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Review by jabetcha 
Posted: 130 days ago
member for 6.7 years, 996 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
 Lake Mary,Seminole,FL
 $9 per month
 "Cheap, easy setup, lots of features"
 "Occasional call issues"
 "Excellent Value"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I switched from another provider because of the constantly changing terms of service. I only use about 200 minutes per month, mostly in-state, and found that the pay-per-use provided national calling for about 40% less than I had been paying for an unlimited in-state plan. I was not porting a number, so the dirt-cheap-did product provided a local number and E911.
I set up my free IPKall number to forward to the SIP URI and it is automatically directed to the free fax receive service. CallCentric also allows direct, URI dialing, and peering with other VOIP providers.
I've been using them for about 2 months now. I have an occasional problem making a call, but overall, the quality is excellent. The only annoying item is the that dialing a "1" at the beginning of all numbers takes a little getting used to.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Callcentric |
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Review by lousteinberg
UPDATED: 136 days ago
member for 3.9 years, 30 visits, last login: 31 days ago
Valhalla,Westchester,NY
 Business customer
Contract price not specified.
"outbound calls drop less frequently"
"no phone support, different account per DID"
"updated: looks like we figured out the issue w/ inbound calls"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
Using grandstream sip phones in a small business. Tried converting a couple over from Vonage due to calls being dropped.
Call stability is better (still not great, but better). Unfortunately, phones are found in the "not registered state" frequently (requiring reboot) and LNP of our Vonage DIDs has started very badly- more than half of the inbound calls get a "call did not go through" error.
Callcentric isn't exactly business friendly. No live phone support, can't group our phones into a single account (we have 10), etc. Call quality is acceptable, when it works, which isn't often enough.
quick update: things are much better now. Looks like the problem was a combination of the grandstreams not really picking random source IP ports (when told to do so) and the Zywall firewall (NAT) timing out UDP sessions too aggressively. Result was that inbound SIP traffic was port-forwarded to multiple/conflicting phones. STUN from the phones would have fixed it, but for now we've increased the keepalive frequency on the grandstreams to be every 10 seconds. Much better since then.
Callcentric support is much improved since we started. Still think that for businesses that live/phone support is appropriate to minimize downtime., but we'll stay with Callcentric unless other issues arise.
Followup comments:  PX Eliezer
Premium
join:2008-08-09
New Jersey
 ·Callcentric
·Optimum Voice
·callwithus
·voip.ms
1 edit | Could it be network problems? Sorry to hear of the problems.
Their customer support is very responsive, in my experience, and gives quick access to US tech people who know their stuff. But if you do prefer live phone agents, then of course CC may not be for you.
If there are problems with the inbound porting, this may well be something on Vonage's end as well, especially if you are talking about other Vonage callers trying to call your new CC lines.
One major point I'd make: If you had problems with your Vonage service, and now ALSO have problems with CallCentric, then I wonder if this could be due to issues with your internet connection speed, jitter, and packet loss. Or are there possibly issues with your routers and other hardware....
How do you come out on tests such as:
»www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
»testyourvoip.com/
»myvoipspeed.visualware.com/
Considering that you have had issues with both Vonage and CallCentric, and that so few people ever have problems with CC, I think that it would be good to consider other possible problems. Otherwise you may switch to a 3rd Voip company and still have the same issues.
Hope things improve for you.
-------------------------------
Added in edit: I have multiple DID's on one account with no problem. I think that it's perhaps an issue only if you need different outgoing lines to display different caller ID's. | |
| | lousteinberg
join:2005-11-26
New Fairfield, CT
·Callcentric
| Re: Could it be network problems? Thanks for the reply. Our network connection has been rock solid (cablevision). We get about 30Mb down and 1-2Mb up with zero loss. The Optimim voice line that came with our broadband has similarly been perfect, so I doubt it's the network (I did upgrade the switch handling the grandstream phones to 1gig just to try that, and the grandstream network is on a dedicated router port with no other traffic, priority given to that network segment, etc).
