Entered CNET Catalog: 01/26/2005
SKU: SERVVERIZONVOICEWING
Manufacturer: Verizon
Product summary
The good: Easy setup; useful and flexible online account management tools; provides a backup number in case of power outage; lets you keep your current phone number.
The bad: Too expensive; only one calling plan; some calls aren't very clear; unlimited long distance applies to calls only within the United States.
The bottom line: If you're an existing Verizon DSL customer, VoiceWing is worth considering. If not, you'll find a better deal and better call quality elsewhere.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 01/25/2005
During our informal VoiceWing tests, we did experience occasional interference, sometimes to the point where we had to hang up and redial to continue the conversation. Upstream traffic was the culprit: callers on the other end of the line reported crackling and echoing in our voice. Incoming voice traffic sounded clear call after call, even during long data downloads. Luckily, VoiceWing comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can check out the service yourself before fully committing. For more information regarding voice quality, click here for CNET Labs' tests.
The VoiceWing adapter also has a second phone port should you want to run a phone to another room in your house (you'll need a long phone cable, though). A better solution for setting up multiple phones is to connect to the VoiceWing adapter a cordless base station that has multiple handsets.
Verizon VoiceWing's Web interface is straightforward and easy to use. Sign in, and you're presented with a useful first page that consists of a list of recent incoming, outgoing, and missed calls as well as voicemail messages. Click the My Account or My Phone buttons to add or adjust features. If you have chatty teenagers at home, you may want to keep an eye on your monthly minutes. Like other companies selling residential VoIP services, Verizon reserves the right to cut you off if it suspects you are using VoiceWing for business purposes and running up a huge number of minutes each month. Unlike other VoIP services, however, Verizon sets a limit: exceed 5,000 minutes in a month, and Verizon will investigate your phone behavior. That may seem like a generous allotment of minutes, and it is for most people, but 5,000 total is only 166 minutes a day--a total that any teenager can chew up easily.
Verizon set up a unique billing system for VoiceWing. Your flat monthly rate gets charged to your credit card, but in addition, the service sets up an Extra Services Account on sign-up. This account handles international long-distance calls and directory assistance charges, which your flat-rate monthly fee does not. Whenever your Extra Service Account falls below $2.50, Verizon charges your credit card between $15 and $100 (you choose the standard amount) so that you continue with a positive balance. Although it makes billing easier, we're wary of automatic charges. Be sure to monitor your monthly statements carefully, especially if you coexist with teenagers who have international acquaintances.
If you want Verizon VoiceWing service, you won't have any trouble choosing a plan. There's one residential, unlimited-minutes plan, and that's that. You'll pay $34.95 a month, which is $15 more per month than the unlimited-minutes plans from BroadVoice, Lingo, and Packet8, and $10 more than Editors' Choice award-winning Vonage. Verizon DSL subscribers pay $5 less per month for the first year and are given the first month free, but that's still more than you'll pay with VoiceWing's competitors. If you are looking for a VoIP service for your business or just a low-cost plan that gives you 500 or so long-distance minutes per month, you won't find it here.Though they still aren't worth the premium, Verizon VoiceWing's calling features are unquestionably useful. The service's call-forwarding feature lets you forward calls to another number automatically, when you're on the phone only, or after five rings. For important calls (It's a boy!), you can also set it so that incoming calls simultaneously ring your main phone and up to three other numbers. VoiceWing enhances the standard do-not-disturb mode by letting you list phone numbers from which you will accept calls; you can keep telemarketers at bay during dinner but let your daughter's cell phone through, for example. You can configure VoiceWing to work in conjunction with your Microsoft Outlook contact list, then select from those contacts in order to place or schedule calls. Other features include call waiting with caller ID, caller ID blocking, return calling (*69), repeat calling (*66), and three-way calling.
As with any VoIP service, two of our immediate concerns are local number portability and 911 emergency services. VoiceWing provides the former, assuming you're asking to switch a landline over to the service (you can't port cell phone numbers), with the usual caveat that if you use DSL for your broadband connection, you must retain a landline in order to maintain your DSL service. Cable subscribers, on the other hand, can dispense with landlines completely, transferring their local numbers as long as they contact Verizon at least 14 days prior to the desired transfer date.
Verizon VoiceWing, however, does not support emergency 911 calling. What it does instead is to demand you provide your physical address upon registration. (Vonage treats 911 the same way.) Once you register your address, calls to 911 will be directed to a local emergency service provider. The catch is that emergency personnel won't automatically have your address or phone number on the screen when you call. Families who frequently use babysitters may not feel comfortable with this arrangement, but this is as close as VoIP providers can get to 911 service at the current time.
And keep in mind that if you take your telephone adapter with you when you travel (you can plug it into any broadband network, including in one a hotel room), your 911 calls continue to contact the same service. Furthermore, as with all VoIP providers, 911 service (or anything else about the VoIP service) is unavailable during power outages. VoiceWing does come with a handy feature that lets you input a backup number (your cell phone, for example) where calls will be routed if you temporarily lose power or your Internet connection.
