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Review by DA 
UPDATED: 187 days ago
member for 7.6 years, 2936 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Greenville,Greenville,SC
 $10 per month (24 month contract)
 about 14 days
 "Low cost and a lot of features"
 "The company has been experiencing some growing pains lately"
 "Good deal if you don't mind a bit of do it yourself work."
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Viatalk has a very large set of features, the cost is low but when they do major upgrades everything goes south. Since I have been with them there has been 2 upgrades, one of which almost broke my service until I figured out what ports needed to be forwarded.
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Review by mrminator
Posted: 187 days ago
member for 3.3 years, 11 visits, last login: 187 days ago
Astoria,Queens,NY
$14 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Affordable, Good Feature Set, Free 2nd line"
"None so far"
"Excellent value, I am happy."
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I signed up about 18 months ago and was a Vonage customer previously (and briefly Sunrocket). The call quality has been nearly 100% excellent. I am on RCN in New York and have my PAP2 behind a router running DD-WRT with QOS. Once and a while I'll have a dropped call, but overall I am extremely satisfied with the service. I had one support issue that I had to submit and they responded in about 36 hours with a response to my problem (don't remember what it was for though).
A friend of mine, and my parents have now both replaced their home phone lines with ViaTalk at my recommendation. They both are also happy. I can recommend them without any hesitation.
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 Review by CajunWon
UPDATED: 198 days ago
member for 3.9 years, 1036 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Cary,Wake,NC
$15 per month (month by month)
about 3 days
"BYOD available & Well attended external support forum"
"Self inflicted issues related to my equipment"
"Works and passes WAF test"
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VOIP is still not for the masses. You must be willing to either learn of user work-arounds or call for occasional technical support otherwise stay away from VOIP (imo).
My first VOIP experience was very positive with SunRocket (SR) for 18 months (total/net cost of $199). However, returned from a mid July vacation to find the phone service was dead, found that SR had closed its' doors stranding nearly 200,000 without phone service. I quickly restored service on a forgotten proxy server which worked well for 1.5 weeks, then only outbound service until mid August.
Signed-up with ViaTalk (VT) on the day I discovered SR was out of business. I had 2 ATA (internet phone adapters), so signed-up with VT BYOD (bring your own device) monthly service. I then locked-down both ATAs with custom password. I was live with a new VT # 3 business days later with the same good phone quality as with SR. Setup call-forwarding so I (hopefully) wouldn't have to give out a temporary number.
3 minor issues:
1. LNP/Port: I wanted to keep my same phone# & knew the VT number would be temporary so I grabbed a GrandCentral number. This was in-case my old number stopped forwarding before the Port occurred. The Port took 3.5 weeks (my fault but in line with the 20 day expectation), 4 days after the old number stopped forwarding, therefore I did have to give out the GrandCentral number (which I plan to keep as a second number).
2. DTMF: I performed a factory reset on the adapter I used for VT which disabled touch-tone passing to automated phone systems. I hadn't read the manual, but quickly found the solution on this forum.
3. I masked this whole event from 'the boss' for 3 weeks. During the 4th week I instructed her to give out the GrandCentral number to important contacts. This would not have been necessary had the Port taken just 4 less days.
This whole event has been a worse case VOIP scenario. If the above are not minor issues to you, then stay away from VOIP and stop slamming your chosen provider on the forums (imo).
btw:
5(best) rating to Tech Support -I've seen the +/- threads/posts but I've not had to contact them. Apparently their support is top notch yet contacting them is difficult.
4 to phone quality -I had 1 issue when it took an hour to restore service after selecting an alternate proxy server (prior to 8am on a Saturday).
& I'm not an SE -I've only received 1hr of a 3hr DOS class in 1987, so if I can do this anyone can.
6 Month Update: All is well with ViaTalk service. I haven't looked into my ATA for months. VT did just increase the monthly net price to $17.45. WAF still under repair from SR incident, prior to which she had noticed only positive change from POTS. Still use GrandCentral for half incoming calls to remain prepared for quick change of service if required.