The vonage issue was quite different from the callcentric issue in terms of behavior, but cant say for sure if they are related or not (e.g. the phones?).
I'm starting to wonder if the callcentric inbound problems are related to the fact that the phones keep deregistering (though I'd expect to roll to voicemail if a phone wasn't registered). Could the deregistering be due to the fact that callcentric doesn't support STUN? With multiple phones behind the firewall, we can't port forward to just 1 of them or the others won't work. I have NAT traversal enabled on the phones, but maybe the lack of STUN support means that callcentric can't handle multiple NAT'd phones? I don't want to give each phone a public IP (burns addresses and makes the phones more exposed to the net)
Thx,
/lou | |
| | | | | | 
CallC
@verizon.net
| reply to "lousteinberg".
Hello,
1) Answers to these and many other questions one may get within minutes by opening a trouble-ticket with Callcentric support.
2) It's not that Callcentric doesn't support STUN - it's not something requiring support. STUN had been developed as a protocol helping not NAT-aware service providers [those who do not have session border controllers] to find out about a real IP address of a client who is behind NAT'ed network. As Callcentric had been from the ground up built on a licensed Session Border Controller systems [multiple, distributed network of] - it simply has NO need to use STUN at all. This also greatly simplified configuration for many not tech-savvy users allowing them avoid complicated questions like "what is your STUN address?"...
3) You may literally have 1000s or even millions of SIP devices behind your NAT and/or firewall - we do NOT care - our technology penetrates [so far] almost ANY firewall/NAT combination (with extremely rare exceptions, so far only a handful counted when very specific "application" firewall was configured to physically intercept SIP packets - in countries like UAE where VoIP is forbidden; even then by setting so called "bypass" SBCs we, in many cases, solved that issue).
4) There is NO need to set or enable packet forwarding - in most cases it will, at least, make things worse. As has been said above, Callcentric does NOT require ANY packet forwarding nor setting SIP devices in DMZ. This thing is also clearly explained in our Support/FAQ sections which are very simple to search by keywords. Again - do NOT configure ANY packet forwarding. Do NOT set SIP devices in DMZ.
5) There are some "broken" routers and switches, for example, many older versions of Dlink firmware had SIP related problems.
6) There is NO need to set any re-registration intervals - our system negotiates an appropriate registration interval with the device. Grandstream is one of very good vendors who DOES support such negotiation mechanism.
7) Yes, Callcentric may and does handle multiple phones behind NAT without problems. There is virtually no setup today which would not be based on NAT. Callcentric's great success is largely based on its NAT penetrating technology.
8) In general - please, just open a trouble-ticket with Callcentric and your problem will be solved.
As a matter of fact - I do not understand how somebody, who do not clearly understand how the service provider works, without first trying its features, could initiate a port of their phone numbers to that provider - Callcentric has a very explicit and bold statement asking everybody initiating the port - check our network first.
I [personally] do not understand someone sitting here on these boards for 3.5 years and having only 22 visits (3 during last two days) while leaving their first and absolutely negative (also a first negative review for Callcentric in general - what, there was not even a small wish to read some past reviews or just read some Callcentric related threads?) review to Callcentric (I'd expect at least one review for Vonage... during this long time).
Thank you very much for trying our service. | |
| | | | lousteinberg
join:2005-11-26
New Fairfield, CT
·Callcentric
| Re: Could it be network problems? Thanks for the reply. We've had tickets open well before I posted. Am still hopeful that this gets resolved, but it seems less and less likely...certainly not "within minutes". Suggesting that we open a ticket was a great idea. Unfortunately, our first set of tickets were open on 12 May. It's now 30 June.
I'm afraid I don't understand your point number 8 at all. The fact that I haven't posted many (any) negative reviews after 3+ years as a BBR member should suggest that I'm not a chronic complainer (I've had many more visits than that...just don't usually log in, but thanks for checking up on me). I certainly did read past reviews before coming over, and had hoped to have a positive experience. We did test a single extension before porting. It worked fine. The problem came post porting with a second extension. We've frozen the migration of the rest of our numbers pending resolution of this issue.