VoiceWing allows you to sign up for as many as five alternate phone numbers (virtual numbers), each with a separate area code if you wish. Your primary VoiceWing number can be in any area code that VoiceWing offers, though that means your next-door neighbor will need to call you long distance if you don't have the same area code. Currently, VoiceWing offers area codes from roughly 80 percent of the United States (there's no availability in Alaska, Hawaii, the Dakotas, Idaho, and Iowa, for instance), and no area codes in other countries such as Canada, which some VoIP companies offer. If you are interested in VoIP because of the chance to have a virtual number (perhaps you're tired of listening to your father complain about his long-distance bill from calling you so often), VoiceWing isn't the best bet. Each virtual number costs $9.95 per month, quite a heavy rate compared with providers such as BroadVoice, which charges $9.95 to set up the number and $1.95 per month to carry it.
We judge a VoIP service's performance on how calls sound under baseline conditions, as well as during data uploads and data downloads. The overall weighted average is based on calls made under these three conditions. Baseline conditions are given the highest weight of 66 percent; audio quality during data uploads and data downloads each factor 17 percent of the weightings. The scale for the voice-quality ratings is from 0 to 10.0, with a perfect score of 10.0 equaling our reference analog connection.(Higher scores are better)
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Overall weighted average | |
All PCs off | |
During download | |
During upload |
As with most of the VoIP services we tested, we found the baseline audio quality of Verizon VoiceWing service to be comparable to what you would expect from a traditional analog (landline) phone connection. Baseline quality refers to the audio quality of the VoIP service when the telephone adapter, or TA, is the only device sending and receiving significant amounts of data over the local network. The only other devices that are permitted to transmit and receive network traffic during baseline testing are the broadband modem and the router.
Like most VoIP services, VoiceWing deviates from the clean sound of analog call quality by exhibiting a very faint but still noticeable background noise on both ends of a call; in the case of VoiceWing, it resembled a rustling sound. We found that the presence and the persistence of the background noise varied from call to call, and it was also influenced by which end of the call was generating audio, that is, who was speaking. The background rustling sound did not interrupt nor did it force the end of any one conversation, but we were more aware of it on some calls; it was reminiscent of the background noise of analog telephone connections we took for granted around 20 or more years ago.
We give VoiceWing an extra knock on performance, however, because we experienced a problem that we did not see with any of the other VoIP services: When we dialed in to automated phone systems, such as VoiceWing's voicemail, we had difficulty getting the automated system to correctly interpret the key presses. We therefore had great difficulty checking VoiceWing voicemail while using the VoiceWing service. We tried a telephone unit other than the one we typically use during VoIP testing and had better luck, but we never experienced a 100 percent success rate.
The bundled Linksys PAP2-VN TA we tested connects to an available port on your Ethernet router, which is the most common connection scenario we saw with the TAs that came bundled with the VoIP service subscriptions. (Some services instruct you to place the TA before your router on your home network, that is, between the modem and router.) Unfortunately, most home and small-business broadband connections don't have enough upstream throughput to support both voice and data packets. The end result is that under those circumstances when you are sending large amounts of data from your PC--such as sending a large file attachment with e-mail or uploading photographs to an online photo-finishing service--the voice quality of your call will be adversely affected. Since most broadband connections have a high enough upstream throughput, you'll likely hear the person on the other end just fine, but they will have great difficulty hearing you as whole words drop out. We found that VoiceWing was less egregious about this than some of the other services. Depending on how frequently you upload files from your computer, this might not be a significant issue for you.
We noticed a significant drop in both upstream (15 percent) and downstream (18 percent) Internet data-throughput speeds from our test computer while VoIP calls were taking place. We experienced similar data-speed losses with nearly all the VoIP services we tested; the throughput degradation we saw with VoiceWing was about average for the services we've tested. This drop in data throughput indicates that the bundled TA is at least somewhat successful in giving priority to the voice data packets, in an attempt to minimize the loss of audio quality. However, as mentioned above, the TA doesn't do the job well enough, as we found it difficult to carry on a phone conversation while simultaneously uploading files.
Of the VoIP services we've tested, VoiceWing was one the slowest to connect a call from the moment the last digit was pressed to the moment we heard ringing. It took VoiceWing between about 5 and 6 seconds to make such a connection--compared to approximately 2 seconds for a traditional analog connection.
Performance analysis written by CNET Labs Manager, Daniel A. Begun.
Find out more about how we test VoIP.
Toll-free phone support for Verizon VoiceWing customers is available Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. The online FAQ is useful primarily for newcomers, but the online knowledge base contains a considerable amount of useful information. Verizon guarantees a next-business-day response to e-mailed support questions, which we confirmed during our tests. Should you run into serious problems with the service within the first month, you can take advantage of Verizon's 30-day, money-back guarantee.User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51out of 51 user reviews
Superior Reliability - Poor Customer Service
Pros: Voicewing's reliability is great! I used to have Vonage and was always having reliability issues (both poor sound quality and no service).Voicewing has great voice-sound quality and few if any performance issues.
