 5:40pm which I didn’t get home till 6:30pm so I emailed back the verification. No response Wednesday morning so I called and verified that way. When I asked about my email there was just a blank pause.
Got the TA on Friday (they ship 2 day air) and was online with in 5 minutes. I was testing outbound calls at the 30k setting from the portal and it sounded fine. Then I bumped it up to the 90k setting and it sounded even clearer and a bit louder to me. Well then someone tried to call me back and couldn’t. Later on I tried to access voicemail and couldn’t. Luckily [user=jgwilliams] is on bbr enough. I emailed him and he said it sound like I got a bad number. He had NOC issue me a new number and in 15 minutes I got a call and the new number was up. Incoming and outgoing all worked. It even kept my voicemail greeting with getting a new number issued. You could see all this take place in the portal page under transaction history.
Now the reason I signed up with Broadvox Direct over others was price and user review. The call quality kept coming up as very good. I knew ahead of time that features were lacking and portal wasn’t the greatest. After logging in and seeing the portal I can definitely say it isn’t the greatest in the world…it is a little slow at times too. Features are lacking and basic portal isn’t very good but I am sure that will all change. It seems Broadvox is moving in the right direction just slowly. Which if when things are released and they work that’s not a bad thing IMO.
I contacted support a few times on questions more then issues via the ticket system. Which I must say the ticket system is rather nice. I was responded to within 12-18 hours every time.
I haven't gone down at all since I got the service almost 30 days. I did go down but that was do to my DSL.
Overall, I am pretty satisfied right now. A few things I will mention I think they need to fix below.
1) The verification process needs to be a little quicker and more reliable IMO.
2) Website needs to have a better FAQ like Vonage, Lingo and other for new customers looking for answers.
3) The portal needs to have a more extensive FAQ on issues, features, etc. This has been slightly updated but much more info needs to be put in to it.
4) Portal for sure needs to be worked on which I am told it is being done and should make it faster
5) There needs to be better features but again I am sure that will come (keeping the faith for now). The incoming CID feature would be very nice to have!!
On a scale of 1 to 10 for service on the voice side I would give it a 9, for features and portal about a 4 right now…the basics work great and that’s the most important thing.
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Review by jdees
UPDATED: 4.8 years ago
member for 7 years, 730 visits, last login: 164 days ago
Steger,Cook,IL
$19 per month
about 4 days
"Good customer service. Good call quality"
"Unreliable for receiving calls."
"If you plan on being able to receiving calls, look elsewhere."
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I was one of the people that ordered in December.
It took a couple days for the adapter to arrive. Plugged it in and was able to make calls within minutes. Getting in I expected a few bumps in the road. There has only been a few bumps and most were solved within a few hours.
Update: 8/02/04
Reliability still hasnt improved and seems to be getting worse. It is not uncommon for incoming callers to get the fast busy signal. This usually occurs in the evening hours.
Back in May I started having problems with voice mail. It is now August and it still isnt fixed.
E911 still isnt working.
Update: 1/04/05
Still getting a fast busy quite often on incoming calls. BVD still doesnt offer the reliability to use as only phone provider.
Voice mail was finally fixed back in October.
E911 still isnt working.
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Review by relam59
Posted: 4.9 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 901 visits, last login: 177 days ago
Edwardsville,Madison,IL
$19 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Price, Call Quality, Some neat feature if you can figure out how to use them"
"Tech Support, Poor Documentation"
"Worthy of a try if you're looking for VOIP with excellent call quality"
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Signed up with Broadvox Direct and received equipment is two business days.
Installation was a snap - I was up and running in minutes.
Call quality has been excellent with no echos or dropped calls. One outage for a few hours where inbound calls simply went to fast busy. Also initially had problem with calls going to voice mail without any announcement - this was fixed after the account was reprovisioned.
Tech support is very poor - with trouble tickets through the portal mostly going into the "ignore" queue. When you followup on the portal with tech support that is also ignored. Mysteriously the problems have been fixed - and yet the tickets remain open - with no update. This is true even though I have updated two tickets as resolved - please close - again - nothing happens.