As far as understanding how service providers work (still your point 8), you couldn't be more wrong there. I've built and run some of the largest IP networks in the world, have contributed to a number of the RFCs, chaired an IETF working group, etc.
I'm sure your service works just fine for the folks who posted positive reviews. I suspect that many of them don't run more than 1 phone. Some probably do, which is why I'm still trying to resolve this with you. I don't need 1000s, but so far you've struggled with 2 phones. Sure doesn't seem like a lot to me.
Blaming the router (your point 5) would seem to be an easy response, but we've tried 3 different brands of routers at this point. It's very unlikely to be the routers- I have the wireshark traces to prove it.. I don't know where the actual issue is, but I've patiently tried to help debug it. Not sure your reply does anything but indicate a degree of defensiveness. It certainly doesn't instill confidence that the issue is being seriously worked on. Not helped by the fact that the support cycles are very long since you don't offer phone support (seems odd for a phone company), and we can go days without a response to an update we made to the ticket. | |
| | | | |
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Review by tdgobux
Posted: 141 days ago
member for 141 days, 0 visits, last login: 141 days ago
Westerville,Franklin,OH
Business customer
$12 per month
 about 1 days
"Cheap, efficient"
"none"
"Something useful for inbound"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I've had call centric for about a year. I use the inbound calling to route to a cell phone and an inbound fax. Both work well. They have specific instructions on using their service with 3cx, Trixbox, etc - i've attempted to use it with one of the ip pbx and it worked - i didn't keep it only because the ip pbx software wasn't very good. I would recommend them.
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 Review by igotthisone
UPDATED: 148 days ago
member for 8 years, 622 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Davidson,Mecklenburg,NC
$12 per month
about 9 days
"The Tech Support Is The Best I've Ever Seen!!"
"Would like a Do Not Disturb option to be set by time of day, like CallVantage"
"Should have switched long before AT&T informed me I had to go."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I have been an AT&T CallVantage customer for nearly five years and received notification from them that “AT&T will be discontinuing AT&T CallVantage in 2009”. The statement went on to say “You are not required to take any action at this time, unless you choose to.” which I did.
AT&T was kind enough to offer that I could move my number to one of their other services and pay a minimum of $5 a month more as part of a bundled service for exactly what I was getting from them today, how nice…
I quickly began my search on the DSLReports.com website and discovered many new VOIP companies I hadn’t heard of before. My brother has Vonage so I knew what I’d get there, but CallCentric was getting rave reviews. I landed on them and began my migration with some level of caution after my past AT&T experience. I was going to try it out before I committed fully and was interested to find their website encouraging me to do just that.
I maintained my AT&T service and just forwarded my number to my new CallCentric account so I wouldn’t miss calls and could test their service fully for about a month. I found the services to be nearly identical with the exception of some small feature functionality. I do miss the ability to set my “do not disturb” feature during set times each night so people calling after hours are prompted to consider if the late night call is an emergency or not. CallCentric with just a couple exceptions has many more things I can do with the service.
My first experience with CallCentric’s exceptional support staff was when I requested an incoming number or Direct Inward Dial (DID) number. I opted to order a “pay per call” number for $1.95/month just to test. The website stated the number area I ordered should only take one day but it did take them nearly 9 days to establish my account with an incoming number. A note to support to inquire where it was on day 2 returned the following within an hour, “the area you ordered was not in stock within our numbering pool and was back ordered at the carriers that serve the area”. This wasn’t a big deal since I had service with AT&T and they credited my account $.54 for the lack of service.