Over 1.5 years now: All remains well with Viatalk. Less and less new threads on the support forums indicates they are having less issues. Seems they have returned to service levels reported prior to the Sunrocket melt-down. VT500 is now ~$20/month after fees.
With the help of DSLR virtual friends (mazillo, dcurry, dogface05, to name a few) I now have a fully functional 2nd line. Rings with and has same features as line 1. I do this through Gizmo5, so line 2 does have a separate number, but transparent in this setup. I can receive a call directly to line 2, but it is a number from another state so not likely.
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Review by bmize13
UPDATED: 208 days ago
member for 3.6 years, 963 visits, last login: 16 days ago
Dallas,Paulding,GA
$8 per month (36 month contract)
about 3 days
"Price, Website, etc..."
"At this point, all is grand"
"Excellent VoIP Provider..."
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I feel guilty, as I've not updated this review in quite some time. The reason for my lack of update is that things have been so uneventful with VT, that I've simply forgotten!
For quite some time now, I've had phone service that works... Very few down times. In fact, the most recent outage that I was aware of was a result of two thing; I switched ISP to AT&T, and they don't play well with two lines, and I bought a faulty router.
VT has become a solid performer for me, and I'm finding myself quite sad that my contract is expiring. Given the current economy, it behooves me to search out the best deal on VoIP, and VT just isn't the best deal now. If they get smart and lower their fees in the next two weeks, I'll happily keep my service with them. Otherwise, I fear, it'll be time to start over with a new company.
Bottom line for this review: If you really want a high-quality VoIP provider with decent customer service and an expansive list of features that are sure to tickle your fancy in some way or another... Then ViaTalk is a perfect fit. A solid, dependable phone company that has exceeded my expectations for most of three years.
*****************************************************************************
Update: 10 AUG 2007
Another update... And a piece of advice. If you are looking for VoiP, stay away from ViaTalk. I've been with this company for about 16 months now, and haven't had a two-month stretch without major problems. With the recent SR fiasco, VT has been nearly killed. Tech Support lines that are 4 hours long (then you get hung up on, I'm told), zero response to tickets... No incoming calls, no outgoing calls... Incoming, but no outgoing, then outgoing but no incoming.
Even with the price being what is was ($199 / 2 years), it's hardly worth it if the phone *doesn't* work. I can pay anyone $9 / month and get nothing in return. That doesn't make it a good value.
I had high hopes that VT would right the ship, but it seems to be gaining more and more water. Might be time to bail out very soon.
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Update: 13 JUN 2007
I'm updating this simply to state that the service is having loads of hiccups. At one time, it was a service that I could feel good about recommending to friends and family, but not any more. I am simply losing my confidence in the company.
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Updated 8/07/2006
In the months following the infamous "sale," I have seen a calming down of many issues. Tech Support has returned to normal, quick service. I am able to reach a live person within just a couple of minutes on most calls. Resolutions has been more than adequate, with ViaTalk seeming to reach the extra mile to ensure that my phone service is top-notch. This is the company I signed up with! I should have updated this sooner, but I wanted to make sure the changes were going to last... I'm a happy dude!
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Update 5/09/2006
Tech Support levels have dropped drastically. I have been waiting 10 days now for ticket resolution regarding dropped calls and poor audio. It seems that response times are sporadic at best. One ticket may get a response in 45 minutes, while a higher-rated ticket might take 3 days. I have found no rhyme or reason to the delays other than their continued backlog brought about by total lack of preparedness from their recent sale.
At this point, I wouldn't recommend friends or family to this company. Perhaps later, after they have had a chance to straighten matters out. But certainly not right now.
*****************************************************************************
Update 5/01/2006
Service has been off-and-on. Sometimes, we are able to receive calls, but other times require two or three attempts to actually make the connection. I've also noticed ticket response time via Internet has dropped drastically... I do understand the backlog of trying to sign up so many new users as a result of the recent sell, but should that impact the quality of service that I expect to receive?
I have ordered Sunrocket, and will be comparing the two side-by-side for a while. I'm hopeful that VT will be able to resolve their issues and get back on track rather soon...