Cons: Customer service is poor and website is very slow to load. Price should be lower.
out of 51 user reviews
I've tried the rest - VoiceWing is the best!
Pros: Sound quality, customer service, easy setup, pricing.
Cons: No complaints.
out of 51 user reviews
Had a great experience with VoiceWing
Pros: Easy to use, easy to set up, clear voice quality, nice features
Cons: Doesn't have a feature like Vonage does that, if you don't answer your phone in X # of rings, it will forward to 2nd number. It DOES have if power off, or internet off, but this other feature with Vonage was nice.
Vonage was good, although tech support was horrible, and canceling was a nightmare. I had before I met my wife, and had no problems. When FiOS installed, I tried to set up same day with Vonage, and there were issues galore with some nimrod behind the order desk. Lots of headaches with the order and resolutions and cancellation, but overall fairly good service (had occasional blips where people cut out for a word or two when talking which was annoying).
VoiceWing, by far, has been one of my favorites. Great stuff, easy user interface. We're canceling now and going all cell phone, since we have good reception throughout the new house and can save a few bucks this way. VoiceWing had no interface issues, no problems, and the forwarding worked fine when power off. Canceling may be tougher since, right now, the phone line on the website doesn't work "due to circumstances beyond our control", but I think it'll work out fine in a day or two.
out of 51 user reviews
Pretty decent when it works
Pros: It is what it is
Cons: Working DSL connectivity is critical to preformance
So you're going to say, "OK, call Verizon and get the problem fixed."
Easier said than done. Verizon's tier 1 tech support scheme is a major hassle as well as an off-shore entity that reads from scripted troubleshooting ques. If there are no issues after disconnecting router, cycling power, resetting devices, and a line test, the CSRs close out the trouble ticket as resolved. They will not escalate to next tier if they can't find a problem. Convincing a Pilipino or Indian with barely-passable English, who by the way is likely being incentivized to resolve all issues at their level, is like pulling teeth from a bear. Perhaps my persuasion skills are lacking, but it has been impossible to convince these people the issue is not on my end, but somewhere between the wall jack and the Central Office
I gave up after getting nowhere. I filed a complaint with the State Attorney General Consumer Affairs Division. If they can't get resolution, I'll cancel Verizon lock, stock, and barrel and go with another broadband provider and perhaps dump the home phone for now.
What's this got to do with VoiceWing? Everything. If your DSL line is affected by network issues (shorts in wire, switch defects, bridges, et al), a VoIP phone is useless. Likewise, VoiceWing tech support can't do anything if it involves network issues.
out of 51 user reviews
Voicewing fails to deliver....for even one day
Pros: Easy to buy a service that never worked
Cons: Unable to ever establish service
out of 51 user reviews
Don't get it. Service and Support is ajoke.
Pros: Ulcers, Stress
Cons: People, Competence, Management, Business Model
My ATA died.
I called, they sent me a new one with NO INSTRUCTIONS.
I installed the ATA, went to my account page and attempted to update the "MAC ADDRESS" on my account to show the MAC ADDRESS of the new ATA. The system did not accept it.
I called, the technician attempted to update the account with the new MAC address. Did not work for him either. Her tried and tried, called me back and said it was done. No dial tone.
I was on the phone for 3 hours, they could not get it to work.
I REPEATEDLY ASKED TO BE ESCALATED TO HIGHER LEVEL OF SUPPORT BUT THEY DID NOT DO IT.
Called again the next day, got escalated but could not talk to the TECHNICAL SUPPORT or IT department.
Called about 4 times a day. NO DIAL TONE FOR A WEEK.
Send about 400 emails, not a single reply back.
No one on their phone line could tell me if TECHNICAL SUPPORT had even looked at my problem.
These people are utterly incompetent.
The people on the phone told me that TECHNICAL SUPPORT was too busy to help me. I did not have a dial tone in a week and phone company said we are too busy to help you. What were they doing? Sitting in a circle, pleasuring themselves??????
Pay a little more, get a real phone.
out of 51 user reviews
Verizon Voice Wing is Horrible
Pros: Frankly speaking, I can't come up with any except Price, and the aggreavation outweigh the price
Cons: Unstable, No dial Tone, Getting disconnected message, cannot call out the list goes on
Horrible support
Do not recommend Verizon Voice wing to anyone.
Do not port over your land lines to voice wing, you will end up without service for a long time. It’s about two months so far for me. And I have had to forward my business ph and fax lines to my home number. What a shame, considering all the hype and promises they make.
I have lost clients, lost calls, lost faxes because of Verizon’s Voice Wings technical support department’s inadequacy to fix a problem.
At first they promise that I would get a resolution within 24-48 hours. Unfortunately for me that was a lie. Meanwhile, I have no dial tone on either line, I cannot call out, and they are charging my credit card for a non-working service.
Oh, and by the way if the customer service say they will call you back, highly likely “they will not”.