My second experience with support was getting my PAP2T to work properly once I had the number. I was having problems receiving incoming calls. They gave me very detailed instructions of the screen shots they would need, how to upload those to support, and what I could do to upgrade firmware from Cisco’s website in the meantime. All this was done very quickly and thoroughly through the web. I eventually realized after some trial and error that my issue was due to my router and its firewall. After doing some additional web research I found documented issues with VOIP devices sitting behind my Belkin Pre-N Router. I ended up ordering a different Linksys SPA2102-NA device that could sit in front of my router like I’ve had my AT&T service configured for years. This was my issue not CallCentric but they hung with me…
Once I received and configured my new ATA device everything has been working great. My old number was forwarded to my new service so all calls were received fine while we played with the service. This month was a great opportunity for me to play and learn about what I really needed for services going forward. First, I learned that the unlimited plan I intended to move to wasn’t necessary. The unlimited plan, like I had with CallVantage, was a bit less expensive than AT&T. However, the “pay per call” program was going to end up costing me about half of that due to seeing our detailed calling habits during the trial month. Because of the detailed visibility of our minute usage and charges I was able to see I didn’t need that much service. Coming from a POTS service to VOIP back in 2003 and getting phone service in the $25 dollar range was a steal. I found I could get the same service today for half that and explains why AT&T is getting out. I also learned how to tweak my ATA device, which I never had the ability to do with AT&T service. Now this isn’t necessary but the information is out there if you want to learn. The CallCentric support website provides a standard setup scheme that requires 11 digits and I’ve been so accustom to using 10 digit dialing with AT&T this was something I needed to research to see if 10 was possible. After reading a few post I found one showing me how to do 10 digit and another showing me how to do 7 digit. I learned from those posts enough to create my own dial plan that allows using 7, 10, and 11 digit dialing. The following is what I’ve been using successfully for over a month.
(Please click on the attached screen shot of my dial plan below. My original post didn't correctly render the actual post because the DSLReports.com blog filters elements of the string because it believes it's HTML code)
*You will need to replace “704” to be your local area code for this to work correctly.
I have since ported my old number from AT&T to CallCentric and have said goodbye to AT&T before they gave me the permanent boot and on my terms.
All-in-all, this is a great service with outstanding support. If you have been an AT&T CallVantage customer I’d strongly encourage you to check these folks out. I’d also encourage any other customers of Vonage, Time Warner, or other more established VOIP providers to do the price comparison. I assure you you’re overpaying like I was for the exact same service with less features than these folks provide.
Attachments:
Followup comments: PX Eliezer
Premium
join:2008-08-09
New Jersey
1 edit | CC review Thanks for interesting review.
On your dial plan: Shouldn't the .75xx actually be *75xx ??
This is for their speed dial.
---------------------------------
Great folks at CC. I love their services. | |
| |
igotthisone
join:2001-11-23
Davidson, NC
·Callcentric
·AT&T CallVantage
| Re: CC review You are correct! I pulled this from a word document I created and had corrected before pasting to my ATA. I neglected to change what I had saved in a word document, so thanks for the catch. I've updated the review to correctly reflect what you have called out. | |
|
CallC
@verizon.net
| Using Call Treatments for time based Do Not Disturb rules Thank you very much for this wonderful and detailed review.
Just as a side note (because you mentioned it) - there is a way to use Call treatments for time based handling of Do Not Disturb. You may configure a rule to send a call to either voice-mail or to an error message (or to anywhere else like "We've been captured by monkeys") during certain hours. You may even configure "white" list of those who will still be able to get through to your phone (like close relatives or work-based emergencies). Yes, it's a bit complicated (because you have to set it separately for each day of week), but once set - you may enjoy your privacy during night hours  ). | |
| |
igotthisone
join:2001-11-23
Davidson, NC | Re: Using Call Treatments for time based Do Not Disturb rules Thanks, I wasn't aware this was possible but will give it a try. Just shows how customizable this service really is. The one thing I assume still isn't available is the ring through option in the recording if it is a true emergency though. | |
|
Mat
| Looking to migrate from Callvantage I am also a current customer of AT&T Callvantage and wanted to test these guys out. I have a few questions.
1. Do we need to select an inbound product and an outbound product? If I read right, we need an inbound product to get our number ported.
2. If we have to take an inbound product what was your selection?
3. Do you know if its possible to change the outbound product selection later? Like if I see my usage has changed, can I switch from pay per call to unlimited?
