Have things just plain gotten worse lately? Or is it just me?

General
1

I have been using VoIP.ms now for several years. I have a Yearlink VoIP phone and also use a softphone on android.

Generally speaking it has been reliable. In April I moved from Florida to North Carolina, and changed my POP from Tampa to Atlanta. I mention it but have no idea if that has any impact.

Over the last month or two the service has simply been flakey. People tell me that they get a busy signal (they should NEVER get that, as there’s voicemail), and at the same time I get either no ring, or a ring that is dead air when I pick up.

Calls are in a ring group to both soft and hard phone. Frequently I’ll answer the hard phone, and then 30 seconds or so later the same call (already answered, already talking) will arrive on the softphone.

Almost 100% of the time if I answer on the soft phone, the call connects and I will talk for about a minute, than I lose all audio (they can still here me generally).

SMS, which I rarely use, has failed twice in that period - messages are simply not delivered. Those I pursued with support (who seemed very reluctant to do anything, insisting a go find two separate carriers who could not receive my texts before they would engage). They found the problem was in “their provider”, they had no more details, and offered no real expectation that the problem would stay fixed (I asked, and they basically said “nothing we can do”). The biggest issue here is that the messages just disappear - there’s no error, no way to know the recipient did not receive them.

I like this service and do not really want to start over looking, but… it went from “pretty reliable” to “not reliable bordering on not usable” over the last couple months, with zero change in hardware on my end. Indeed, while it’s the same firewall I went from 350/10mbs cable to 1g symmetric fiber.

Even getting in this forum took days – while i get email readily from the VoIP system itself, the same email address could not receive any confirming email from the forum (a support ticket blamed my email for holding the messages somewhere, but with no details, no trace of when handed off, headers, etc.)

Is it just me… or is the service getting flakey? Should I try going back to Tampa even though further away?

Linwood

2

Hello @Linwood,

I see two things that can affect the service, and you will need some time to identify what is what.

First, you moved and had to change your internet provider. Weird to say, but yes, you can have very different quality of internet from one provider to another, even if this is fiber. This can have an impact. Otherwise, technically, a 1gbps symmetric connection should do it. (For the email it is possible it went into spam, etc. There is no reasons email would not work.)

Second, I had past experience with that, you changed your POP server. Strange to say, but if the previous one was working well, just stay there. I live in Canada near Montreal and was never able to use reliably the servers located in Montreal, nor Toronto. I am connected on the New York servers. It works super well for me. The reason? Internet routes. Two other businesses I migrated to voip.ms are able to use the Toronto servers without an issue. Again, internet routes. Depending on your geographical location, your packets will go through one or another route. This can have an important impact on the reliability. So for me, and another business in the area of Montreal, using the servers in New York was the only stable and reliable solution.

So for that reason, I would suggest you try other locations for your POP server. This might help a lot.

As for the reliability of your new fiber internet connection and your actual hardware, it will take some time to figure out if this is coming from that. But maybe the POP server location will solve your problem.

Kind regards!

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3

Hello Linwood

Regarding the decline in service quality, I highly recommend reaching out to our support team.

We can investigate and identify the root cause by examining both ends of the service. It is uncommon for the service to deteriorate without any changes on your part. If this were the case, it would have a global impact, and our technicians would have verified the underlying cause.

Regarding the ticket in which you have been blamed, if you wish, please direct message me with the ticket information so that I can verify it. This is not a standard procedure for our support agents.

Thank you.

4

I have been reluctant to reply because since posting the note (and doing absolutely nothing else) I have not experienced a single problem.

The conspiracy theorist part of me wonders if VoIP fixed something in response to the post, but that seems terribly unlikely; it is the same law of nature that makes your car stop making “that noise” when you go to the shop.

So at this moment I am doing nothing until it starts happening again.

As to opening support calls, I have. Either no problem found, or (SMS in particular) they find it and fixed it and it started again, with the support staff basically saying it’s out of their control.

5

This topic caught my attention immediately.
The service and reliability has gone down dramatically.
In addition, there is no support at all.

I no longer get email on received SMS messages.
One of my DIDs just stopped receiving SMS messages completely!!

As for decline in service quality. If referring to Customer Service. There is non.
I opened tickets on these issues but recieved no response.

Pathetic!!

6

Hello scuba2day,

Please feel free to share the ticket information with me via direct message. This will enable us to verify the delay in response and address the issue at hand.

Thank you for your cooperation.

7

I always get a response from support. The SMS cases (I’ve had two) are a good example - they insist I jump through hoops (find two other people on two different mobile networks who will attest it is not working).

What’s weird about this is companies should be able to simply trace the messages to see if they work, but they either can’t, or won’t try until you jump through these hoops. Even on a repeat problem.

I mean… consider if it is only that VoIP can’t send to T-Mobile and only T-Mobile – it’s still VoIP’s problem to address for their customer, they have half of that connection.

But to my point – I always get something from support tickets. Not exactly helpful, not always effective, but they do respond and fairly promptly.

8

I am using montreal9 and no issue since I started using it either on Yealink, Grandstream or Groundwire with SMS or calls

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