*****************************************************************************
Purchased Viatalk last week after a nightmare adventure with a company called VoiceEclipse nearly left me completely out of the VoIP world. Initially, I had selected Vonage as my provider, and was very satisifed with them... until I had to call Tech Support. During a recent storm through the southeast, my Vonage PAP2 was hit by a power surge. Having no phone, I had to wait until I returned to work on Monday to order a new box. The tech rep at Vonage by way of Bombay could not understand that I needed a box. I understand they have a script they must go by, but I was actually trying to PURCHASE a box! After getting nowhere with Vonage, I decided to find a company whose tech support people spoke and understood English. This led me to VoiceEclipse. Signed up with them on Monday, signed up with Viatalk on Wednesday. VoiceEclipse couldn't provide what their sales staff (and website) promised. I happened upon this site (www.dslreports.com) during the course of my frustration with VoiceEclipse, and began to read about ViaTalk. Then I followed a link to their website and began researching price and features. Here is a sample of that thought process...
"Hmmm... tech support based in New York. That's an English-speaking place. And they offer all the features of Vonage? Wow. And I can use a softphone for free?" It went on and on from there. To clear up a few items, I actually called them and spoke with a member of ViaTalk's staff. All my questions were answered well beyond what I expected. I went for it... Signed up for the 12 month plan and used DSLREPORTS as a coupon code. Life was grand...
Then I saw my invoice. No coupon applied. So, I picked up the phone and called 'em. Took about 4 minutes, and then I had an email in my inbox telling me that they were correcting the problem and would be crediting my card $35. Oh, and it also said, "We are sorry." Wow!
I received the box on Saturday, hooked it up, and... IT WORKED. We had quality phone service again! And my wife was very happy with this company. She liked the email response to the coupon code, as well as a couple of other email responses to questions I had asked. We were in VoIP Heaven...
Until Saturday night. There was a brief outage at the exact moment I needed my phone to work. Trying to plan family events for Easter is difficult at best when the phone DOES work. Wife and I talked about it and decided to see how long it took to get service back on line. We submitted a ticket and sat back to wait. About 20 minutes later, I was making my calls. Then it happened... We received another email apologizing for the failure of our service! I mean, when did actual Customer Service come back in style?
Though we have only been active with them for a few days, we are pleased beyond our expectations with the features, quality, customer service, and price of ViaTalk. If you are looking for a high-quality company to provide you with VoIP service, then look no further. I sincerely believe this is the best of the best.
************************************************************************************
UPDATE 04/18/2006
We used several of the "neat" features yesterday while my Bride was sick in bed. Do Not Disturb was perfect to insure that she was able to get the sleep she needed without telemarketers calling and disturbing her. Also, we were able to place a few 800 numbers in the call block section, and it seems to be working as well.
Two annoyances noticed: When placing a call, we occassionaly have to wait maybe 5 to 10 seconds before it actually places the call. Not sure what this is about, but it is mildly annoying.
#2: We signed up to have our number ported from Vonage. Used a home fax machine to send in the LOA authorizing transfer. First attempt: Didn't connect. Second attempt: Connection succeeded and fax sent (or so I thought). Received message the next day to send in the LOA, as all they received was the bill from Vonage. Resent from my office on a regular line, and it seems to have gone through perfectly. Not sure if the fax feature works as advertised, but I can live with as I do very minimal faxing from home.
Still loving the service overall. We signed up to have our number ported from Vonage yesterday. Hopefully, everything will go smooth with that transfer.
***************************************************************************
UPDATE 4/20/2006
***************************************************************************
Today is my first day of disappointments with ViaTalk. For starters, they did some server work that knocked out my incoming and outgoing call logs. I can deal with that... I think. When I came home from work, I found that I had NO phone service. That one is a bit tougher to swallow. Less than a week on ViaTalk, and already TWO outages. No problems, though... I just need to call the 24-Hour Tech Support line. So I did. And it isn't 24 hour tech support. "Phone support is currently unavailable." does that mean their phones are down, or just mine?
I submitted a ticket with the hopes that all would be back up and running within just a few minutes. No such luck. Here I sit, 4 hours after getting home, and still no service. In addition, I'm still unable to reach the 24-hour tech support.