To add salt to injury, every time you call in for support, they ask you the same questions over and over and over and over again…
Of course! It’s still the same problem I have been calling about for the entire two month, one would figure that they have it noted on the account. NOT!
I am looking for a new service provider. VERISON VOICE WING IS THE WORST, cRappY, StinKy service I CAN IMAGINE...WHEW, makes my blood boils. I which I had not ported my numbers over.
Now a few of you might be thinking... what if I already use Verizon as my land line Carrier, if things would be better. Think again. I decided to use Voice wing, because I was a land line carrier. Unfortunately there is no difference.
It’s still SUCKS, The Service is still Terrible and the tech support department is still HORRIBLE.
I cannot believe they are still in business. They should shut down their VOIP department.
I want to sue them...Actually i really do.
Something ought to be done.
How can these people get away with this?
The aggravation, the agony, the frustration, the lies, the misleading and the lost time I have wasted on the phone with the service department, and the lost of revenue.
I am sure I am not the only one.
Can you imagine "calling your number and getting a recording that says this number has been disconnected or is no longer in service", can you imagine?
What do you think your clients would do or think??
Does anyone know if I can sue these people?
out of 51 user reviews
incompetent customer service
Pros: voice clarity good when working
Cons: Incompetent customer service, web access to account slow, confusing, and poorly implemented
out of 51 user reviews
Absolutely horrible.
Pros: Inexpensive at $25 unlimited national per line
Cons: Website is very slow to load, Reliability is terrible. No support weekends.
out of 51 user reviews
Terrible customer service, but call quality is good when it's working
Pros: Good call quality
Cons: Terrible customer service, false advertising of capabilities, treat customers like garbage
- Falsely imply in their FAQ that fax works on the service - it does not and is not guaranteed so it's your problem.
- Terrible customer service. They ignore the emails and force you to call them. Long delay on the phone. Representatives are sometimes hard to understand. No empathy to the customer. Takes forever answering questions before they ask how they can help. People on the phone have no clue how to help you and muct put you on hold constantly.
Details of my experience ...
I got the service for a home office line about 6 months ago. After reviewing the information on their web site and carefully reading the FAQ, I ordered the two-line service so I could havea dedicated number for a fax line. This was my first problem.
When I started to use the fax line I found that it only worked to a small percentage of fax numbers. I followed the directions in the FAQ and on their website, but no matter what I did it would not work with certain numbers. I did have some success, but after a couple of months of being frustrated I gave up. I found an alternate solution called maxemail.com and decided to cancel the fax line.
When I contacted the Voicewing customer service to cancel the fax line I was told that there would be a $50 early termination charge. I explained that I was terminating the line because it didn't work as advertised. They claimed that their legal disclaimers state that faxes are not guaranteed to work. I pointed them to their own FAQ which gave instructions for how to send a fax without any caveats or other suggestion that it might not work.
The people in their customer service were not at all empathetic and basically told me over and over that it was my problem and I have to pay the $50. I escalated to a supervisor with the same results. They really don't care about customer satisfaction and would prefer to take $50 from a good long standing Verizon customer than to do what's right.
A few weeks later I started having problems with the portal. I couldn't view my account details most of the time. I just accepted that the portal was buggy and let it go, although it is frustrating that one of the better features of the service doesn't work reliably.
In early January 2008 I found that outbound calling was disabled. I had dial tone, but when I tried to make a call a voice would come on the line telling me that outbound calling was disabled. I filed a trouble report on their website and resigned myself to using my AT&T cell phone instead. After a few days I got an automated reply asking for a number where I could be reached. I replied with the number, but never got a response. I filed another trouble ticket with the same response. Eventually I had to call them (although it's hard to find a number).
As always they ask all sorts of information "for security purposes" despite having to enter your Voicewing number into the automated system. After several minutes of answering questions they ask what is the problem. I referred them to the trouble reports I had filed. They had to put me on hold to find them. Tick tock - more wasted time.
When they finally found the trouble reports they informed me that outbound calling had been disabled because I had to verify my address for 911 service. They acknowledged that I was supposed to get an email, but nothing was sent to me. Then they told me to go into the portal to verify my address. At this point I explained that the portal was not working.
The support person asked me what error message I got when I logged into the portal. I tried again and read the error message off the screen. After forcing me to try several times and being placed on hold several times I suggested (grumpily) that the support person try to login to my account and see for himself. He verified that it didn't work and told me he would have to escalate it to a more advanced technician who would call me back. To escalate he needed a bunch of additional information and started asking me all sorts of questions about the equipment I was using for my DSL connection, wiring in my house, you name it. After 15 minutes of being interrogated I explained that I had dial tone and my Internet connection was fine and I was done wasting time answering stupid questions.
A week later somebody left me a voice mail asking me to call them back.
I went onto the portal and found it had been fixed. I verified the address and service was restored. I had gone 7 weeks without service.
I called them to ask for a refund and was once again put through the paces for 40 minutes of being told it was not their responsibility. I had to explain what I had gone through (angrily this time) and wait for escalation to a manager before they put in a request for a refund.
