Help Needed: Reviews

[VOIPoTim]

If some of you have some time, it would be great if you could update your reviews (truthfully) this weekend at BBR.

A few users with negative experiences that we've offered full refunds to have been updating their reviews every few days. Since their ratings are so low, this brings our average down a lot since their negative ratings are weighted heavily (for being new) in every week's ratings.

This is one of the bad things about the BBR GBU. We went from #2 to #8 primarily because of 3 or 4 negative reviews even though there are 50+ positive ones.

When some continue to update their negative review every single week like clockwork it insures that their negative review has more weight and brings the entire week's average down. It's almost like us getting a negative review posted every single week even though there are only 4.

I'd appreciate it if everyone that participates there could update their review (truthfully) so it's a little more accurate. It doesn't matter much in the long-run but it's just irritating to see it so heavily affected by a few users keeping down by constantly updating.

http://www.dslreports.com/comments/3156

The score is updated every Sunday night/Monday morning.

Thanks in advance!

[VOIPoTim]

Voicepulse users just did this recently as well and it had a big impact.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21303767-Reevaluate-your-VP-rating-on-their-website

Future Nine has daily updates at least every 2-3 days from some of their positive reviews which skews things.

That's one big flaw with the ratings...it seems like the weight is a little too heavy on new reviews when the minority reviews can make such a big impact.

[burris]

Done....

Thanks for the reminder..

[Xponder1]

Will do and as stated thanks for the reminder.

[VOIPoTim]

To thank of you updating your reviews and those of you posting reviews for the first time, thanks!

[christcorp]

Consider it done. Later.... Mike......

[Vumes]

Put up my review.

[usa2k]

Tim, you should have an initial email that goes out to new subscribers that include a link to the review area. Or perhaps a follow-up email after a month that tells your customers about the DSLReports Review page?

If you are gaining thousands of sign-ups, I would think that would generate at least hundreds of reviews.

I do my part by keeping a link to my DSLR review in my DSLR signature. I also just updated USA2K.com (http://usa2k.com) with a mention of VOIPo.com (And a link to my DSLR review (http://www.dslreports.com/comment/3156/69676?r=467).)

[ptrowski]

Wow, so keeping my review updated is now irritating? Whether or not I was offered a full refund or not should not matter. I review the service as it is, not how I hope it to be. Reviews are reviews, along with the good comes the not so goo sometimes.

[chpalmer]

Wow, so keeping my review updated is now irritating? Whether or not I was offered a full refund or not should not matter. I review the service as it is, not how I hope it to be. Reviews are reviews, along with the good comes the not so goo sometimes.

I see no where that anyone called you or anyone else irritating. here or on dslr.

[Xponder1]

I see no where that anyone called you or anyone else irritating. here or on dslr.

I was wondering if I missed a post or something...

[buckethead]

I see no where that anyone called you or anyone else irritating. here or on dslr.
I think he is referring to this from Tim:


it's just irritating to see it so heavily affected by a few users keeping down by constantly updating.
While not specific to any one user I am assuming that ptrowski updates his review more often than others?

[chpalmer]

irritating to see it (the gbu)
so heavily affected

I see from that post the way the GBU works referred to as irritating... ;)

[buckethead]

(the gbu)

I see from that post the way the GBU works referred to as irritating... ;)

That is how I read it as well, but it could be read the other way as well.

[ptrowski]

I think he is referring to this from Tim:


While not specific to any one user I am assuming that ptrowski updates his review more often than others?

I read it that way of course.
Of course I am going to update my review as issues arise. Isn't that the point? Is there anything in my reviews that are not factual? I don't think so. As many know I am vocal, be it good or bad. If the service turns around then I will update accordingly. As issues happened with my previous providers then they were updated also.

A full refund or not should not matter. I would tend to think that since I did NOT take the "buyout" that would leave the review being bad it is in the best interest of Voipo for me to get the service working so the reviews can go back up.

[Xponder1]

Tim's reply was not targeting any one person. Now that I understand how they do the ratings I have started updating my reviews daily.

