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PhonePower Q/A Link for your common questions

Started by smile6617, April 16, 2014, 07:07:13 PM

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smile6617

http://www.phonepower.com/Obihai_info.aspx

$60 for a year for unlimited outgoing calls ($5 a month). Compared to other services I was researching (Aveno, Oomba).

smile6617

I have just signed up with PowerPhone. And YES you can input your GV number as the outgoing caller ID number.  If you want to have GV answer as your voice mail. Add about 10 seconds under the forwarding action. This is done under forwarding menu and not under the voicemail menu in the PowerPhone account.

Realistically it only took me less than 10 min to setup the account. 7 of those was finding a way not letting powerphone do the voice answering.

Cheezyfrye

Ok, I just signed up as well and would like to use my GV voicemail still, but I'm not completely following what you did in your settings.  What "forwarding action" are you directing the PowerPhone acct to do...for 10 seconds?

Taoman

Quote from: Cheezyfrye on April 18, 2014, 10:53:09 PM
Ok, I just signed up as well and would like to use my GV voicemail still, but I'm not completely following what you did in your settings.  What "forwarding action" are you directing the PowerPhone acct to do...for 10 seconds?

Under Call Forwarding, make a new Follow Me rule that adds time before voicemail picks up so that you will be sure GV voicemail picks up and not PhonePower's.

Fisher

I am considering PhonePower as well.  The $5 per mo plan is pretty comprehensive.  Are there additional fees on top of that? I was also looking for their porting fee for the Obitalk plan.

murtazao

From their FAQ - Does this mean I cannot use iphone/android based SIP client like Groudwire or Bria, or PC based clients like Zoiper?

Can I use any device on this plan?
OBihai plans are only eligible with Obihai devices.

Pa_Bell

I'm considering PhonePower for our 2nd line, we already have the 1st line through Vestalink but I'd prefer to split the business.  I'm interested in the Android softphone from PhonePower, is it included in the Obi Lite plan and does anyone here have any experience with it? 

I tried the softphone included with Vestalink yesterday on the free WiFi from a Starbucks and it worked very well.  We're going to be spending a few months in Asia and this feature could come in very handy.  Thanks.

PeteMoss

Unless PP improves the call setup speed, the current 12 seconds before ring-back commences is totally unacceptable. My VOIPo line, on another OBI202, takes only 2 to 2.5 seconds before ring-back starts. The dialed phone starts ringing after 2 ring-backs on either ITSP.

peterh

I had decided that I'd do my Google Voice (GV) end-of-XMPP transition on May 1st, so yesterday I signed up with PhonePower. I thought I'd post what my PhonePower experience has been.

The short version is, one day into my service, I'm reasonably happy and don't have any major negatives to report. My biggest gripe is their online support chat feature puts you in a queue, and you have to wait out the line ahead of you, but, once you get a service rep, they are polite and helpful. Another, minor gripe is their chat app doesn't go "ding" when you get off hold, so you won't know if a rep has come online if their screen is buried under another app.

Pretty minor grumbles. They're a lot easier to work with than say, my local phone company, cable TV/Internet provider, and many other "support" organizations that leave you on hold, listening to the same annoying on-hold music until you get a support rep who winds up wasting your time instead of helping you. I'd give the experience a "four of five stars" satisfaction rating, which isn't bad for support.

On to the larger details. I had two other problems (thus the chat/support sessions) and some positive feedback about service quality.

First, things I wanted from my new service provider, but didn't get:
* None of the SIP providers (PhonePower, Anveo, etc.) seem to offer PayPal. You have to sign up with a credit card (CC), which is not my first choice. Not only have I had my CC compromised on multiple occasions (most recently with the Target debacle last Christmas season) resulting in me getting a new CC number, CCs expire or change when I move or change banks, and each time that happens I have to track down which companies bill me by credit card and update their billing info for me. Not only is that a hassle, I usually miss one or two of them, and annually billed accounts are the hardest to track down and remember. I've never had a problem with my PayPal service, and actively select vendors that support them over those that offer just CC billing. <Sigh>

* I also wanted a service that would only take calls that came through mu Google Voice number, which I am keeping at GV. No service seemed to offer that, either.

I selected Phone Power (PP) because they were on ObiHai's "Approved" list and there are lots of positive reviews about them out there. I opted not to go with Anveo because I wanted my CallerID to display a name (more on that later) with my GV phone number, and Anveo is both slightly more expensive and charges extra for a CNAM record. Most services claim to work just fine with Google Voice, so that wasn't one of my problems while looking for a provider.

PhonePower costs were $35 straight up for their cheapest plan: no taxes, no extra fees for the included E911 service. The chep plan includes 300 minutes (5 hours) of outbound calling a month to the US and Canada and 60 minutes of calling to a list of international locations (more than we use) and unlimited inbound calls. $0.01/minute for US and Canada after that, international rates are variable. There's a cost checker on PP's website.