I don't expect a refund. They don't care about their customers. As a result I have decided to move my broadband and home phone service to Comcast.
out of 51 user reviews
Worst possible deal - Unreliable and bad customer service
Pros: Online account Managger - Nice fancy tool to manage your voicewing account. Really impressive.
Cons: Everything from the quality of voice to reliability to cutsomer service. Heavily Unreliable -I have had to reboot the Adapter atleast once a week ( I have Fios for internet and I still had problems ).
Bad Quality of voice - The person on the other end "ALWAYS" heard 2 - 3 echo voices. Hugely dissapointing to conduct conversations.Frustrating. I have Fios High speed internet and still had problems.
Worst customer Service ever - I couldn't even get them to activate ( port my number ) properly. They could never locate my account and have never been on-hold for less than 60 - 80 minutes! Even to cancel my account! Have wasted a lot of money trying to save a little! Swicthed back to Land Line for now. considering Vonage next.
Save yourself from the hassle. Do not get into this trap. Verizon themselves are not completely integrated with Voicewing and is very difficult to deal with.
out of 51 user reviews
Response to issues poor.
Pros: Price isn't bad
Cons: It's Verizon
If you need any assistance fron Voicewing's Customer Service you will make several call and wait long periods of time on HOLD to actually speak with someone. If you do not get a resolution and want to speak to a supervisor you will wait another very long period of time on HOLD then very likely still not get a resolution. I have been with Voicewing for 4 years and each time I need to speak with someone it SUCKS. Today was the last time. I am giong to find another VOIP carrier. Verizon SUCKS!
out of 51 user reviews
VoiceWing WORST VOIP. Void this like the flu
Pros: none to speak of
Cons: you name it
For $24 you's expect it to work.
out of 51 user reviews
Couldn't get it running.
Pros: Easy to order.
Cons: Technical support very bad.
Had it worked, it might have been great- but I'll never find out. Try at your peril.
out of 51 user reviews
Absolutely Awful
Pros: Price; fairly quick delivery of components
Cons: Voice Quality; customer non-service; nonresponsive; clueless; terrible promises and no results
out of 51 user reviews
Tech support is clueless beyond hope
Pros: At least the clueless tech support people answer the phone
Cons: Poor call quality; incredibly slow web portal; worst tech support of all time
Could never get anyone on the line in tech support to work the problem with me. They also refused to correspond via email, which would have been efficient, given I actually work for a living.
Also learned the service isn't actually delivered by Verizon, but a wholesale VoIP provider called DeltaThree (which appears to be going out of business - check their financials). How Verizon could put their brand on such a poor quality service offering is amazing, and also incredibly stupid. The only reason I signed up for VoIP with Verizon was because they have a reputation for network quality. Apparently no longer. Can't wait to see what FiOS is like!
Anyway, canceled the service, and refused to pay the termination fee, given my line was out for over two weeks as they ignored my pleas to work on the problem with me.
Also canceled my primary residential line as well, and am switching to Comcast Digital Voice, just to make sure Verizon doesn't get any more of my hard earned cash!
out of 51 user reviews
Terrible Technical Support
Pros: The VoiceWing VoIP phone service itself works okay.
Cons: Technical Support is terrible; have had a simple but persistent and annoying problem using their online Personal Account Manager for 6 WEEKS that goes unresolved.
out of 51 user reviews
Tech support could not be worse
Pros: None so far
Cons: Can't get it working
out of 51 user reviews
customer service sucks
Pros: works but barely
Cons: customer service sucks
out of 51 user reviews
Dont do it
Pros: There are None
Cons: Customer Service Stinks
out of 51 user reviews
Voicewing is a substandard product that should not be on the market.
Pros: the price (but what good is that with bad service?)
Cons: lag time in speech which interferes significantly with communication, doesn't allow you to tap into conference calls, cannot use international phone cards effectively
out of 51 user reviews
Extremely poor service
Pros: Price is attractive
Cons: Poor service and support, too much downtime
out of 51 user reviews
Good service for those who don't want a reliable phone, or want to waste days dealing with support
Pros: The call quality is much better then Lingo
Cons: The Linksys phone adaptors are unreliable and the technical service takes 30min+ to on hold to reach- over multiple phone calls. Customer support representative are rude and incapable.
out of 51 user reviews
VERIZON VOICEWING Buyer Beware!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pros: Only Pro I can see is Web access anywhere in world to your phone messages and current usage
Cons: added PRICE! hidden costs
out of 51 user reviews
works great and awesome customer service
Pros: excellent voice quality and great customer service
Cons: user website slowwww
Very satisfied.
out of 51 user reviews
Total NIGHTMARE
Pros: There are NONE
Cons: Dishonest cust. service, bad technical support, Awful service in general, etc. etc.
out of 51 user reviews
By far the worst product Verizon has ever lent its name to
Pros: Nothing good can be said
Cons: Customer service doesnt follow up, slow server, features don't work
My nightmare went something like this. Verizon gave me 2 temporary phone numbers numbers to use while they were "porting my existing land line numbers into the system.
