Monday, July 16, 2007

Bye Bye Sunrocket

Sunrocket was my phone company...until today.  This evening I looked at TechMeme to see what was new in the world only to run into this post at GigaOm.  Check the web site.  Everything looks fine.  Check the phone.  No dial tone.  Bummer.  Look around a little more and find this article in the New York Times.  My phone company just died.  No warning.  No automatic switchover to another company.  Just up and gone in an instant.  We have cell phones so we aren't fully out of contact, but how weird.  After so many years of dealing with a government-granted monopoly like Qwest, it's strange to think about a phone company just going away.


I can't stand paying $35/month for basic phone service though so I'll try another VOIP provider.  After doing some research, I think I'm going to try ViaTalk.  They get good reviews and have been around a while.  Hopefully I can actually use all of my year-long contract this time.  :)


7-17 update:  If you are following me to ViaTalk, here are some instructions on using your existing gizmo.

11 comments:

  1. How about Yahoo Voice?

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  2. Check out the Earthlink $69 bundle 8 Mbps DSL and Line Powered VoIP (just like regular phone service i.e. no need for an ATA/IAD and it works when your home power is out)..
    http://www.earthlink.net/voice/bundles/dslhomephone/
    There is also a triple play DSL/LPV/Satellite bundle
    http://www.earthlink.net/access/bundles/tripleplay/

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  3. Personally I can't stomach the extra dependencies that VOIP entail (power, internet.)  The $35/month is a strong argument though.
    I fear that as VOIP becomes more popular, it will start attracting the kind of government regulation and taxation that plague POTS (which is why a land line is $35 a month in the first place.)

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  4. VOIP is definitely more fragile than POTS.  If your power or voip provider or internet provider go down, your phone stops.  If your network is too busy because you're downloading something, your phone breaks up.  That said, with cell phones as a backup, the fragility can be tolerable.  The price delta is certainly big.  ViaTalk is $199/year.  At $35 a month, a POTS phone costs more than twice that.  And you have long distance bills on top of that.

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  5. It all goes back to how useful the dependencies are on their own.
    If you have power anyway...
    And you have internet anyway...
    And you have cell service anyway...
    ... then ditching POTS for VOIP makes perfect sense.
    So we have a four-card combo.  But it works because three of the cards are useful in and of themselves anyway.
    I have power and internet, but not cell service, so I'm sticking with POTS for now. The cost difference of (cell + VOIP) - POTS currently outweighs the added convenience of a cell phone, plus the inertial cost of having to change.

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  6. I agree.  I held off getting broadband for a long time because I could get my dialup for free and didn't have a 2nd line for the modem.  The $40/month cost was equal to the cost of an ISP plus a 2nd phone line.  If I had both, I would have jumped quickly.  Because I had neither, the cost was huge and I held off.
    That said, there are some cheap cell phone plans out there if you buy by the minute and don't use it much.

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  7. CAN YOU HELP ME? LOOKING FOR ALL SUN ROCKET REP'S AND EMPLOYEE'S ,AND CUSTOMER'S LOOKING FOR A NEW HOME.PLEASE CONTACT ME ASAP.
    OUR COMPANY IS IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL, AND A MEMBER OF THE DSA.I WOULD LOVE TO WORK WITH YOU. TAKE CARE.AND PLEASE GET THE WORD OUT.YOU HAVE A HOME WITH US. THE NEW AGE OF VOIP IS HERE. PLEASE CHECK MY
    WEBSITE.
    HAROLD NELSON. 1800-585-3441
    WWW.IGONET.BIZ/TEAMTWO
    WWW.IGONET.NET/TEAMTWO
    --
    Harold Nelson
    Independent Rep.IGONET V.O.I.P.
    Office# 1800-585-3441
    Cell# 1815-603-3427
    Web Site: http://www.igonet.biz/teamtwo
     http://www.igonetrepinfo.com/1000.htm
     http://www.igonetrepinfo.com/2000.htm
                  http://www.igonet.net/teamtwo

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  8. This is the very reason why I wouldn't pay $200 again in advance and I will not rely on VOIP alone as my sole phone service. We will never know when will be the next fold up and if it can happen to SunRocket with more than 200k subscribers then it can happen to anyone.
    Thats why I am going back to POTS and sign up again with Onesuite.com (I dropped them when I switch to SunRocket 5 months ago) and I believe they have a VOIP feature right now for only $2.95 a month (incoming calls are free) and pay as you scheme. At least I will still have a phone service even if my internet is down or theres a power interruption in my area.

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  9. All SunRocket(SR) Customer,
    I was a SR customer, as I understand that SR played a bankruptcy game to the customer, it looks that they planned this game when they had a promotion for 199/yr plan, they rubbed the balance money on each contract from the customer, TeleBlend(TB) takes over everything from SR except contract, they just changed the company name from SR to TB.
    Do you have any idea to handle this issue, it is not a small issue, it is a big,big,big, huge issue, it is related to 200,000 customers
    We have to ask government to protect us to have it in fair, where is the government? where is the policeman? where is the lawyer? where is our congressman? did they know the issue or not?
    Regards,
    A SR Customer

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  10. I switched to Lingo for their 79.95/mo, unlimited business plan last week. Along with one month free subscription, I received a free additional voice line, 24/7 online account management, free adapter of worth $50 and Office Assistant plus usual basic and advanced calling features with this premium plan. If you are a former SunRocket customer,I suggest you must choose Lingo as your next VoIP provider. You will surely get your money’s worth.

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  11. great blog nice information about Viatalk thanks Steve Rowe.
    Best VoIP Providers

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