TeleBlend Update

I had the opportunity to speak with Mark Kruskol of MJK Public Relations through email. He was the spotlight in Computer World's article titled "Dealing with a VoIP Provider as a Small Business Owner". He informed me that since the article he received a call from Brian Lustig, the TeleBlend Publicist who said that his incoming phone service should be working. His outage lasted from Monday, August 6 until approximately 2:30pm PST Tuesday, August 14th.

Personally, I think Mark's outage would have lasted quite a bit longer had he not vented his frustrations to Computer World. Clever move by Mark to expedite the restoration of his service. There is no excuse for TeleBlend to leave him and many other subscribers without phone service for 8 days.

Chris

TeleBlend: Small Business Owner Deals w/ Poor Service

Teleblend continues to blame shortcomings on SunRocket's mess. ComputerWorld describes how one business owner is dealing with the poor service that TeleBlend continues to provide. The article can be found here.

Update: Quality of ViaTalk

So i promised an update on the quality of ViaTalk. Here it is, if you didn't read my previous post, you can do so here.

Quality of phone call has been much much better.

Still having issues accessing voicemail through the handset, most of the time I get a busy signal. I feel like I should submit a trouble ticket and demand they tell me who keeps checking my voicemail messages. :D

Best result to listening my messages has been going online and listening to them that way.

Have not had consistency in sending faxes. 1 out of 5 go through. I am also unsure as to whether ViaTalk has any restrictions preventing me from faxing so that I pay for a dedicated fax line. That would be very sneaky, but completely understandable in respect to such cheap phone service.

Customer support is still sluggish. They are responsive, but do not expect a quick response. This is also to be expected considering the large amount of orders for new service from displaced Sun Rocket customers.

IMHO: ViaTalk is doing well. You have to remember, VOIP is a low cost alternative to a land line telephone. You get all of the services and more of a basic telephone line at a fraction of the cost. ViaTalk is a relatively small company compared to the major players, but I feel that they are not sneaky as Teleblend is, they are one of the lowest priced, and the quality of phone service is good. Their support needs work and their network needs work, but hopefully with all these new orders, they will have the cash flow to make the right moves.

Chris

Even our Gizmos Maker Gives us the Run-Around

A user of dslreports.com received this message from Linksys regarding the Gizmo SPA-2102.

Dear Valued Sipura Customer,

"Linksys' goal is to help SunRocket subscribers to continue to use their Linksys ATA (the SPA2102-R1 Analog Telephone Adapter) equipment. Linksys no longer owns the ATA equipment and we will comply with any appropriate, authorized requests to facilitate the transfer of SunRocket's service. We understand that there are negotiations currently taking place between SunRocket and other 3rd party service providers. However, until we receive the details of any agreements between those companies from an authorized source, in addition to any approvals or consents that may be required from any applicable third party with an interest in those transactions, we are not in a position to re-provision the ATA units."

Sincerely,

Gerald (Badge 18316)
Sipura Support

Honestly, at this point I think the only ones to be angry with is Sherwood Partners, LLC. I think what we should start doing is begin to spam them as they are with us. I still am receiving notices that my service is discontinued, and that they want me to sign up with Teleblend & Packet 8. Why, so that they can recoup their lost investment?

What about my money? What about our gizmos? As investors, they should know that you only invest the money you are willing to lose. When you purchase a service (for instance, a trusting consumer purchasing a years worth of VoiceOverIP Telephone service), you are not spending money you risk to lose, you are paying for a service for which you intend to consume. I have not fully consumed what I paid for, for that I am outraged.

But Sherwood on the other hand, is liquidating assets, is making deals with Packet 8 and Teleblend to recoup funds that they knew from the beginning they might not get back. So why should they get the right to shaft over 200,o00 people to get back this money.

My conclusion, is I am no longer going to focus my frustrations on Teleblend, the exSunRocket employees or executives, or even at Linksys. I am going to the source, I am going to Sherwood for answers. I think they should be held accountable for this disaster and how so many exSunRocket patrons are without phone service, without gizmos and without their money.

More Nonsense from Teleblend

Our friend over at gizmopasswords.com has been in communications with Lisa Bickford at Teleblend.  Basically, this CxO  of Teleblend has been skipping around the bush, just refusing to answer any questions legitimately or even cough up the truth that they provisioned our SunRocket gizmos.

My response, stay away from Teleblend.

To read the full conversation between DM of gizmopasswords and Lisa Bickford, please visit gizmopasswords.com.

Nuvio Posts Directions to Provision Gizmos for their Service

Nuvio, a provider of PBX voice service, has setup a section of their website for SunRocket customers. They have posted how to unlock the AC-211-SR, AC-211N-SR, Linksys SPA 2102 and InnoMedia 6328.

Please note, they have not solved the no longer working password problem:

Note: If you have a Linksys SPA-2102, please try to unlock the device using these instructions before signing up for Nuvio service. A small number of customers are reporting difficulty unlocking the Linksys SPA-2102. This is likely due to TeleBlend, in a effort to retain a portion of the SunRocket Customer base having likely reconfigured passwords on the Linksys SPA-2102. Nuvio is currently working on a solution for this issue. Please check this page for updates.

This information can be found at http://direct.nuvio.com/sunrocket/devices.html

Teleblend Claims No Password Change

Mihir Gandhi has spoken with Lisa Bickford from Teleblend. She claims that she is unaware of any changes to the admin passwords that unlock the Gizmos. She stated that the devices were provisioned for use on Teleblend's network, but that passwords were not changed.

So if Teleblend did not provision the password change, then who did? Personally I seem rather skeptical.

Nuvio, another VOIP service provider, has made this statement on their website regarding converting SunRocket customers:

Note: If you have a Linksys SPA-2102, please try to unlock the device using these instructions before signing up for Nuvio service. A small number of customers are reporting difficulty unlocking the Linksys SPA-2102. This is likely due to TeleBlend, in a effort to retain a portion of the SunRocket Customer base having likely reconfigured passwords on the Linksys SPA-2102. Nuvio is currently working on a solution for this issue. Please check this page for updates.

So I guess I am not the only person who feels this way.

Chris

SunRocket's Network Being Liquidated?

There are rumors spreading, and I wouldn't be surprised, that the major stakeholders that funded SunRocket originally were the ones that cut the executives off from more funds. They then proceded to take control of the company during its unforeseen demise and begin making deals with Packet 8 and Teleblend. Its interesting because SunRocket is now spamming me this message of how they have a deal with Packet 8 and Teleblend, in fact if I switch to Teleblend, there is no need to port my number? Why is that you ask, because they now run the network...

Which brings me to another thought. If a new service provider has snaggled up SunRocket's assets, that puts many users of the Gizmo (Linksys SPA-2102) in deep water. Chances are the first thing the new owners did was provision the gizmos and change the password. I will keep my ears open on the web to decipher if my theories are correct, and if I discover a new password I will post it here.

There is still hope.