Thats when things started to go bad. I am a contractor and I depend on every single phone call for my business. When the numbers were susposed to port to the voicewing system they were getting routed to cyberspace nowhere(would not ring on my side or go to voicemail) Then I spent my next two weeks with customer service and over 20 phone calls anywhere from 15 minuites to and hour at a time. After my last conversation the customer support tech sugested I get a new phone system. Which I did . That didnt correct the problem either.
Although they never got my number working they still saw fit to charge my credit card for the service. Switching to Verizon voice wing was the biggest business mistake I ever made. It will take months to make up for the lost revenue.
out of 51 user reviews
TERRIBLE - Run for your life!!!
Pros: I can not think of a single one
Cons: Service STINKS, website STINKS, call quality STINKS
Since the transfer went throuhg I have had numerous (more than 5 ) occasions REQUIRING contact with customer service, all of which required me to physically unplug the adapter. No biggie, you say. Welllllll If you are present it is no biggie, but when you are out of the office expecting calls freom one line to be forwarded and calls to another to not be, and all of that goes bad, and requires CONTACT with Verizon, AND physical access to the equipment, then you go without faxes and calls for a while.
Enter the 'website' I have come to refer to as the Verizon Torture Chamber: Slow is not the word for the excruciating agony one faces in attempting to interact witht hat patheticly slow monstrosity. The speed would be bearable if they had managed to have the features for which it was designed actually function. Alas, they do not.
The whole system is buggy at best, and fraudulent in their representation at worst. Stay WAY AWAY from VoiceWing until they iron out some of these details. This stuff is definitely NOT yet ready for orime time...
out of 51 user reviews
Works great, Awesome price
Pros: Price rocks.
Cons: none for us.
I disconnected Time Warner (but kept the cable line) and got Voice Wing. I notice no difference except I now have a ton of cool features I can control from the web. I'm getting the same quality phone, more features and for half the price. With our 5Mb cable line (768kb up) this works great. I'm not sure if DSL is really good enough for these, as I can't test, but our situation the service rocks.
out of 51 user reviews
Recommend To Anyone
Pros: Customer Service Quality with FIOS
Cons: none at all
Superb customer service (US based) made switch flawless for this nontechnical person.
out of 51 user reviews
Not ready for prime time
Pros: Good voice quality, Nice web features
Cons: Clueless support, absurd 911 policy, flood of unexplaiined "missed" calls and modem like tones for messages.
For what it's worth, I contacted Vonage to find out how they deal with a power outage or the router going offline and they said, "we'll replace the router if it's harmed by it, otherwise nothing. You can relocate the router to any broadband service connection, but we strongly urge you to make sure you update the 911 address associated with the router's location". I pressed a little harder and asked if they would disable an account if the router was offline for any period and she responded with, "why would we do that? --- you can move it around as much as you'd like, you just need to make sure the 911 address is maintained, or emergency services will be sent to the address on file, and you won't be there...."
Bottom line, technology wasn't the problem, people and policy were. However, from the technological perspective, in a world where the one item you could rely on was having a working phone, even during a power outage, or you have any concerns about 911, VoIP as your principal phone service isn't ready for prime time. On the flip side, VoIP offers some great features, so If you're going for VoIP, I'd recommend you look elsewhere.
For me, I took full advantage of the 30 day money back guarantee. It's back to the copper world for now.
out of 51 user reviews
What a mistake
Pros: none found here
Cons: Too many to list
I am currently out of dsl/telephone service since 2/18/07 and the expected turn on date for services is 3/5/07. So much for connectivity to the outside world. If you are considering this service take heed. I believe that this product was meant for cable\internet users and not for existing verizon\dsl users. There are way too many contingencies to rely on going correctly if you are a current verizon telephone and dsl customer. I wish I had researched this product
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06021/641829.stm
On 3/2 I called Verizon again and had the voicewing rep stay on the phone with me, and do a 3 way call, as I tried to contact the DSL side of verizon. After spending 45 min on the phone, we were unable to get through and the call, eventually ended up in a busy signal, and were unable to contact the DSL new installation department to see if my phone service could be turned on before the weekend. This is the third weekend without DSL and phone service. Today 3/5 is suppose to be the day my dsl dryloop will be activated, I will still have to call up and see if I can get access to my verizon email accounts that have been locked for 3 weeks. My wife has been a saint throughout this whole process. As I have said before I would never have switched over if I had know I would have 3 weeks of lost service. My suggestion to verizon for future voicewing/dsl transitions, would be to use the extra pair of wire at the nid of the house and have two lines active, one the dsl/regular phone, and the other line would be the new dsl/dryloop connection. When the services were ready, the transition would be smoother. Another issue seems to be that the dsl side heavily relies on the teleco side of verizon to make their wiring changes for them, who knows. To make the situation more interesting they have started the installation process for fios in the neighborhood, I will make my next post tomorrow, and hopefully I will have some service back.