NEXT DAY: I will now say that I do not believe their tech support is, indeed, 24/7 on the telephone. I was unable to access help from them until after 8:00 AM, which would lead me to believe that they work in shifts. This is a big downer for me. I was finally able to restore service, but only after they sent my information and I noticed that they had changed my password. They (apparently) were unaware that they had changed it.
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Review by shareef777
Posted: 210 days ago
member for 7 years, 60 visits, last login: 62 days ago
Worth,Cook,IL
Contract price not specified.
"Cost, free second line, and customer support"
"None yet"
"Great value, and even better customer reps that keep the communication going."
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I know most forums are used for venting/complaining about service (as I've done with Teleblend), but I'd like to first say thank you very much to viatalk. My service is working wonderfully with no surprises. I had such a nightmare experience with Teleblend that I didn't expect for you guys to actually get everything done like you actually stated. Very professional, and you have a very loyal customer that will be telling everyone about your wonderful service. Thank you VERY much, again
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 Review by Hookem99
UPDATED: 210 days ago
member for 2.3 years, 913 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Pflugerville,Travis,TX
$17 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Cheap price, great quality!"
"Tech or cust. support calls can take time"
"Best provider, best features, best price"
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I spent a year with vonage and a month with Sunrocket( I got out before the bottom fell out) before I found ViaTalk. After 4 months of use, I am totally satisfied. I did have a few minor hiccups at the beginning, due to a bad adapter. After fixing that, all systems are go!
Update 3/19/2008:
After nearly a year, I have had very few issue's. Still as good as always and I am preparing to renew.
Update 4/30/2009:
Two years and still going strong. Still very few issues, and great call quality. I am about to renew, and take advantage of the 6 months free deal for current customers. I also tried the 'GotFax' feature. It came with a 30 day trial. So far I am impressed with it. I updated the rating on the 'web site' from 4 to 5, as new design and features are great.
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Review by nitecourt
UPDATED: 221 days ago
member for 5.1 years, 1036 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Erie,Erie,PA
Contract price not specified.
"Cost"
"Sporadic Problems, One way audio"
"Not reliable for important calls, ok for family"
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Update: 4-16-2009 Sent my ATA back via Priority Mail. When they received it a ticket was opened to cancel my account. No longer a ViaTalk customer.
Initial Review - (Over 6 months ago) I ordered Viatalk when Sunrocket went bust. It took a while to get the hardware since there was a big influx of users from Sunrocket. Call quality was great until a year later when I received an email saying they were upgrading the network and I had been upgraded. Since then I've had calls drop to a fast busy signal. Calls going to a fast busy signal. And one way audio where I'm on a call and all the sudden I hear the other party is saying "Hello? Hello?" and then they hear me again after 5-20 seconds. Support always make changes to my configuration but it doesn't seem to help. Email support is slow to respond. 2-5 days on average. I haven't called in to support often but when I do I usually have to leave a call back number and receive a call back in an hour.
Followup comments:  Vizzzoip
join:2006-02-16
Boston, MA
| Still????? "Email support is slow to respond. 2-5 days on average. I haven't called in to support often but when I do I usually have to leave a call back number and receive a call back in an hour."
This looks like this is all in the same review as your update, but I don't believe it is. When was the last time you called???? Where I had issues before, since they upgraded to the new network about 4-5 months ago, I haven't had any issues.....with audio quality, and especially wait times. I have called about 4 times since the upgrade for info, and have waited less than 5 minutes each time to speak to a LIVE person. This is an unreal short wait time for tech support in my opinion...with any company, any industry. I called TW last week and waited 25 minutes, just to get transferred 3 times before getting an answer. Also, I submitted a support ticket last week to ViaTalk, and waited about 4 hours for an ANSWER. That is pretty quick compared to the 24 hours I wait for most companies to give me a script answer about how I am important to them and will hear back shortly with a remedy for my issue.
ViaTalk has greatly improved in all aspects. I was in the same boat as all the people on DSLR against ViaTalk, but can see the effort they made to correct things. From customer service to support, ViaTalk is now 10 times better than 99% of the phone service companies out there.