Documentation is sketchy and many things are left to the user to figure out. There are some neat features once you figure out how to use them (follow me, placing a call from another number, etc). Some of the functions on the portal are either toally disabled (E911 profile, Add/Manage/Change Plans), or in fact appear not to work at all (outbount caller id name).
Automated LNP process initially told me my pots number was not eligible to port - opened trouble ticket a couple of days ago - actually got response this time (today) - but is was baiscally if the portal says no - its no. Funny thing is - now it works fine and the LNP is in process. I think what may have happened is I am in a rate center they recently added and it was not in their LNP list. Oh well - we appear to be on the way now - just wondering about the repsonse on the trouble ticket.
Overall call quality both in and out have been excellent - with no echos or annoying delays. Both of my problems mentioned above were in the first few days of service, and since then everything has worked fine.
In spite of some of the negative comments above, I am not sorry about my decision to try Broadvox, have started the LNP process over to them, and would recommend giving them a try as long as you are fairly techy or willing to learn features through the age old trial and error method.
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Review by nsumner
UPDATED: 4.9 years ago
member for 7.9 years, 751 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
Israel
$20 per month
"Great new DTA"
"Some features don't work properly."
"Great service at a reasonable price."
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With the new DTA a router is no longer needed! The call quality is great, and they have Canadian phone numbers. For $20 I get unlimited North American calling, and I even get a free virtual number with that.
However some features such as fax to e-mail and outgoing CID are not working properly. Submiting a trouble ticket on the web site is easy enough, and within a year they hope to respond to your ticket.
Ultimately for BASIC phone service it is great call quality and so far seems to be great reliability. For all of the extra features which you though you get free with VOIP it seems they are very very unreliable. Voice Mail however does seem to work reliably (which is better then some providers)
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Review by artisticcheese
Posted: 4.9 years ago
member for 5 years, 1338 visits, last login: 13 days ago
Carrollton,Denton,TX
$20 per month
about 7 days
"Price, features"
"Poorly documented features and support"
"Recommended"
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I'm kind of new to VOIP market but this is second VOIP provider I tried (after Packet 8).
What I'm looking for is complete replacement of my POTS line with VOIP. Packet8 did work but I was unable either to fax or make ReplayTV work with them so I dropped them.
I was able to successfully do all those things with Broadvox direct with some tweaking (DSL filter, G711 encoding and lowering baud rate on modem).
I have 256/1.5 DSL at home on a dry pair (not tied to a phone) from Speakeasy.
Anyway as far Brodvox is corncerned I believe I value those:
1. Straight montly price without any hidden taxes or surcharges. Be aware of those on some other providers. I'm still confused why other provders charge those since it does not appear to be a law forcing them to do so.
2. Feature rich VOIP line (compared to Packet8 at least). I like ability to forward all VM to email, ability to receive fax in VM, ability to make selecting forwarding of calls based on Caller ID
3. Great International rates
4. Ability to choose quality of VOIP encoding
5. Extra free phone number for family a friends (basically for $19,99 package you get 2 phone numbers)
This are disadvantages which I found so far.
1. No Caller Name for Caller ID
2. VERY POORly documented features, NO manual etc. Basically you are left on your own to figure how to stuff works. I know this might frighten non very technical users.
3. No access to VM through website
4. I would say not very customer oriented offering at all.
For me advantages outweight disadvantages so I'll stick with it and port a number from Verizon.
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Review by chuckpint
Posted: 4.9 years ago
member for 8.4 years, 703 visits, last login: 2.8 years ago
Evanston,Cook,IL
$10 per month (month by month)
about 10 days
"Great features, good sound, very helpful tech support"
"Poor or non-existent documentation, still no E911."
"Good for a second line, don't consider for your only line."
