 Review by chaud 
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 6.1 years, 2120 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Anderson,Anderson,SC
 $33 per month (12 month contract)
 about 3 days
 "Great quality and features."
 "Expensive"
 "Great quality but expensive."
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Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
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Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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My Experience:
I placed my order for the DTA from Amazon.com on a Friday, and it arrived Tuesday. Ordering from them gave two months free, and a $60 rebate, which will reduce the cost of my DTA to -$4.00. The DTA arrived in a well decorated box, that protected the DTA well.
Once the main box is opened, there is smaller box inside, with all of the components wrapped in bubble wrap.
The items in the box included the DTA, a phone cord, power cord, power adapter, ethernet cable, startup note, tips sheet, and an invoice.
After I took the DTA out of the box, and plugged in the power, the Power light immediately turned on. I next plugged the ethernet cable into a free port of my router, and the Link light tuned on .I then connected a phone, and picked up, to find a dial tone. When a number was dialed, a packet8 recording telling you the URL to activate your service was heard. I went to the web address supplied, which matched the instructions on the sheet, and was told to enter my MAC address that was found on the bottom of the DTA. When I entered my MAC address, it returned an error
I tried three times, and each time the same error came up. I then placed a call to packet8 support, who answered after a few rings. I had no hold time at all. They confirmed my MAC address, and changed something in their system. I then tried again, and was put through. The problem, so far as I can tell, was caused by me buying it through Amazon, and the DTA must not have been registered properly in their system. After I had filled out the required billing information, I paid an activation fee, and printed my account details. I then picked up the phone, and placed a long distance call with perfect quality. I felt that the quality was almost as good as my land line, if not better. I did not have to configure anything special on my router, the DTA was truly "plug and play". The Phone light turns on steady when the phone is in use, and flashes while it is ringing.
After making several calls over a few days, I am almost satisfied with the Packet8 service. There are however some issues. One day, I placed a long distance call, and suffered horrible quality, and lost the call. When I checked the call log, I had 12% packet loss. However this was not Packet8's fault, as it was my internet connection. After a quick reboot of modem and router, everything was working perfectly again. In normal calls, I lose about .2% packets, but this may or may not have something to do with Packet8. This does not cause any quality problems though. The voicemail works reasonably well, except for the timestamp is sometimes off. I do wish we had the name on the Caller-ID, as we currently only have the number. After I was satisfied with the service, I went outside and unplugged my land line from the box, and marked it clearly. Then I connected my DTA to the wall outlet, and all phones were powered. I am able to hear people clearly with four phones up, which is all I have use for at this time. As for the quality, long distance calls sound much better, and local calls are loud and clear, people say they notice an increase in quality.
My only real problems with the service, so far, is the fact that 911 will not work right, and if I lose power, or my internet breaks, I will not have phone service to call and have it fixed.
For $20.00 a month, with unlimited long distance, it makes a great replacement for a land line. I recommend it!
Just updating this review, Packet8 now working fine in SC with Charter. Thanks P8!
12-24-05 - Still has great uptime and reliability. No problems
11-29-06
Still going strong with little downtime, have a few price increases, but still the most bang for the buck.
8-1-07
Still working well, loaded unlocked firmware and switched to g711. Sounds even better. No real problems with downtime.
6-1-09
P8 has raised the price several times, and now the cost is over $32, so I switched to my ISPs phone service. The features, uptime, and quality were great, but the price is no longer!
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