I am glad I stuck with them, and would encourage anyone to jump aboard. They are actually adding services, features, and making improvements while other providers simply sit idle. | |
| nitecourt
join:2004-10-19
Erie, PA
 ·ViaTalk
 ·RoadRunner Cable
1 edit | Still had problems I was still having problems back in Feb. that they could not resolve. The last straw was when my wife was on phone to a hospital. She was talking to a doctor and it dropped to a fast busy signal. No such problems with my current provider. I had 6 months of free service left on ViaTalk but my service with them was to unreliable to stay onboard.
I will update my review where the initial review started to eliminate any confusion. Unfortunately I do not remember the date of the original review. | |
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Review by poolek
UPDATED: 222 days ago
member for 6 years, 1380 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Austin,Travis,TX
$15 per month (12 month contract)
about 6 days
"Lots of features, great price, responsive tech support"
"None"
"Great Service, Crappy referral rewards program"
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**4-19-2009**
All continues to work well. No real complaints. The service is stable, the feature set is rich and the price is more than fair. I've been a VT customer for 3 years now and am quite pleased.
**9-21-2008**
Viatalk continues to work well for me. I'm not a big fan of the 'extra' charges that keep popping up, but can't complain about the service otherwise. We're back in the US now and the phone service continues to work well.
**2/4/2008**
Viatalk continues to work well. I took a long-term business assignment overseas, and took the adapter with me. It has worked perfectly and saved myself and my family tons on international long distance calls. Features like programmable Do-not-disturb allowed me to work around the time-zone differences to ensure my phone wasn't ringing at 2:00 am. I just recently added another year of service.
That said, I'm tempted to remove my review. Viatalk has had a 'Get Free Service' promo where you get a discount on service based on referring new customers. Only problem is, they won't let you use that discount on renewal offers - only on list-price stuff. So, the end result is that the thing is worthless. Since Viatalk doesn't value my recommendations, I figure I should delete my positive review. However, I like DSLReports and hopefully my content will be useful for them.
So, in short - good VOIP service, crappy referral rewards program.
**3/5/2007**
I've had Viatalk for over a year now, and it's as close to perfect as I can expect from voip. The phone works every time I pick it up, sound quality is great, they keep adding features and my bill is stupid cheap. I don't know what else to ask for. It's been one of the better purchase decisions I've made in the last year.
We had our first child last year and I decided to switch back to DSL with the mandatory basic landline for use as a 911 outlet for additional peace-of-mind whenever we have baby sitters. It makes me smile each time I recieve my ATT bill and see that I'm paying more each month for 20 local calls with zero features than I do for unlimited calls with more features than I can think of with Viatalk.
**7/25/2006**
I've had Viatalk for about 6 months now. The stability has been fine - I don't recall a time the phone didn't work. Viatalk has continued to add features and has addressed all of the 'rough edges' I'd mentioned in my first review - I can access VM by dialing my home number, the call logs have been reformatted, DTMF issues have been addressed, and they've added more and more new features. I almost miss the old voicemail lady now!
I have absolutely no complaints. The service has been stable, the feature set covers every need I have (and then some) and the price is 1/8th of what I was paying on average for POTS. Keep up the good work!
**5/1/2006**
My number port went through a few days ago without any issue (22 calendar days after submitting the request), though porting numbers does require you to re-enter all of your settings (Voicemail prompts, Custom CallerID settings, ACR settings, etc), which is a pain.
Call quality continues to be pretty good. Possbly more inconsistent than Vonage, with a little more static - though I may just be listening for problems more attently now.
Viatalk added new regional servers recently. My ping times dropped by ~50%. I haven't noticed any change in call quality due to this, but it should help maintain quality in times of net congestion.
Customer Services seems overwhelmed right now. When my number ported, the configuration for VMWI got wiped from my adaptor. I submitted a TT to have the setting updated again and it's been open for 4 days now. I ended up chaging the setting myself and disabling provisioning to make it 'stick'. I'll re-enable provisioning when the ticket is finally closed. Not a big issue because the problem isn't a big deal - but I'd be upset if I were having real problems and had to wait 4 days for response.
Reliability seems ok. Calls continue work inbound and out. I've seen a few notices on BBR of Viatalk downtime, but either they've been on different servers, or were fixed prior to me testing the phone.