[Montano]

.... it is in the best interest of Voipo for me to get the service working so the reviews can go back up.

I was under the impression that Tim and his crew have done everything possible to get you working properly, and only after all efforts failed, did Tim offer to return your money. If it doesn't work for you, then hell man, it just doesn't work for you. No miracle Tim can pull out of his hat is going to fix a single users problems. Now let's go grab a beer :)

[ptrowski]

I was under the impression that Tim and his crew have done everything possible to get you working properly, and only after all efforts failed, did Tim offer to return your money. If it doesn't work for you, then hell man, it just doesn't work for you. No miracle Tim can pull out of his hat is going to fix a single users problems. Now let's go grab a beer :)

That's why I said I would get it working. I am following dbmaven's lead in trying DD-WRT and have the PAP2 back online. I am throwing in the towel on the 502.

My point was if I throw in the towel now (either way I would not take the full refund offer) then my review sits where it is and is rated "negtative" from the GBU. If things work better for me then the ratings go up, and that is good for them and for me also.

[NY Tel Guy]

I was under the impression that Tim and his crew have done everything possible to get you working properly, and only after all efforts failed, did Tim offer to return your money. If it doesn't work for you, then hell man, it just doesn't work for you. No miracle Tim can pull out of his hat is going to fix a single users problems. Now let's go grab a beer :)Actually I'm all for a 1st. (after the first year you can call it an annual event) ever voipo symposium. That's where Tim flies all of us to TX (on Southwest of course) and we have a geek fest and talk about voice over IP products.;)

It would be good to put faces behind the names at some point.

[scott2020]

It is Just a shame that one or two "vocal" People can offset the happy People by Such a large margin. Hard work and great support are hardly recognized anymore these days.

[NY Tel Guy]

It is Just a shame that one or two "vocal" People can offset the happy People by Such a large margin. Hard work and great support are hardly recognized anymore these days.But I think that is an offshoot of a flawed system on DSLR. Surely rightfully dissatisfied/ soon-to-be satisfied customers have a right to speak their mind based on their personal experiences with the service.

[ptrowski]

It is Just a shame that one or two "vocal" People can offset the happy People by Such a large margin. Hard work and great support are hardly recognized anymore these days.

There have been issues that some of us have been experiencing with the high latency to the data center and the data center completely going down. I see nothing wrong updating the review.

On a good note, it was my last review that had my ticket that was open for 2+ days responded to within minutes.

[dbmaven]

That's why I said I would get it working. I am following dbmaven's lead in trying DD-WRT and have the PAP2 back online. I am throwing in the towel on the 502.


I hope it works out as well for you as it did for me.

[VOIPoTim]

I hope it works out as well for you as it did for me.

So everything is still smooth for you since the switch to it?

[dbmaven]

The PAP2 status says it best:

Current Time: 4/6/2009 22:39:24 Elapsed Time: 3 days and 03:19:10

No drops, no errors, no lost registrations.

"It just works"

[Russell]

The PAP2 status says it best:

Current Time: 4/6/2009 22:39:24 Elapsed Time: 3 days and 03:19:10

No drops, no errors, no lost registrations.

"It just works"
Now that's interesting. After reading your post, I checked my VOIPo PAP2 and it says:

Current Time: 4/6/2009 22:41:29 Elapsed Time: 00:30:02

Both my VOIPo PAP2 and the PAP2 from my current provider are connected to the same router and I've not unplugged either for quite some time and we certainly didn't have a power blip any time this evening. The PAP2 from my current provider has been running for 42+ days. Puzzled why my VOIPo router rebooted.

[Xponder1]

Now that's interesting. After reading your post, I checked my VOIPo PAP2 and it says:

Current Time: 4/6/2009 22:41:29 Elapsed Time: 00:30:02

Both my VOIPo PAP2 and the PAP2 from my current provider are connected to the same router and I've not unplugged either for quite some time and we certainly didn't have a power blip any time this evening. The PAP2 from my current provider has been running for 42+ days. Puzzled why my VOIPo router rebooted.