Finally on August 20, 2007, we made the decision to get rid of the Voicewing service. We had repeated times when people had tried to call and were receiving error codes as to why the phone service was unavailable and to try back later. I called the verizon landline side and told them I wanted to revert back from my dryloop connection to my regular telephone/dsl service that I had prior. The service was suppost to transition back over, looking like I had moved from one address to another address. One step was omitted, I was not put through to the "Naturalizations Dept", which is a third party service that confirms that I wanted to change my telephone service. So when my magic date of tranistion rolled around, on 9/7/07, the dsl dryloop connection was terminated at the house with no regular phone connection to take its place. All of my verizon.net email accounts have since been terminated without warning, and my webpages inaccessible. The biggest irony is the customer service people were very concerned with my problems, however none of the proposed solutions are ever done properly. Verizon seems to have too many divisions in their company, telephone, dsl, fios, voicewing, and wireless. The departments function as seperate entities from one another, not really understanding fully what the other sides of the house do. This is where I believe the problem lies. They almost need departmental liaisons that can help and expidite matters when they are beyond normal circumstances. So far it is 9/20/07 and we have no service to the house. One thing that I have learned in the past that has been helpful is to create email accounts outside of your verizon accounts, such as a gmail account, and these are not impacted by problems at verzion. My date for turn on now is 9/26/07, and yesterday I was informed that it will take 5 days after that to reinstall my dsl, which I am sure will be a joy. This has turned out to be a complete nightmare, between missed calls for birthdays, etc. You really do not realize how much you rely on the phone until something like this happens.
Finally on August 20, 2007, we made the decision to get rid of the Voicewing service. We had repeated times when people had tried to call and were receiving error codes as to why the phone service was unavailable and to try back later. I called the verizon landline side and told them I wanted to revert back from my dryloop connection to my regular telephone/dsl service that I had prior. The service was suppost to transition back over, looking like I had moved from one address to another address. One step was omitted, I was not put through to the "Naturalizations Dept", which is a third party service that confirms that I wanted to change my telephone service. So when my magic date of tranistion rolled around, on 9/7/07, the dsl dryloop connection was terminated at the house with no regular phone connection to take its place. All of my verizon.net email accounts have since been terminated without warning, and my webpages inaccessible. The biggest irony is the customer service people were very concerned with my problems, however none of the proposed solutions are ever done properly. Verizon seems to have too many divisions in their company, telephone, dsl, fios, voicewing, and wireless. The departments function as seperate entities from one another, not really understanding fully what the other sides of the house do. This is where I believe the problem lies. They almost need departmental liaisons that can help and expidite matters when they are beyond normal circumstances. So far it is 9/20/07 and we have no service to the house. One thing that I have learned in the past that has been helpful is to create email accounts outside of your verizon accounts, such as a gmail account, and these are not impacted by problems at verzion. My date for turn on now is 9/26/07, and yesterday I was informed that it will take 5 days after that to reinstall my dsl, which I am sure will be a joy. This has turned out to be a complete nightmare, between missed calls for birthdays, etc. You really do not realize how much you rely on the phone until something like this happens.
out of 51 user reviews
verizon voicewingc
Pros: I've had it a week and still nothing works
Cons: everything so far
switched a Verizon fax line & Verizon DSL line to Verizon Voicewing. they dropped my DSL adn email address which took me 18 hrs on the phone to resolve. voicewing does not work with ANY analog fax or phone. Verizon is new to VOIP and fumbling their way through it. Don't sign up. incredible hassle and aggravation is waiting for you!!!!!!!!!
out of 51 user reviews
Problems with faxing and 800 numbers
Pros: Inexpensive, good features
Cons: fast busy signals, call drops
Thank you for using Voice Wing Products and Services. We do apologize for any inconvenience. Unfortunately we do not support 800 number dialing. Some number do connect perfectly and others do not. Please feel free to contact us at 1-800-505-6495 to discuss your situation in more detail. Thank you. We look forward to serving you."
After speaking with a supervisor, he acknowledged that they have a problem with calls dropping on certain 800 numbers "due to a compatibility problem with the PSTN." I told him that if they cannot fix this problem, they are out of business!
So... when it works, the sound quality is excellent. But if we cannot fax and call 800 numbers reliably, the service is useless and we'll go back to copper!
This morning we were unable to receive ANY incoming calls for several hours. Callers heard a ring, but our phones did not ring. The call forwarding features were also not working so I couldn't even program our adapter to forward the calls to cellphones. Voicewing tech support gave their scripted "our engineers are working on the problem" response. Around 11:00am things started working again... One more morning like this and it's back to copper for us.
This morning we were unable to receive any inbound calls for several hours. Voicewing tech support gave their scripted, "We are aware of a system problem and our engineers are working on a resolution." Even worse, the system problem prevented us from forwarding incoming calls to our cellphones...Around 11:00am, things started working again....this is not the Verizon that we used to know!
out of 51 user reviews
wouldn't know since I ordered VoiceWing on Oct 25 and have yet to recieve the adapter.