So, I pulled the trigger yesterday and joined up with PhonePower.

The enrollment/sign-up was pretty ststraightforward​. As usual, the longest part of the process was browsing through the service agreement. Most of it is pretty standard stuff. About the only thing in there worth mentioning is they require a 30-day advanced notice of termination, so, if you decide you want to leave them in a year's time, you may have to call them in advance to let them know.

Once I was signed-up, it took just a few minutes for PP to assign me a new telephone number and get my service up and working at their end. My Obi110 adapter, on the other hand, wasn't cooperating. I started an online chat session, they wound their way through their diagnostic process, and decided the problem must be at ObiHai's end. Which was true, sort of. They directed me to ObiHai's tech support.

After getting off the chat with them, I remembered that I had done some customizations of the settings directly on my Obi110 and not through ObiTalk.com. After logging directly on to my Obi110 on m local LAN and clicking the "Default" check boxes on the 110's SP1 configuration page, I returned to the ObiTalk Dashboard page, clicked the red status warning message, followed the directions, and the service came straight up.

My second problem was my Caller ID name field, or CNAM. It turns out PhonePower pulls your 14-character CNAM information from their Billing department's LastName then FirstName information, but what I wanted was to see "Lynne-n-Peter H." (Lynne-n-Peter is what I set our account's "First Name" to.) It took a chat with Support, which directed me to a Billing chat, which directed me to send them an email request.

The nice Billing support rep agreed to wave the $5 account change fee since I contacted them within a day of signing up to make my correction. It's worth noting, however, that you have to fudge your account name on their sign-up forms if you want something other than a 14-char, truncated "Jefferson Thom" to show up on your outbound caller IDs.

As for the testing I've done, my call setup times seem to be pretty quick, the call quality about the same as with GV or my old land line. First day of service, and I've had no problems so far. I'll post again if I run into any.


peterh

Oh, one more thing I should add to my post, above. I elected to keep my existing number at Google Voice and get a new number at PhonePower. To get GV to work with my phone I had to go to my GV settings and add my now PhonePower voice number.

During my PhonePower sign-up I provided them with my existing GV number, which is what they'll display when I place an outgoing call.

The downside of this is I now have two phone numbers telemarketers can call. Before I signed up I asked PhonePower is there is a way they could reject any call that doesn't come to my number via GV, but they said no. I'm hoping that doesn't become too much of an issue, but I have gone to dontcall.gov and gotten the new number on the "Do Not Call" registry.

BlueOcean

Excellent post Peter and thank you for taking the time. You answered all of my questions concerning using PhonePower with my Obi and I will be signing up this weekend. I also plan on keeping my GV phone number and like the GV voice mail notifications on my Android phone.

About 4 years ago I signed up with PhonePower for a couple of years using their adapter after at&t discontinued their voip service. Was very pleased with PP voice quality and service although pricey at $17.95 a month - then I found Obi and GV  :). Good to see more competition and lower rates.

Taoman

Quote from: peterh on May 02, 2014, 11:11:41 AM
During my PhonePower sign-up I provided them with my existing GV number, which is what they'll display when I place an outgoing call.
Quote from: peterh on May 02, 2014, 10:27:57 AM
My second problem was my Caller ID name field, or CNAM. It turns out PhonePower pulls your 14-character CNAM information from their Billing department's LastName then FirstName information, but what I wanted was to see "Lynne-n-Peter H." (Lynne-n-Peter is what I set our account's "First Name" to.) It took a chat with Support, which directed me to a Billing chat, which directed me to send them an email request.

I am confused about what you think is going to happen here. You seem to be concerned about your CNAM display which is for outgoing calls only. But then you say you provided your existing GV number which is what will display for an outgoing call. Which is it?
The only way your CNAM will be displayed on outgoing calls is if you choose to use the phone number that PP assigned you. Since you apparently chose to display your GV number for outgoing calls your CNAM will not be displayed. There is no option on this. It is one or the other.

johnmeyer

I figured out the reason for the long call setup, but not how to fix it.

If you dial a local number, without the area code prefix, it will take 12-15 seconds before the phone you are calling starts ringing. If, however, you dial the full ten-digit (1-area code-prefix-number), the call setup is the usual standard few seconds.

PeteMoss

You have to change the dialing plan. The one that was provided with the OBI/PP wizard is flaky. There is another thread that I started because I had the same problem with lengthy call setup. Read the entire thread and then change your dialing plan by cut and pasting the one that finally worked for me.

johnmeyer

I found the answer, and posted it in the thread I started yesterday, but for those who stumble on this thread instead, here is the string that you enter, via the Expert interface, on the ITSP Profile for your PhonePower setup, on the DigitMap line:

(1xxxxxxxxxx|<1831>[2-9]xxxxxx|<1>[2-9]xxxxxxxxx|011xx.|xx.|(Mipd)|[^*#]@@.)