[CJohnston]

Okay, for about the last three weeks, I (and the three other people who signed up for BV on my recommendation) have been experiencing issues with incoming calls. People may call our house for 20-30 minutes, and they'll get a fast-busy signal and it won't right through to our phone. THen suddenly they'll call and it'll go through just fine. The fast-busy calls don't appear in the activity window, or the Call Manager. This means the issue is a routing issue from the PSTN, not necessarily a BV problem.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Any resolution?

I spoke with "Skip" from BV Customer Care last night, and he basically said I had two options:

(1) Have BV file a trouble ticket with the provider of the phone number I've got. This wouldn't be a quick fix, and may end up out in nowhere land forever unresolved (that's my comment).

or,
(2) Have BV switch us to a different phone number (which they'd do for free because it's a tech problem). He said this ususally fixes the problem, since the routing from the PSTN network is usually related to a number, not a blanket problem with all numbers. Of course, this means changing my phone number (again) with all my banks, online stuff, insurances, etc. Ugh!

So, any takes? Anyone else going through this right now? Anyone else resolved this? I self-provision, and I've tried CHI, DCA, NYC and *just* changed to the BOS proxy. That doesn't seem to affect anything (since the problem is in the PSTN, not BV). I've got several people wanting to come after me for getting them into BV because of this problem...

Anyone? Comments?

Thanks... Chad

[mberlant]

Have you confirmed that the problem is not on your end? For example, can you consistently get through to each other (BV-to-BV) at a time when inbound PSTN calls are failing? It's worth eliminating that possibility.

Whether or not you truly need to change your number, this experience is a reminder that VoIP service is a wonderful replacement for Long Distance service and is not a viable replacement for POTS. Whether your problems are due to an unreliable DID provider or the inherent vagaries of the internet, there probably will never come a time to give up the landline completely.

[CJohnston]

mberlant,

Thanks for the reply. I've *never once* heard a fast-busy when calling another BV user (nor have the three people who signed up under me complained about not receiving incoming BV calls). The problem seems limited to calls incoming to the BV lines, originating from the PSTN. The calls don't even appear in the BV Call Manager, so it's really not even a BV issue. There's apparently some issue with routing calls from the PSTN to the particular DID numbers we got from BV when we signed up, however, the problem has only really surfaced on a consistent basis in the past 3 weeks or so.

All of the people who signed up under me can cellphone backups. I understand enough about the VoIP technology (I'm an IT Manager) not to expect perfect POTS-quality phone service, but this is a bit excessive.

Funny, too, that you're the only person (of all the readers) who has posted on this. I figured if the problem was somewhat widespread that others would have posted with similar stories (or so I was hoping). I guess others are enjoying more reliable service than I have been (and the three people who signed up under me).

I was really hoping that someone else had walked this path before, so I could hear how the solution played out (whether having BV open a trouble ticket with the local DID provider actually WORKS or if they ended up switching phone numbers...

Thanks for the input, and keeping my thread alive...

Chad

[CJohnston]

I just logged onto my BV Account Portal, and noticed the first ever message posted in the "Service Notes" section. It says:

"We are currently experiencing sporadic inbound and outbound issues. Our engineers are aware of this and will have the issue resolved quickly. "

I wonder if this is related to my above-mentioned problem with incoming calls? Just thought it was interesting considering my issue.

Chad

[chandave]

Waaa!!!! I missed the service announcement!!!! It's back to the boring "There are no service announcements at this time."

See ya...

d.c.

[CJohnston]

LOL! Surprisingly, the service announcement wasn't posted for very long. I logged back in a couple hours after my post (if that), and it was gone already. At least I know now that they actually do have the capability to posting announcements to that area, rather that just putting that "No announcements at this time." message on the portal to try to make us think that nothing is ever wrong. :wink:

I sent out an email querying the people who signed up under me asking if they notice any change in their incoming call issues (wishful thinking maybe?). I'm keeping my fingers crossed, although I'm doubtful that it was the problem. Most likely it was just a coincidence that BV posted an issue that mentioned incoming calls. We'll see, though. It'll take a little time to find out whether or not it's related.

Chad