4. One of the feature that I liked with AT&T was the 'Locate Me' with simultaneous ring? Does Callvantage have the same or do I have to forward the call each time I go anywhere?
Thanks in advance
Mat | |
| |
igotthisone
join:2001-11-23
Davidson, NC
·Callcentric
·AT&T CallVantage
| Re: Looking to migrate from Callvantage 1. Yes you need to choose both, and yes you need an inbound number to port. I used a temporary one for the period I was testing. I'd recommend reading the following »www.callcentric.com/faq/17#29
2. I selected "Pay per Call" for $1.95/month and $0.015/minute to test with the intention to switching to unlimited once I decided if the service was right for me. Because I calculated I would need to use over 1596 minutes a month to break even with the unlimited plan incoming and outgoing I'm staying with the "Pay per Call" as my primary plan.
3. Yes you can switch at a later time if you think you need more or less.
4. Not exactly the same as CallVantage. They do offer a feature called "Call Treatment" and "DID Forwarding" that aren't exactly the same but do allow customized routing of very specific scenarios or general scenarios. This isn't the same though as what you have used. | |
| Gulden_NL
join:2009-06-24
Fountain Hills, AZ
|  Former AT&T Call Vantage Customer Agrees 100%
One suggestion I've already sent CallVantage is regarding more help with the dial plan. Heck I even had to go out and look at it to remember how to get to 7 and 10 digit dialing and I architect large VoIP systems for a living! There's no reason they can't add it to their site, in fact having it raises Bing and Google hits which could drive new traffic to their site for conversion to their offering.
I just joined DSLReports, so will add my review and will also add in my tweaking hints for a Linksys SPA2102 gateway. | |
| | | | |
igotthisone
join:2001-11-23
Davidson, NC
·Callcentric
·AT&T CallVantage
| Re: Former AT&T Call Vantage Customer Agrees 100% Did you confirm that your post rendered 100% correct? I noticed after you posted that my original post wasn't due to use of syntax that the forum thought was HTML tags. My use of the angle brackets or less/greater than signs was removing some of the needed sting code. | |
| | | | 
Trimline
Premium
join:2004-10-24
Orlando, FL | Re: Former AT&T Call Vantage Customer Agrees 100% It is correct. Try it. | |
| | | |
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Review by Trimline
Posted: 149 days ago
member for 5 years, 1734 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Orlando,Orange,FL
$24 per month
about -1 days
"Easy setup, excellent sound quality, excellent support."
"Can't think of any."
"Top quality VOIP provider."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I ordered CC on the pay as you go plan, not thinking I would be really using it very much. My plan was to use mainly for international dialing.
Quite the opposite happened; I am thrilled with the call quality and switched it over to the North American plan. I now use this as my primary phone and dropped all the "extras" on my AT&T line.
The service is outstanding, took no time to register and make calls. Plugged in my SPA-2000 and entered the required fields as found in their support section. Flawless service with no surprises.
A very satisfied customer.
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Review by Mango
UPDATED: 159 days ago
member for 334 days, 473 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Vancouver,BC
Contract price not specified.
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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Unfortunately, due to intermittent issues with incoming faxes, CallCentric is no longer advertising their incoming fax service. I guess it's back to Telus for me 
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Review by regloss
UPDATED: 161 days ago
member for 8.8 years, 787 visits, last login: 11 days ago
Orlando,Orange,FL
$27 per month
"Support for many ATA's, Fast and accurate technical support, Easy set up, ATA's easy to swap, Fully automated ordering"
"Charges for call forwarding even on unlimited plans but still a great value when you factor in reliability and call quality"
"One of the best VoIP providers around"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
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Reliability:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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After being a VoicePulse customer for 4+ years, it was time to switch due to some quality issues at one of their downstream providers (no fault of VoicePulse).