Current Time: 4/6/2009 22:03:01 Elapsed Time: 00:46:29

But then again I kicked AT&T DSL to the curb today and had Cox cable installed.
However I just checked and my WAN Connection Uptime 6:20:27 so I guess it did reboot.

[VOIPoTim]

Now that's interesting. After reading your post, I checked my VOIPo PAP2 and it says:

Current Time: 4/6/2009 22:41:29 Elapsed Time: 00:30:02

Both my VOIPo PAP2 and the PAP2 from my current provider are connected to the same router and I've not unplugged either for quite some time and we certainly didn't have a power blip any time this evening. The PAP2 from my current provider has been running for 42+ days. Puzzled why my VOIPo router rebooted.

We applied some provisioning changes today for some users. Yours was likely one.

[Russell]

We applied some provisioning changes today for some users. Yours was likely one.

Ok. I was reminded about dcurrey's one hour rebooting issue, so decided to watch the router and promptly at 1 hour both phone lights went dark for a very short period of time. I now see:

Current Time: 4/6/2009 23:11:37 Elapsed Time: 00:00:07

I need to get to work tomorrow and will be headed to bed after I hit the submit button on this entry.

[dcurrey]

My pap2t has never made it past the hour mark since it was updated to 5.x firmware. It may have had that problem before. They make an hourly change to my config. I have asked support about reboot problem they say its normal.

I know what is being changed but not sure why they do it that way. I am sure Tim would prefer I keep my mouth shut about it.

[Xponder1]

Ok. I was reminded about dcurrey's one hour rebooting issue, so decided to watch the router and promptly at 1 hour both phone lights went dark for a very short period of time. I now see:

Current Time: 4/6/2009 23:11:37 Elapsed Time: 00:00:07

I need to get to work tomorrow and will be headed to bed after I hit the submit button on this entry.

I have not had any issues to speak of but I checked and as you can see from my results above it rebooted again.
Current Time: 4/6/2009 22:22:32 Elapsed Time: 00:05:57

[VOIPoTim]

My pap2t has never made it past the hour mark since it was updated to 5.x firmware. It may have had that problem before. They make an hourly change to my config. I have asked support about reboot problem they say its normal.

I know what is being changed but not sure why they do it that way. I am sure Tim would prefer I keep my mouth shut about it.

If you're talking about the password changing hourly, that shouldn't affect rebooting at all. As far as I know the only ones seeing this are users that have either reported issues so we have certain things enabled on their ATAs or they're users with custom provisioning entries.

I don't believe users with standard provisioning see this unless we apply a change to the primary provisioning profiles.

When a user has anything outside of the normal provisioning profile, all the provisioning fields are provisioned each time since they're not using our standard template. This doesn't cause any interruption of service since it's only about 2 seconds and the PAP2 waits until it's idle. The registration doesn't even expire before the provisioning change is applied since they're set to 5 minutes, so there's no interruption at all.

[VOIPoTim]

OT post spunoff: http://forums.voipo.com/showthread.php?p=11328#post11328

[Xponder1]

If you're talking about the password changing hourly, that shouldn't affect rebooting at all. As far as I know the only ones seeing this are users that have either reported issues so we have certain things enabled on their ATAs or they're users with custom provisioning entries.

I don't believe users with standard provisioning see this unless we apply a change to the primary provisioning profiles.

When a user has anything outside of the normal provisioning profile, all the provisioning fields are provisioned each time since they're not using our standard template. This doesn't cause any interruption of service since it's only about 2 seconds and the PAP2 waits until it's idle. The registration doesn't even expire before the provisioning change is applied since they're set to 5 minutes, so there's no interruption at all.

Current Time: 4/6/2009 23:15:36 Elapsed Time: 00:59:00
So I watched and refreshed a minute later. The two lights on the ATA went out for about 2- 3 seconds and then it was back up.

To my knowledge since I have had no issues at all with the PAP2 I do not have any kind of custom settings so I should have the standard provisioning file.
Current Time: 4/6/2009 23:16:40 Elapsed Time: 00:00:02

[Russell]

My pap2t has never made it past the hour mark since it was updated to 5.x firmware. It may have had that problem before. They make an hourly change to my config. I have asked support about reboot problem they say its normal.

