VOIPo Residential Service Feature List/Launch Pricing

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by RainbowViper

Tim,

Just a minor point I'd like to have clarified, but I'm told (and is my experience) that if you have your landline service terminated and want to use the existing internal phone wiring for services like this, to make SURE that the phone line actually coming into the house to that old two-post shunt block, or newer multi-wire "Network Interface" box (usually gray), is physically disconnected.

i.e. Don't trust that the Telco won't accidentally send power back to the line. Physically disconnect the wires inside the house at the "Point Of Entry", then cap each wire seperately with electrical tape or a wire nut.

If your disconnection requires a tech to come to the house, ask them to do it for you and show you where the wires are. I think they will at no extra charge.

The way things have been worded in this post, I can't tell if that's something you already tell new customers to do, or if you even recommend it.

Yeah, it's a good idea. In theory, the phone company wouldn't accidentally turn things back on, but you never know.

Physically disconnecting their connection definitely can't hurt.

Thanks for pointing that out.

[proclan]

I did this with another voip service I used for over 2 years. I will not mention the name, nothing wrong with the service at all I actually like it but my cable company offers voip with my service package now. You should disconnect those wires from your old phone company because they still send 24 volt power through your line regardless if your service is turned off or not. This will cause static in your new digital voip service line. And if your never planning on using a land line again you can also tell them to remove there old ugly wires off your house (hehe). I will be looking at VOIPo for my business lines though.

[wildweasel]

Yes, we provide the adapter. The pricing listed does include unlimited incoming/outgoing residential calls in the US/Canada.

Any update as to when there will be an official start up date? And any time frame on the re seller package? I'm ready to get started. Thanks.

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by wildweasel

Any update as to when there will be an official start up date? And any time frame on the re seller package? I'm ready to get started. Thanks.

We'll be opening this up to public beta like we did the toll-free, virtual and fax. No promises, but I'm expecting that we can do this by the end of next week.

[slapshotw]

I used the incoming fax service for the first time today. It was great!

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by slapshotw

I used the incoming fax service for the first time today. It was great!

Glad to hear.

[bode77]

Will there be the Fax solution with the residential as well?

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by bode77

Will there be the Fax solution with the residential as well?

Yes, the fax, toll-free, and virtual numbers are all optional addons for residential accounts.

As an additional feature all toll-free numbers and virtual numbers added to a residential account have voicemail as well since that is a feature offered with the residential services.

Virtual and toll-free numbers on residential will by default just ring through to your main account and voicemail, but you can also control them independently and setup a private voicemail box for them if you want.

That's one of the main things you'll notice. We've designed things to make it very easy for customers to add addons to their account (if enabled/available). This reduces support since they can do it themselves and also ultimately makes you more money (if you are a reseller).

[bfdexp]

Two quick questions...

Voicemails will be in your vPanel as .WAV files that you can listen to from anywhere on the Internet?

As a customer, we can use both the normal and soft phone option at the same time. IE... Be at the normal setup when you are home and then switch to softphone on your laptop when you are on vacation?

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by bfdexp

Two quick questions...

Voicemails will be in your vPanel as .WAV files that you can listen to from anywhere on the Internet?

As a customer, we can use both the normal and soft phone option at the same time. IE... Be at the normal setup when you are home and then switch to softphone on your laptop when you are on vacation?

Yes, voicemails you can listen to and manage online.

You also have the option of having a WAV file e-mailed to you or dialing in and listening to them by phone.

You can use both the adapter and the softphone, yes. You don't need to commit to one or the other.

[RainbowViper]

Originally Posted by VOIPoTim

Yeah, it's a good idea. In theory, the phone company wouldn't accidentally turn things back on, but you never know.

Physically disconnecting their connection definitely can't hurt.

Thanks for pointing that out.

You're welcome. Glad I could be of some help.

M

[RonC]

Hello,

If you have two numbers that ring on the same line can one of them be a smart ring. I have this service from my present tel company, my business line has a unique ring. Wondering if HG wil offer anything like that.

Cheers

Ron

[imaginehosting]

My Questions are to offer resential service as a reseller are there any procedures that resellers need to take and offer residebtial home phone service. Like fees to the fcc or any kind of lincceses. I would not offer this right off the bat as aprimary line I would like to know I myself to start off as a 2nd phone line service. Not as a primary line I do not want to deal with 911 issues or of something is wrong with service and I have a service at someones house then a lawsuit I do not want to offer 911 I would like to market this as a 2nd line to my customers as a secondary line . That is what I would like and also wahat kind of support wwould we get say If some one has issues calling one particular number would we open a ticket with voipo and you would see what the issue is or would we have access as resllers to like a tracing program. Right now I work for a cable comapy voip service and we have a tracing program would we have access to something like. Or would voipo check the issue and get it resloved.

Jason Imaginehosting.net

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by imaginehosting

My Questions are to offer resential service as a reseller are there any procedures that resellers need to take and offer residebtial home phone service. Like fees to the fcc or any kind of lincceses. I would not offer this right off the bat as aprimary line I would like to know I myself to start off as a 2nd phone line service. Not as a primary line I do not want to deal with 911 issues or of something is wrong with service and I have a service at someones house then a lawsuit I do not want to offer 911 I would like to market this as a 2nd line to my customers as a secondary line . That is what I would like and also wahat kind of support wwould we get say If some one has issues calling one particular number would we open a ticket with voipo and you would see what the issue is or would we have access as resllers to like a tracing program. Right now I work for a cable comapy voip service and we have a tracing program would we have access to something like. Or would voipo check the issue and get it resloved.