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Ordered the Residential Choice Plus plan. The adaptor was received 2 business days after order. After reading thru the install booklet, I quickly figured out that I’d have to get into the unit’s setup to change it from DHCP to static IP. Quickly did that, and quickly get a dial tone. But when I tried to call to the new phone number, it quickly became obvious that the phone number was still assigned to somebody else. I entered a ticket into their tech support system to ask about that. That took a day to get straightened out. In the mean time, I’m finding that the configuration with my DSL modem -> Broadvox Direct -> Linksys Router, was not working. First thing I found was the undocumented fact that in that configuration, the router had to be set to DHCP. Then I found that the DHCP lease to the router was only 90 seconds. This caused the router to drop connections every time the lease expired. That made web-surfing a nightmare. Forget about a download, they always timed out. So I open a ticket for that. I was told to put the Broadvox Direct adaptor behind the router. Part of the reason I went with Broadvox Direct was the QOS that the adaptor was going to do for me. Ok, I moved it behind the router. After doing that it quit completely. No power LED, and only a blinking LAN LED. Open another ticket. This time I get a phone call (at work) and arrange to get a call back when I get home. Got the call at the time we agreed to! Wow, first time anyone from any tech support has done that right! Turns out that the subnet that the adaptor has going out, must be different that the subnet coming in. Even with nothing connected on the output side. So change the out going subnet, and restart, it all comes back up.
I the meantime while I was waiting for answers on the open tickets; I started the process to port my old second phone line to Broadvox Direct. I’ve gotten a respond as to a date and time that it will happen. If it goes on schedule, it will have taken 17 days from start to finish. I’ll update this review then. [UPDATE:] Number ported over right on schedule! 17 days (10 business days) from start to finish.
I also started looking into the portal to setup things the way I want. There is almost zero help for most of the screens. The Find me, Follow me, feature is quite complex, and has no help at all, officially. If it wasn’t for Phoneboy’s Wiki site, I would never have figured out some of the settings. It’s also impossible to use the portal with Firefox 1.0. You must use IE 6.0. IE 5.5 also does not work correctly. Even with IE 6.0 (updated to SP2), you have to turn off some of the security settings (i.e. popup blockers), in order to use the portal.
The portal has a “teaser” about E911. There is a link, but you can’t click on it. So there is no way to setup E911, and I don’t have any idea if dialing 911 on this phone will do anything at all. After reading the TOS, it appears that I’ve agreed that it does not have to work at all. That’s ok for now; this is a very seldom used second phone line. But it stops me cold from moving my primary line to Broadvox Direct.
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Review by chsteiger
Posted: 4.9 years ago
member for 6.1 years, 436 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Pasadena,Harris,TX
$19 per month (month by month)
about 4 days
"Easy Installation - Good Local Number Selection - Price"
"No Phone Support - Open Tickets Not Anwered - No User Guide"
"Not Ready For Prime Time - Has a lot of bugs to work out"
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I tried Broadvox direct as a possible service providor for my primary phone service. I just canceled my account and have gone back to Vonage.
The installation went flawless and my service was up in running in about 10 mins from the time I opened the box. They have local numbers in some areas that no other providor services and it just happened they had my home town so my Mother could call me toll free on the free friends and family number they included with my service package.
Their portal looks and feel quirkly and does not seem to follow any kind of flow or logic. There is no users guide included either in the box sent with the phone adaptor or on their website or portal. The portal's tech support database needs a lot of work and it also needs a lot of data! I think I did a open search on eveything and came back with 12 entries. I had to resort to phoneboy's posted documentation to figure out how the features worked. I found some of the star features don't work and have seen postings to the effect they have just vapororized! Since they don't have a print user guide, you really have nothing to go by.
The call sound quality was GREAT. I found it much better then Vonage and had people on the other end of the phone comment on how good the calls sounded. Too bad, the good news stops there- I had to redial numbers 2 or 3 times just to get through someones and had complaints from friends saying they could not reach me (phone rang a few times and went to busy signal). To me, this kind of stuff is the real deal breaker. I also could not keep a 3 way call going for more the a min or so before one of the two other callers were dropped. I did the right thing, I opened a ticked, but the open tickets started to pile up. I started to get the feeling if they didn't want to work the problem, they would just leave the ticket untouched. Who are you going to call? They don't have any phone support!
After a 45 day test (I know, no full refund, but I think it takes more then 14 days to really test a service) I have opened a ticket and recieved a RA to return my adapter.
The company to me has a too small and very unorginized feel to it and even thought I want more features, I may have to go back to the tried and true people at Vonage.
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Broadvox Direct
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