I know what is being changed but not sure why they do it that way. I am sure Tim would prefer I keep my mouth shut about it.

I didn't see Tim's message and have now seen it.

[Russell]

If you're talking about the password changing hourly, that shouldn't affect rebooting at all. As far as I know the only ones seeing this are users that have either reported issues so we have certain things enabled on their ATAs or they're users with custom provisioning entries.

I don't believe users with standard provisioning see this unless we apply a change to the primary provisioning profiles.

When a user has anything outside of the normal provisioning profile, all the provisioning fields are provisioned each time since they're not using our standard template. This doesn't cause any interruption of service since it's only about 2 seconds and the PAP2 waits until it's idle. The registration doesn't even expire before the provisioning change is applied since they're set to 5 minutes, so there's no interruption at all.

I would like to better understand why I have this 2-3 second blip every hour. To be honest it's of concern to me in the sense - if a incoming or outgoing call is attempted during this blip, I take it the call with fail?

Also, I'm curious as to why my password changes hourly? Does this mean if I will not be able to use a softphone? And, why should I have anything outside normal in my provisioning profile? Other than issues with the virtual number (distinctive ring and voicemail - which were rearchitected in the last week and so presumably done at server level) the only request I had was to be moved to east01. Feel free to reply to my email on record, it that's preferred.

[Russell]

Also, if some admin can move the discussion about an hourly rebooting to a new thread and leave a link in here to the new thread it would be appreciated.

[dcurrey]

I was able to confirm if you are on the phone when it provisions the ata will wait for you call to end. Has the same behavior if you make a config change manually.

The ata might see the line go off hook and wait for call to complete before rebooting when placing a call. I have not tested this. But yea you will have a couple seconds downtime while the ata reboots and re-registers.

Its not the sip password thats being changed. So your softphone should continue to work.

[Russell]

I was able to confirm if you are on the phone when it provisions the ata will wait for you call to end. Has the same behavior if you make a config change manually.

The ata might see the line go off hook and wait for call to complete before rebooting when placing a call. I have not tested this. But yea you will have a couple seconds downtime while the ata reboots and re-registers.

Its not the sip password thats being changed. So your softphone should continue to work.

Then the only other password I can think of is the admin password. I'm puzzled as to why that needs to be changed hourly. No one from the outside can access the PAP2 since it's behind a NAT router. So why change the password every hour? Needless to say my concern is this window of downtime (however small).

[eaf]

I'm curious too now. Tim, what password is being changed hourly?

[Xponder1]

I was able to confirm if you are on the phone when it provisions the ata will wait for you call to end. Has the same behavior if you make a config change manually.

The ata might see the line go off hook and wait for call to complete before rebooting when placing a call. I have not tested this. But yea you will have a couple seconds downtime while the ata reboots and re-registers.

Its not the sip password thats being changed. So your softphone should continue to work.

Thanks for testing this. If thats the case there is nothing at all to worry about or even discuss for that matter. Now that I am out of "The planet" I am pretty sure its smooth sailing here out.

[sr98user]

Thanks for testing this. If thats the case there is nothing at all to worry about or even discuss for that matter. Now that I am out of "The planet" I am pretty sure its smooth sailing here out.

Outgoing and while you are on call it is not an issue. But while the ATA is rebooting (during the 2-3 seconds), if you had an incoming call, I assume it will fail. NAT entries will be there. But when the router tries to hand off the packet to ATA , the packet will be lost since there will be no one on the other to receive. Since its UDP, retries will not happen.

[usa2k]

Since its UDP, retries will not happen.
I thought only the voice stream was UDP.
UDP is fast but "careless" because voice won't care about a small gap.

[dswartz]

No, the SIP is too. Some implementations support SIP over TCP, but not many.

[dcurrey]

About the only thing you see use TCP with voip is the config and firmware updates. Almost everything else is UDP.

[kevm]

I just put a review up Tim.