Service failure but Adapter's lights normal. Grrr.

[stevech]

This discussion isn't going well. Don't want an argumentative tone.
Three times I've asked, apparently without clarity:
Why can't VoIPo monitor VoIPo's own servers to detect overdue re-registration of customers' ATAs? And notify customer by email/SMS.

You keep responding that it's impractical for VoIPo to monitor customer premises equipment.

[VOIPoTim]

This discussion isn't going well. Don't want an argumentative tone.
Three times I've asked, apparently without clarity:
Why can't VoIPo monitor VoIPo's own servers to detect overdue re-registration of customers' ATAs? And notify customer by email/SMS.

You keep responding that it's impractical for VoIPo to monitor customer premises equipment.

I'm just referring back to my previous reply:

--

Even ISPs don't do this level of monitoring for their customers to detect is a modem loses sync, etc. It's just not practical and we can only monitor our own network.

It would be extremely difficult and costly to design a system that could accurately monitor end user networks primarily because of all the different network setups, routers, and NAT situations out there. There's also the situation where sometimes users unplug their devices, sometimes they travel with them, etc. Sometimes ISPs renew IP addresses and they could be down momentarily, etc. There are hundreds of potential situations that could generate false positives. The support/customer service burden alone from those alerts would require more staff that our entire service does because of people complaining about false positives or special situations it didn't detect.
---

Doing what you're asking is not by any means easy. If it were all providers would be doing it, ISPs would be doing it to monitor the loss of a modem connection, etc.

I don't know of any providers providing that level of monitoring because it's just not practical and would cost a small fortune to design something that could accurately do it while accounting for all the false positives, etc. Outside of that, it would require a massive increase in support staff due to all the new inquires that would come in and the irate people upset over alerts for false positives, missing special situations, etc.

Even the "Devices" link in the vPanel that shows the registration information generates hundreds of tickets a month with people upset over a variety of things like it not showing their virtual number so they don't know if it's up or not or they think the time listed for registration renewal means they will be billed when it re-registers or they are irate that it shows their IP address there because that's "not secure".

Some just don't understand it and that's fine. The problem is that a huge % of customers become extremely hostile over every little thing.

As an example, we had someone recently get a voicemail notification for a blank voicemail because the caller hung up and they filed complaints with the AG, BBB, FCC, etc right after contacting us about it because we wasted an SMS on their cell phone and clogged their e-mail box with a notification for a voicemail that didn't have anything it it and we should have suppressed the alert for it.


Not everyone does things like that, but enough customers do that it influences how we deal with every situation. People go ballistic over the smallest things every day and we unfortunately can't take common sense as a given. Again, it's a small % of our customer base but enough to have a huge impact.

Everything is complex with a large customer base and we have to account for that. To deal with something that's guaranteed to generate false positives and be so complex to monitor is going to cause 10x the effect.

Trust me, it's 1000x more complicated to do than it sounds especially when we can't count on all customers having common sense when utilizing tools like that. You may understand it and be able to use common sense with it and think we can opt someone out of it, but that doesn't mean everyone else will have the same common sense and we'd have to deal with the fallout from everyone.

It's nothing personal and I understand why you'd want something like this, but it's not practical to do. I'm not saying it's not practical based on speculation..I'm saying it based on experience and seeing the daily interactions with some of our customers and having an understanding of how many of our customers react to different things.

[TFlap]

...As an example, we had someone recently get a voicemail notification for a blank voicemail because the caller hung up and they filed complaints with the AG, BBB, FCC, etc right after contacting us about it because we wasted an SMS on their cell phone and clogged their e-mail box with a notification for a voicemail that didn't have anything it it and we should have suppressed the alert for it...

That's crazy!

[VOIPoTim]

That's crazy!

Just one of many examples. We deal with people doing similar things every day.

While in that example the complaints had no merit, we still have to respond and defend ourselves because unfortunately in today's "big bad business" society everyone is anti-business and pro-consumer even in situations where the consumer is wrong.

From complaints like that to showing up at our door slamming an ATA down to making threats like "I was on vacation and didn't use my phone while gone so give me a free month or I'll do a chargeback" we deal with it every day. I'm not sure if it's the stress of the economy in general or what but we've been seeing more and more people just going ballistic over minor things the last year or so.

The point is that doing something like outlined in this post that would generate false positives would create more situations like this where people would literally go ballistic and snap over simple things above and beyond the technical limitations of doing it. If they were opted out, we'd be the bad guy for taking them out and they'd want a refund for not fully delivering on something we advertised. If they were left in, they'd have false positives and complain about it.

It's more reasonable for us to monitor our own network because we understand the realities of monitoring and won't get upset over getting too many alerts, etc.

In anything we do, we have to find the right balance of providing functionality that people want while walking on eggshells around a % of our customer base with it. It's a balancing act and unfortunately there are some things like this that are harder to deal with than others.

That's why VOIPo moved to California....being 2 miles from the ocean has a calming effect that's needed.