Pros: None so far
Cons: Adapter still not delivered 5 weeks after ordering... Called Support three times, and each rep is surprised that I haven't yet received adapter, and can't say when I will
out of 51 user reviews
Verizon Voicewing Manager's Contact #'s (Get It Fixed Fast!)
Pros: The Pros are hard to describe because there are none.
Cons: The cons are probably running the place.
1. John Vroten (SuperDumbAss Headboss of Voicewing)
wk. 908-559-1413
cl. 703-801-2169
2. Robert Ramirez
wk. 908-559-1470
robert.ramirez@verizon.com
3. Cindy Mong (this lady is worthless)
wk. 972-465-4572
cindy.m.mong@verizon.com
out of 51 user reviews
poor features, still a lot of problemw
Pros: short wait on tech support
Cons: minimum features
1. voicemail is limited to 7 seconds.
2. call waiting that goes to voicemail says "this number is not available" instead of voicemail message - this gives the caller the impression that I didn't pay my phone bill.
3. many times I make a call and the person on the other end can't hear me.
out of 51 user reviews
great voice quality
Pros: voice quality
Cons: none so far
I highly recommend the VoliceWing service if you are in the market and shopping for VoIP service.
out of 51 user reviews
Horrible Service
Pros: NOT ONE good thing to say
Cons: Incompitent Employees
out of 51 user reviews
Nightmare but nothing else.
Pros: Quick Shipping and works with verizon westel router provided with dsl connection
Cons: Except receiving calls in good condition everything else were a night mare.
out of 51 user reviews
An Excellent Choice
Pros: Works well with verizon dsl or fios. Prices are consistant with other providers
Cons: None that I have found, Except maybe customer support which you just have to search for.
out of 51 user reviews
Not 100% reliable
Pros: Keep same number
Cons: lots of missed calls
Also, known bug with Simultaneous ring - many times the caller can hear you, but you can't hear the caller! Cool idea that I would love to use, but can't at this time.
Wish I could port my number to another provider, but I can't, so I'll have to stick with VW.
out of 51 user reviews
Good quality and good price if you already have Verizon DSL
Pros: Easy website navigation, very inexpensive, great customer service. Incoming not counted against balance.
Cons: Occasional technical issues, 1.5 second delay
out of 51 user reviews
Bad VOIP - Bad Customer Service
Pros: Cheaper Than Verizon Land Line
Cons: Poor Voice Quailty, Customer Service Weak, more expensive than Vonage
out of 51 user reviews
So far better then hardline Qual.
Pros: Not Available
Cons: Not Available
out of 51 user reviews
Awful service, deceptive advertising, failure of promises
Pros: Initially trouble free, then disaster
Cons: Too many to mention
And every customer service rep at Voicewing has this mantra "In order to provide you with excellent service, what is your account number?" and at the end " Have I provided you with excellent service?" My beef is not with the poor service reps. It is with the chiefs of this huge company that make promises to the consumer that they cannot keep,or don't know if they can keep. And when the can't keep them, the customer STILL HAS TO PAY FOR SERVICE HE DOESN'T GET.
Tell me if that is excellent service.
out of 51 user reviews
Wish I had never switched from verizon
Pros: There are none
Cons: Too many too mention
out of 51 user reviews
DON'T GET VOICEWING - PHONE SERVICE & CUSTOMER SERVICE STINKS
Pros: THERE IS NOT ONE THINK THAT I CAN SAY THAT WAS GOOD
Cons: LOUSY PHONE SERVICE, ALL THE TECHS INCLUDING SUPERVISORS HAVE NO CLUE HOW TO FIX YOUR PROBLEM. I REALLY BELIEVE THEY ARE RUNNING THIS COMPANY OUT OF SOMEONE'S BASEMENT SOMEWHERE IN WASHINGTON STATE.
out of 51 user reviews
Great value for the price and quality
Pros: Great interface. Good pricing if you have DSL.
Cons: Very slight delay when talking.
Cutting to the chase; I'm very satisfied with the service. The interface (web) is amazing. Tons of options and in real-time... The customer service is TOP RATE. Every time I sent an email, I would have a resolution within 30-minutes...usually within 10-minutes.
The quality is also excellent. I've yet spoken to anyone who could tell that I wasn't on a land-line. However, I *do* notice a very, very slight delay after speaking and hearing a response from the other end. 90% of the time it's not noticeable, unless the other end is on a cellphone... Still, the price comparison really makes it worth while.
I was also concerned about VOIP eating up my bandwidth. Play with the settings, by talking to a tech at Voicewing. Anything 56k or over is going to eat your bandwidth... Set it at 32.
Good luck, and take the VOIP jump!
out of 51 user reviews
buyer beware - and aware. verizon lies to suck you in.
Pros: they give you a phone adapter that only works with verizon
Cons: you have to buy your own (expensive) router, which is hard enough to find one that works with verizon, their dsl service required, pay a month in advance, no call blocking or filtering options
out of 51 user reviews
I love it!
Pros: Sleek acct mngr, easy set up, no problems at all!!!!
Cons: No conference calling