Jason Imaginehosting.net

Good questions. One of the biggest issues is that if the phone line is what is called "interconnected" which means it can make and receive calls from the public phone network, 911 is required by the FCC if the customer is in the US. So even if it's a secondary line, it would still be required. The good news is that we've included a pretty robust system for 911 and it's all automatically tied in. You won't be able to create an account or take a signup without an E911 address. We've designed it so you're in full compliance with 911 guidelines.

With that being said, 911 service would not function if there is an internet connection problem, a power outage, etc. That's all covered in the disclaimers though and is standard. We'll provide templates for those disclaimers.

The good news is that beyond 911, there's not a lot of regulation that you need to worry about right now. There are a lot of things we have to worry about at the network level like CALEA (basically wiretap access), etc but that's what you guys are paying us for.

In terms of Tier 2 support, you would just open a ticket with us and we'd take care of that kind of stuff. You mainly would just need to worry about sales/customer service for your customers.

Occasionally if they have certain network configs or routers, they may need to forward ports on their router to open it up so our adapter can work correctly. We'll provide info on how to do this, but it's something you'd handle with them.

Beyond that, there's really not a lot of tech stuff that you'd need to worry about like there is with hosting.

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by RonC

Hello,

If you have two numbers that ring on the same line can one of them be a smart ring. I have this service from my present tel company, my business line has a unique ring. Wondering if HG wil offer anything like that.

Cheers

Ron

Hi Ron,

This isn't currently a feature, but it's something we do already have on the list for future development.

We kept adding and adding and finally I had to cut things so we could launch...otherwise we'd never finish.

After launch, we have a huge list of things to add.

[wildweasel]

Any updates yet on the beta of the residential service? I would really like to see this system in action. And I look forward to the re-seller version.

[GOODY]

I can't wait to launch, I have my site ready and waiting for details to add to it.

[VOIPoTim]

We're still working out a few things that have come up, but overall things are going very well. We'll post updates as we have them.

[RonC]

Hello,

I am wondering how the porting of exisitng phone numbers will be handled? Will there be an online form for this once we get the piece of hardware from HG. Once the porting is initiated how long would you expect it to take? I realize this might also be dependent on the previous carrier releasing the number.

Thanks

Ron

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by RonC

Hello,

I am wondering how the porting of exisitng phone numbers will be handled? Will there be an online form for this once we get the piece of hardware from HG. Once the porting is initiated how long would you expect it to take? I realize this might also be dependent on the previous carrier releasing the number.

Thanks

Ron

Hi Ron,

Porting in the VoIP industry as a whole is somewhat slow. Here's what needs to happen.

1) Account owners fills our/prints a form with their billing info for the account they are porting.

2) They sign it and fax us a copy of it along with a copy of a recent bill for the account

3) We submit it to a central system and wait for a completion date and update you when we have it.

4) The number ports.

Basically it goes into a central system and the copy of the bill goes to the previous carrier so they can verify it is infact their customer porting out.

The industry average for the porting process is about about 30 days.

We assign a user a temporary phone number to use while their port is in process.

They could if they wanted forward their existing phone number to the temporary one if they have call forwarding on their old service.

The good news is that new FCC guidelines that will go into effect soon will require that porting speeds up (like cell phone porting already has), so over the next 6-12 months I'd expect this to drop drastically as new electronic processes are put in place for information sharing. The paper is what takes so long.

[Rockoids]

I had it done in about 12 days when I moved from one carrier, VoIPYourLife, to Vonage. So maybe there's hope, Tim.

When I moved my wireless service from Verizon Wireless to AT&T (somehow the latter gives me better audio, actually), they transferred three numbers in the space of about 15 minutes.

Imagine if you could do that with VoIP and not have to go through the paperwork explosion.

Keep the faith.

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by rockoids

I had it done in about 12 days when I moved from one carrier, VoIPYourLife, to Vonage. So maybe there's hope, Tim.

When I moved my wireless service from Verizon Wireless to AT&T (somehow the latter gives me better audio, actually), they transferred three numbers in the space of about 15 minutes.

Imagine if you could do that with VoIP and not have to go through the paperwork explosion.

Keep the faith.

Yeah it's possible for it to happen within a few days, but since some may not, I'm just being conservative with estimates.

[VOIPoTim]

Originally Posted by GOODY

I can't wait to launch, I have my site ready and waiting for details to add to it.

Yeah definitely. I saw your site and it's looking good.

We're working to wrap things up. Everything is basically done for the most part. Billing is done, 99% of the programming is done, everything is going relatively well. Right now, we're basically fixing minor bugs, preparing to scale things out onto a production fleet of servers, and starting a massive hiring spree to get beef up our core group of admins. Once these areas are situated, we'll be expanding the public beta and opening the floodgates for launch.

VOIPo and HostGator have a marketing partnership and HostGator is an investor. Otherwise, we're not connected so our staff is being built from the group up. With that being said, we have to be able to handle the volume of sales that HostGator can send us, so we need to do a little more hiring and make sure processes are all completely down so we don't run into problems.

We're almost there

[GOODY]

Tim, you are tickling me, giving me goose bumps, I can't wait.

[imaginehosting]

I had another questions, Can you have small businesses get that adpter to
And use the resindeintal serivice as a small business Line.