8x8 VOEQU01210152R1 Packet8 VoIP Business Phone Service
By: Packet8 Average Rating: 4.0 Total Reviews: 4
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 On: 2008-03-25
Ive been using 8x8s virtual office for over 2 years now and Ive found it to be reliable with very good quality.
We had looked at Vonage, Sunrocket, and AT&T. AT&Ts Callvantage doesnt support our local area code, and Vonage didnt have the feature set of the virtual PBX that 8x8 has. Sunrocket had some grumblings posted in several reviews and when we called with pre-sales questions it took several days to return our calls. (Note: Sunrocket has since gone under).
With 8x8 you can "virtually" (pun intended) connect anyone from anywhere provided that they have a decent (reliable, dependable and fast) internet connection. Ive read a lot of bad VoIP reviews and it seems that for the ones that complain about quality may have several unanswered ISP issues. I think people think, like maybe the average Vonvage-single line-type of customer, that the Plug-n-play aspects of VoIP services mean that they dont need to do a little homework before they start connecting other services like Voice over their existing Internet connection.
One really nasty review I read on a VoIP forum slammed 8x8 saying that nearly all of their calls were dropped. Someone (not me) chimed in and asked a few obvious, yet eluding questions to the poster who finally admitted that they had several workstations that were plagued with a virus that eventually had their ISP shut them down until they got things fixed.
Folks, you cant expect to run a small business with Limewire, Bit-Torent and the like running along side your VoIP service without anticipating some disruptions.
We do have the expertise and took the time to configure our routers for QoS and packet tagging to insure that voice packets received priority and that local LAN traffic was isolated. This isnt necessary, but if you have several extensions in a single location, I would highly recommend it.
A single 8x8 line only takes up about 96kbps of bandwidth, so you should make sure that for the number of lines at a single location you have the internet connection to support both the expected voice and the usual day to day (web, mail, bittorrent???) traffic.
Now that AT&T sells "dry loop" DSL (that is, DSL that doesnt require the purchase of a phone line/dial-tone), you may be able to add a second, dedicated loop just for voice if you plan on having more extensions.
As far as support goes...well, it depends on how you go about it. Dont expect a huge user-based Forum to go and post your questions and get answers from your peers. As far as forum usage goes, there isnt much except the ones that complain and dont have anything constructive to help out with.
The online support is a joke too...this is why I rated it 4 instead of 5 stars. If you open up a case online, you probably wont hear from anyone for a long time. This is bad in my book, especially if you are having problems with your VOIP service and cant call them directly.
BUT! I stopped depending on online support because the phone/direct support is awesome. It seems that we have been trained to do everything online and wait for an answer, while 8x8 seems to prefer to deal with their customers directly. I have opened several cases to ask questions on how to configure the auto-attendant which routes calls based on the number dialed, or a touch-tone response to a customized menu that you created, and have had someone on the line within minutes.
Speaking of the Auto-attendant...you should look carefully at your costs when evaluating and comparing the other VoIP services. The Auto-attendant gives your business a nice professional "appearance" by providing you with a way to route calls based on what number is dialed, the time of day, holidays, and handles exceptions for extended or modified business hours.
Other than commercially installed solutions from Avaya and the like, I havent seen anything like this available from the competition.
Oh, and another reason to take a star away from this review are for some some features that I would like to see such as a Mac OS X client for dialing and seeing whos calling like Packet8s free Outlook client plug-in, voicemail accessible from anywhere using a web browser, and call blocking.
But, the features that are included are more than most (or any) small business would need.
 On: 2007-06-13
Virtual Office is amazing. We have employees in 5 locations and this phone system makes us feel like were all in one office. Theres hardly any up front cost and set up is a cinch. Voice quality and dependability are both excellent.
On: 2007-06-12
Virtual Office is amazing. We have employees in 5 locations and this phone system makes us feel like were all in one office. Theres hardly any up front cost and set up is a cinch. Voice quality and dependability are both excellent.
On: 2007-06-07
I rely on Virtual Office every day for my business and continue to be amazed by the versatility and programmability. Features other providers charge for are simply included. Ive read other reviews on here comparing Virtual Office poorly against another service, but thats a residential service, Im not sure that makes sense. We have a rock-solid DSL connection through Earthlink and 5 people can be on the phone and on the net and weve never had any problems with quality. In dealing with customer service I find I pretty much get the kind of treatment I give out, but then Ive never really had any serious problems and havent needed to contact them after the initial installation phase. This is definitely worth giving a try for a small business that wants the image and features a zillion dollar corporate phone system offers, but at a fraction of the price.
On: 2007-06-06
I rely on Virtual Office every day for my business and continue to be amazed by the versatility and programmability. Features other providers charge for are simply included. Ive read other reviews on here comparing Virtual Office poorly against another service, but thats a residential service, Im not sure that makes sense. We have a rock-solid DSL connection through Earthlink and 5 people can be on the phone and on the net and weve never had any problems with quality. In dealing with customer service I find I pretty much get the kind of treatment I give out, but then Ive never really had any serious problems and havent needed to contact them after the initial installation phase. This is definitely worth giving a try for a small business that wants the image and features a zillion dollar corporate phone system offers, but at a fraction of the price.
 On: 2007-05-04
This phones nice and Packet8, at first glance, appears to be a good choice for VoIP. WRONG! When I actually experienced their "service" I found first impressions can be deceiving. At first it was OK, but after a few months the voice quality became consistently unusable - voices were badly distorted and difficult to understand. Calls were intermittently dropped.
Calls to technical support resulted in immediate and repeated blame placed on everything outside their company. I received pages of instructions telling me to change all the cords, change my router configuration, change my phone, change my network configuration, run network tests and on and on. They blamed available bandwidth on my cable line without testing it, told me that having another VoIP service provider on the same network connection would cause a problem because the IP addresses would be "confused." The one thing they did seem good at was finding someone else to blame. They were NOT good at resolving a problem that, in the end, was clearly their own.
Ive moved to another provider and have found that Packet8 continued to cause problems because I was forwarding calls from Packet8 to the new provider. Packet8 simply drops all forwarded calls after 16 minutes, something they dont disclose anywhere I can find. Outside the Packet8 caused problems, my new service provider (VoipYourLife) works great.
Packet8 makes it very easy to sign up. They never mention a cancellation fee if you sign up over the phone and bury notice of the fee in a multi-page service agreement online. Discussions with their management made it clear that they didnt care if their service worked or not, they were going to charge their customers to cancel.
Stay away from this one.
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