I signed up with CallCentric for the DID Personal Unlimited ($5.95) and Pay Per Call with 911 service ($1.50) and later added North America Unlimited ($19.95) and Voice Mail ($0) after testing the service for a few days. The ordering process was simple and there was only a short wait for a DID number because I wanted a number in a particular city. I used both older Sipura SPA2000 and SPA2002 adapters and the setup for both was simple and they worked on the first try. I really like the fact that CallCentric doesn't take over your adapter or need to go through a long registration process to get your adapter into their system. You just configure it and go. Their dashboard on the webpage gives you plenty of info without searching around. CallCentric support is awesome. I opened a couple of problems to do some fine tuning on the adapter settings and the support response time was measured in minutes and the answers were correct the first time. The call quality is great for both local and long distance calls. All in all, I'm very impressed with CallCentric.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 164 days ago
(review was emailed from domain LBRE.com)
Long Beach,Los Angeles,CA
Contract price not specified.
"Tech support , features and price"
"VOIP does take somebody who is tech savy"
"My phone bill is now less than $30 vs $150"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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These guys are awesome. I just finished setting up two outgoing lines with
one incoming line that I ported over from Verizon. The porting took about 2
weeks and the phone number was only down for a couple of hours ringing busy.
Getting all of the settings correct on the Linksys PAP2T is not the easiest,
and if their tech support wasn't as good as it is, this could have been a
frustrating experience. Their tech support should be the standard for all
other companies. Their method of submitting a trouble ticket via your
dashboard (web page) is efficient and doesn't waste anyone's time. Yes, I
had to learn how to create a screen shot of my active browser window when I
had the Linksys settings on the screen and then upload the image to tech
support, but they even walked me through this process. They made it about as
easy and painless as the process could be. It did take a little fiddling to
get all of the settings right. But their responses were always timely and
accurate. In fact the last response I got only took about 3 minutes. Only
after I proved to myself that VOIP with CallCentric was going to work did I
port my number over. Now I will consider whether to move my two business
lines over to CallCentric, but this will require additional hardware and
methods that I haven't quite figured out yet.
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Review by Darkev
Posted: 178 days ago
member for 342 days, 32 visits, last login: 32 days ago
Gatineau,QC
$27 per month (month by month)
"Good customer service/care, Nice website with many features, Unlimited calling plans, CNAM"
"Call Quality not the best, Bill in US $ only"
"It's not the best VoIP company, but may have a promising future"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I joined the North America Unlimited calling plan which cost me around $27 Canadian per month. So it was not a cheap VoIP service. I was with them from August 2008 until just before they brought in CNAM this year (2009). So I never had CNAM when with them. I found the call quality poor on two issues. One, they would disconnect my call after a certain time period. Two, there was a lot of warble and glassy type of sound which often has to do with high compression. I set my gateway to use G711U which is supposed to be high quality. Yet when I placed a SIP DEBUG dump on my gateway I noticed that CallCentric was always negotiating G726, and sometimes G729. I believe this had a lot to do with the audio problems I was having. They told me that they suspected it was because their main Canadian carrier was causing the issues and they said they could temporarily move me to a more expensive carrier to see if it helps. (More expensive to CallCentric, not more expensive for me.) The quality was better, but they did not leave me on the more expensive route. They switched me back to the cheaper carrier and my problems started up again. I've noticed that they are rated high when it comes to quality, but maybe that's only true in the US. I found in Canada the audio quality was worse than a horrible cell phone connection.
On a positive note, they assigned me a number immediately and I was able to provision my gateway immediately. They have one of the better systems for automatically assigning numbers. Their technical support staff were very helpful, and they got back to me within an hour usually of submitting a ticket.
I think this company is promising as they seem to be evolving. If they get their audio quality problems fixed, and increase the amount of time before disconnecting calls, that will fix them up. My main priority for any phone service is voice quality. That comes before all else. It's not good for the people I was calling either because they would complain about choppy and jittery sound. The best way to advertise voip is to ensure audio quality is as high as possible. If it is consistently high, it will surely help sell voip to the general public. When people are exposed to poor quality they get the impression that voip is inferior. Since call quality is of utmost importance to me, I unfortunately I had to leave them.