The 'Rough Edges' I mentioned in my prior review are still there, though the lady on the voicemail is starting to grow on me. Still wish I could access VM by dialing my home number. Still wish I could see how many minutes I've used against my 500 not counting outbound Toll Free.
Bottom line : It seems to work as well as Vonage, with all the features I need. The price is a bit cheaper, too. If they can get caught up on Customer Service issues, and maintain the level or reliability I've experienced, I'll be a happy customer.
**4/17/2006**
I'd used Vonage for a few months, but lack of name on outbound callerID became an issue, so I decided to search for a new provider. I ended up going with ViaTalk based on the price of their 500 minute plan, availability of the feature set I wanted and overall positive feedback I'd seen on this site.
I signed up for the 12 month 500 minute plan, got 2 months free and used the DSLREPORTS coupon. Add in the $10 shipping charge, and that comes to about $8.50 a month - about half of what I'm paying for a similar Vonage plan.
I ordered late on a Tuesday, had the account set up and number assigned on Friday and the adaptor was here on Monday. I plugged in the adaptor and had dial tone in less than a minute. Inbound and outbound calling worked just fine. I forwarded my Vonage number to the Viatalk account and spent a couple of weeks evaluating the service.
The Good Stuff:
Call Quality: Call quality is the same as Vonage - which means it's as good as or better than the POTS line it replaced. I've also never experienced any of the nagging little issues that I occasionally had on Vonage - such as not hearing the called party for the first couple of seconds of the call, voicemail indicator getting out of sync, etc. The service just works.
Features: Name on Outbound callerID works as it should. I notice more people answering my calls now. Custom CallerID is an excellent feature that I never thought I'd use. ACR falls into that category as well.
Tech Support: My VMWI light wasn't working when I first installed the adaptor. I submitted a ticket to Tech Support and the issue was fixed within an hour. They also provided me with the admin password for the PAP2. I don't really need it, but it is nice to have.
Presence on BBR: I love that Viatalk maintains an active presence on BBR to facilitate feedback on their product. It's also awesome to see that they actually take that feedback and improve their product based on it. I can only hope they can maintain such a 'grassroots' feel as they grow.
The Rough Edges :
Voicemail: It's completely functional, but seems a step behind Vonage and other VM systems I've used. The voice prompts are very computerized and mechanical, some prompts suggest actions that don't work (ex: pressing '#' when leaving a message does nothing, though the IVR instructs you to do that), and you can't access your VM by dialing your home number.
Web Site: Works well, but some things could be improved. Call logs are all based on EST time. If you're not on the east coast, everything will be off. Time used on outbound calls doesn't account for usage of toll free numbers not counting against your 500 minutes, so if you call toll-free often, the total time used feature isn't very useful. You log in using your phone number, so when you port a number, you have to set everything up again.
Features: I haven't been able to get Call Recording or Call Transfer to work. I don't use the features, so I haven't bothered to submit a trouble ticket to see if I can get them to work.
Still to be seen :
Reliability: So far the service seems pretty stable. I had one time where I tried to call and the call didn't seem to go through. I made the call using my Vonage account and everything worked. I tried again a few minutes later on Viatalk and it worked there too. May just be coincidence, but I have been spoiled by the stability of my Vonage account, so I'm sensitive to things not working. Otherwise, things have worked as expected and I've had no known downtime.
My Bottom Line:
I'm quite pleased. The things that I listed as 'Rough Edges' are relatively small issues to me and don't diminish from the usability of the service as a landline replacement (though I would like to see them addressed one day). Add in the additional features, strong tech support, willingness to improve service based on feedback and better price and I find Viatalk to be a better choice for me than Vonage - assuming the reliability is similar. Time will tell on that, but it looks promising so far. I’ll follow up in a couple of months.
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Review by digger16309
UPDATED: 229 days ago
member for 2.4 years, 110 visits, last login: 219 days ago
Raynham,Bristol,MA
$13 per month (18 month contract)
about 7 days
"Low cost, fairly rich feature set."
"Support can sometimes be frustrating. Too many unbundled fees."