Followup comments: | | Darkev
join:2008-12-17
Gatineau, QC
·voip.ms
·Primus Talkbroadband
·Future Nine Corpor..
·Vonage
·Callcentric
| Re: CallCentric Hi there,
I never said they were a new company, but they were evolving when I joined them, and after I left they introduced CNAM. I heard of them long before I signed up, and because they were around for a while I decided to try them.
Personally, there are NO perfect VoIP companies in Canada. Each one seems to come with a variety of features that are not completely consistent from one to the other. Which, of course, makes it more difficult to compare the companies because they all offer different flavors. For me, call quality is the most important. CallCentric did not have the call quality that I was expecting.
I left them in January/February. I rarely spoke on the phone for longer than a few minutes, but a close friend of mine was going through a terrible time and she called me and talked for an extended period 2 nights in a row. We were cut off both times. I called CallCentric about it and they informed me that their system does time out. I thought it was only one hour though. It may have been 2 hours. I don't remember now because my disconnects happened in 2008. I've used other voip systems and never had this happen before. Primus, Voip.ms, and Vonage did not disconnect my calls.
I cannot say which company is the best because I haven't found one yet that is my idea of a great voip provider. I think Future-Nine is the closest I've found thus far. Voip.ms has got some really cool features and they are VERY reliable. If they had unlimited calling plans I would likely switch to them completely. Future-Nine has been somewhat reliable, but as recently as this evening they were down. I tried calling someone and got a reorder tone. I checked my gateway and it wasn't registered with Future-Nine, but it was registered with voip.ms. I rebooted the gateway, same thing. It registered with voip.ms but not Future-Nine. I tried accessing their website and could not access the Future-Nine website either. About 20 minutes ago all started working again, including their website. Perhaps they had a huge power failure? I don't know.
I'm in the process of trying a couple of other VoIP companies. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one of them will be the answer to my quest for a reliable voip provider that offers:
- byod
- consistently delivers excellent audio quality
- reliable connection
- free call forwarding
- Caller ID with CNAM
- Offers good customer service/tech support when/if needed | |
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 Review by EGeezer
UPDATED: 180 days ago
member for 7.3 years, 3414 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Mount Sterling,Madison,OH
$27 per month
about 1 days
"No phone support, 911 service has issues."
"911 issues -Still evaluating"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I signed up on May 15, 2009 for North America Unlimited and DID personal unlimited. The $27.40 monthly includes a $1.50 911 fee. This is a couple of bucks less than ATT Callvantage. However, price is secondary to reliabiltiy and quality to me.
I ordered the Linksys PAP2T TA after emailing the Callcentric support to verify support and recommendations. The PAP2T resides behind a NAT router and seems to have no issues with that setup.
Response time to online support questions was usually 1-3 hours and the responder addressed the questions well and accurately. It's somewhat clumsy and time consuming, however, to try to carry on an interactive conversation VIA email and online reporting.
When the PAP2T arrived, I registered for the services. The PAP2T setup was fairly straightforward and the Callcentric documentation was accurate and essential to the setup.
Phone quality is good and I have no issues with quality so far. Sometimes I have to go on hook and back off to get a dial tone, a minor inconvenience I did not report to CallCentric. The first day there was about a 30 minute to one hour hour (not sure) unscheduled outage in the evening. There has been one scheduled outage May 28 2009 between 2AM and 4AM EDT for maintenance, reported by Callcentric as having been less than five minutes.
911 seems to be a problem. One issue I consider resolved is that the caller ID shows a different number at our 911 cal center. However, they are able to call me back automatically using the number on their display so I consider that resolved.
There are still two other unresolved issues with the 911 service.
I contacted our local 911 administrative office for permission to test the system. Two possibly critical issues arose. On May 15, I opened trouble tickets with CallCentric to report the issues, and provided contact information to CallCentric for our local 911 administrator so they could work directly with them.