"Not a bad option overall."
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I ordered ViaTalk service in the Spring of 2007, before Sunrocket collapsed and the company was flooded with refugee customers.
My uptime with ViaTalk was very high but I have a Linksys router and cable modem to match the Linksys PAP2T and they all play with each other nicely. I also have a cable connection with 1 Mbs upload speed.
I dealt with support a handful of times for various minor issues. Most were solved quickly. Sometimes they answer electronic support tickets, sometimes not. It depends on how busy they are, and how much employee turnover is going on.
ViaTalk also has a frustrating habit of insisting the ATA belongs in the router DMZ and that it is secure to do this. I was also not a fan of "blame the customer first" tech support.
For me, ViaTalk worked well, but I think I was lucky in having the right non-wireless router. I had about 5-8 outages over 16 months. These outages were widespread to some degree, usually caused by a server crashing or some upstream provider not playing nice with ViaTalk. Some of these outages were explained by the company, some not.
If you are looking for a cheap VoIP option, with some decent features, but will not mind being frustrated on occasion, or you are interested in the technology and like to tinker with it, ViaTalk may be for you.
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 Review by v35_pilot
UPDATED: 232 days ago
member for 3.9 years, 1216 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Fayetteville,Onondaga,NY
$15 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
"Excellent and powerful phone features, cost of service, voice quality"
"None as of this review period."
"Quality and reliability back in the green. Nicely done."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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----- Update, April 2009 --------
Please, oh please do not let my positive experience over these last few months be a curse!  My latest update is to share my happiness with ViaTalk's improvements to stability and overall reliability of the service. I have not had any VT-side complaints in at least three months now. Thank you, VT, for your hard work in improving the customer experience.
Like most customers, I also wish that VT would combine all of the piddly taxes and fees into one monthly invoice but that is just a minor issue.
----- Update, late June 2008 --------
Hey, wait a minute. I indicated in my previous update that I was jumping ship, so what happened? Am I still with VT? Yes, I am still with them. Why? Well, pretty much right after that update back in January a number of VT team members made a very public appearance into the VT forums and it seemed to me that the company recognized the importance of addressing some of their customer perception issues across all fronts. It appeared that there was a rebirth of sorts in customer service so I decided to stick around and see how that played out. For the most part it worked.
Over the last six months there was only one massive failure (service went down for at a day due, supposedly, to problems at an upstream provider) and at least two minor but annoying hiccups (inbound calls would disconnect within 5 seconds of answering). In the second case, the presence of the different VT team members in the forums was instrumental in getting a quick resolution.
Conclusion: I still see VT as a company with great potential. If only the problems could become even less frequent so that my confidence in my phone service could grow, I know I could remain a customer for a long time.
----- Update, late January 2008 --------
Well, it came down to continued poor reliability even after the barrage of similar complaints on DSLR and sharply declining VT ratings. One would think that the company would have instigated some type of PR damage control here in DSLR but to this day there has been no outward attempt to repair the declining reputation. It seems as if some are in a heavy state of denial.
To this day I still had issues calling specific local exchanges - dial tone, dial a number, then nothing. Party at other end admitted later that I was connected but I could never hear a thing and was forced to redial. Got more complaints from others about my voice still breaking up occasionally mid-call.
And frankly, I am concerned about this company's financial longevity. Signs abound regarding cash flow problems, especially in looking at continued affiliate payment issues posted to the VT forum here. Sunrocket's demise has elevated my sensitivity to other small companies' abilities to weather the challenges they face.
I still think VT has the basis for a good product and I will use the forum to watch them from a distance, but somewhere between the raw product and the execution there are faulty methods and procedures that have yet to be corrected.
----- Update, early January 2008 --------
First it was the poor response times and poor quality of customer service after the Sunrocket demise late last summer, but I could deal with that since I had no problems with my phone reliability and no real reason to contact customer support. But then service and call quality began to degrade.
It started with occasional loud distortion while talking. A bigger problem replaced that one when outgoing calls would not connect at all (dial tone, dial, then nothing). That problem segued into multiple problems with voicemail - could not dial VM from my VT phone (fast busy after dialing) and had to retrieve VM through the website - worse still, at least six voicemails were taken by the VT VM system one afternoon and then lost (could not be recovered by VT or retrieved by me).
The latest unresolved problems have to do with calls that drop in the middle and inbound calls that drop the second I answer the phone. It seems that this service is getting worse rather than better, despite the valiant efforts of the VT techs who reply in the VT board here on DSLreports. My ISP is Verizon FIOS and my VT-supplied ATA is in the DMZ so I KNOW the problems are not at my end. Furthermore, all of these problems have been reported by many others in the VT board here over the last few months.
The bottom line for me is that if I don't see improvement over the next month I will be forced by continued poor reliability to shop for another VoIP provider. Too bad, too, since this company has the foundation to provide excellent service.
-------- Original Review, October 2006 --------
As a newbie to VOIP, I signed up on Monday, 9/19/06, at 3:30 pm Eastern US time for a one month plan to compare the reliability and quality of this service side-by-side with my Verizon POTS phone. The favorable reviews here, combined with forum participation by ViaTalk’s CEO and a tech support member, were the reasons for my choice in VOIP providers.
My credit card was billed the following day, Tuesday, about 5:00 pm, or about 26 hours after signing up. Within a half an hour of being charged for the service, I received a second email with my new ViaTalk phone number and temporary password to access my account on the web site. When I accessed the website to see my order status, my equipment was shown as shipped and a tracking number provided.
I then signed into the ViaTalk control panel on their website and spent about an hour acquainting myself with all of the basic and advanced phone features available. ViaTalk has an extensive group of features that offer incredible control over one’s phone service.
The welcome package with the PAP2 adapter took three days from the time I was billed to arrive at my house. Installation of the PAP2 was a breeze and I was up with a dial tone mere seconds after removing the PAP2 device from the box and connecting it to my phone and existing router (Note: save the PAP2 box and all included instructions, just in case you need to return it to ViaTalk). I then placed a couple of calls to friends and family and noted a few issues with call quality. Intermittent audio and echoing plagued my calls, despite using Verizon FiOS and their plentiful 5 Mbps upload bandwidth as my ISP.
I called tech support, waited only a minute in the queue, and received excellent technical support. ViaTalk support made a quick change to the PAP2 so that it would use a different port, and also sent me an email with instructions on how to move the PAP2 into the router’s DMZ. After the port change and the modification to move the PAP2 into my router’s DMZ, call quality improved dramatically.
After using the service for one month, I decided that reliability and call quality were good enough (not perfect, however) to take the plunge by requesting the porting of my existing Verizon POTS phone number. Porting my phone number from Verizon to VT (all handled by VT) took 10 calendar days from the time I faxed my request to ViaTalk until the day I received an email announcing its completion. There was a three hour period during the day my number was ported where inbound callers received a “This number has been disconnected” message, but other than that the porting was painless.
At that point I also took advantage of a one year deal that ViaTalk started during that week, which effectively lowered my monthly bill to about $11.70/month (this included the one month I paid to test the service, the installation and setup fees, and the one year deal). My Verizon POTS service was about $60/month for unlimited calls in the US and Canada, but only included the caller ID and call waiting features.
With a bit over one month of call history now (about 2500 minutes), I have experienced approximately 97% service reliability. Problems occur in the order of one out of every 30 calls or so and range from major issues like no outbound audio or calls that don’t complete, to minor issues like occasional echo on either side of the call.
At this point I am happy with my service. My greatest satisfaction comes from having complete control over my phone calls, thanks to ViaTalk’s extensive list of features and web-based control panel. The "Do Not Disturb" feature combined with a White List (phone numbers I allow through the DND) allows me to turn off my phone (send calls to voicemail) in the evening and back on the next morning, meaning very limited interruptions during dinner and evening prime time.
One other recommendation I discovered is to sign up for VT's priority customer service at $1.95/month for a few months in the beginning. This allows any call to customer service to move up to the top position in the queue, if there is one. The few times I called customer service to date there were 11 to 15 others in line awaiting assistance. Being sent to the top of the queue resulted in much shorter waits on hold.
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Viatalk-Major problems