The issues are;
1) Although my complete address is reported correctly to our 911 system, the GPS coordinates sent to our 911 system shows my location approximately 850 miles away, somewhere northwest of Kansas City.
2) The ESN (Emergency Services Number) being provided to our 911 service is incorrect. The ESN is what the 911 operator uses to determine the correct police, fire and EMS to dispatch to the caller's location and this can be a critical factor in quick response or calls going to the wrong responders. .
According to Callcentric support, these issues have been forwarded to their 911 service provider as of 15 May 2009. As of this date (28 May 2009), there has been no resolution of these issues reported to me. CallCentric did update me on 22 MAY 2009 that some testing was to occur earlier this week.
I will update this review as things progress(or don't progress).
Followup comments:
John Sherman
@optonline.net | 911 issues Thank you for bringing this up.
Most likely the 911 company is used by multiple Voip services, therefore, all of us must take these issues seriously.
Please keep us updated. | |
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CallC
@verizon.net
| regarding "unscheduled outage" you reported "The first day there was about a 30 minute to one hour hour (not sure) unscheduled outage in the evening."
- I may assure you that if there would happen even a 10 minute outage on CC network - this list would already be flamed with everybody asking something like "CC's down?". There was NO such thing at the day you reported nor anywhere around last 3+ months. When such an outage happens - there is a posted note within account's Dash panel as well as everyone here (on the DSLRs) would tell you (just ask) that "yes" (or "no") they also experienced something similar. The best way to find out - just open a trouble-ticket - you most likely to get a response very quickly.
Regarding technical support (which you "rewarded" at 60%) - Callcentric is known in industry as a very responsive provider with very well trained technical support engineers who work on each and any issue one may have until complete resolution is received. You may ask this (DSLR) list about this fact as well. If you have any complain - you may report it factually here and/or open a ticket with CC and work it through. I hope - people can confirm my words.
Thank you. | |
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John Sherman
@optonline.net
| 911---?? We all know that Callcentric has very good customer support. And obviously they are proud of their company and product, because the above reply seems kind of defensive.
But the more important issue was not mentioned.
The 911 issue reported by the reviewer is important. What is the situation in that regard? | |
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EGeezer
Summertime -
Premium
join:2002-08-04
Country!
·Callcentric
 ·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T CallVantage
1 edit | Re: regarding "unscheduled outage" you reported said by CallC :
"The first day there was about a 30 minute to one hour hour (not sure) unscheduled outage in the evening."
- I may assure you that if there would happen even a 10 minute outage on CC network - this list would already ...
The outage as I described was my experience. When I went to the dashboard, the status message said something about restarting some server(s) and reprovisioning users. As for the time, it was in the late evening and the time, as I mentioned is estimated since I did not constantly monitor the site or continuously watch my "phone" light to see if I was re-provisioned.
You missed the probability that this was not a global outage of the system, but rather a limited one affecting one or more areas. In that case, I would not expect them to post messages to the dashboards of all those clients who were still functioning normally, only those who were affected. If the number of affected users was small, then I'd not expect a flood of posts for it, especially late in the evening.
quote:
Regarding technical support (which you "rewarded" at 60%) - Callcentric is known in industry as a very responsive provider with very well trained technical support engineers who work on each and any issue one may have until complete resolution is received.
I was clear in stating the negative factors. I rated it at 60% because of the lack of phone support, which I mentioned, and the larger factor of the almost two-week-old unresolved 911 issues, which IMO could result in delays in emergency response. I will continue to rate it at 60% until the 911 issue is resolved. quote:
You may report it factually here and/or open a ticket with CC and work it through.
Which is what I have done. I have tickets open for unresolved problems. I did not open a ticket for the unscheduled outage because my dashboard status on the site indicated they were having problems which were consistent with what I was seeing, so a ticket would have been unnecessary.
I agree with "John Sherman" that the 911 issue is important, especially for those who may use the service as their primary telephone. At this time the issue and ticket(s) remain open.
As I stated previously, I will update this review as things progress(or don't progress).
--
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis | |
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