www.stopthesanity.com

Recently (read it here) I blogged about Phone Power and my difficulties on getting their service working.

While looking for an alternative I found out that Qwest is now offering VOIP service for $19.99 a month. It also gives you unlimited local and long distance calling, and you can choose an area code in any area code that they provide in their service areas.

The main two reasons I want a solution like this is because I want unlimited out of area calling to be able to talk to most of the people I know in AZ who are out of area to me, and for my mother to be able to call me in an emergency. This lets me get an areacode identical to her, allow her to call me with a local call, and allows me to call her and my friends with no LD costs.

Sure, I could get unlimited LD calling for $20 a month, but that doesnt solve the inbound calling issue... this does.

I got the Qwest device last week, plugged it in, and it just worked. Easy peasy.. unlike certain other (Phone Power *cough* *cough*) providers... setup was a snap... literally just plug it in and it worked.

If you are interested in checking out Qwests VOIP offering, you can read more about it here: http://www.qwest.com/residential/products/voip/

When is a guarantee NOT a guarantee? when you have to pay for service that doesn't work for you, and still have to pay to return equipment.

"26. SATISFACTION GUARANTEE. Phone Power proudly stands behind our service with our 30 day satisfaction guarantee. Within the first 30 days of your activation you may upgrade or downgrade to any of our current promotional rates or cancel your plan with absolutely no hassle. If cancelling, all we ask is that you return our hardware and pay the initial month of service at the standard monthly rate for your plan. Shipping, handling and activation fees, if any, are non refundable. "

Yes kids, this means that if Phone Power doesn't work for you, you still have to pay for shipping, handling AND an entire months service... even if you never were able to get their device to work.

They have rave reviews several places, and I am sure in some cases do indeed live up to those reviews, but for me? DOA.

Their equipment would not work, even though I have had 2 different VOIP providers working from exactly the same configuration of my network. I tried every variation their technicians and FAQ/Knowledge base suggested, even putting my DSL into bridged mode and setting their hardware up as the PPPoE authenticator with nothing.

The last two providers? Plug it in and it just works. No DMZ configuration, no complete and total revamp of how your network works... they..just..work.

For me? Phone power just doesn't work.

That gets a 0 out of 5 VOIP stars from the brand new StopTheSanity VOIP rating system.

edit 2009-12-29:
They did finally agree to give me a refund of my money, which is a plus in their favor. Sadly, having a guarantee that does nothing for you, causing you to have to argue over a week or more to get a refund is more than a little annoying.

I have decided that I am going to trust my first impressions of people more than I have been.

Time and time again I have encountered someone that triggers my "asshat" alert in some way.. that made me instantly dislike them.. and when I have the patience to wait and see, I find out why.

Now I am not saying that I am this great paragon of wonder when it comes to interactions with others.. I have a big ego, firm preferances on what I do and how I do things.. and they dont always mesh well with others, but still, its turning out more and more often that my first impression of someone is dead spot on.. even without much to base it on at a concious level.

For example, a while back in the game I play someone made a comment to me how I was always 'ragging on them'... to be honest I might have been using a touch more snark than usual when talking to them.. but I dont think it was a lot more.. I think he was being overly sensitive.. but still.. it made me sit down and think.. that yes, I didn't like him. I didn't know why, but it was clear.

I did try, I really did... I made an effort to not be unreasonable to him or in regards to him.. and yet.. as I see more and more of what he does and how he behaves and how he acts my first impression was spot on... he isn't the type of person I like, or want to associate with. I think the final and clear straw were his racist remarks one day in chat, including the word "jigaboo".

I can see the time coming, prolly soon, where "drama" in the game is going to break out and spill over and around this guy.. and I am hoping to not be in the center.. but its hard, because when I dont like someone I reflexively get nasty to them... like how I treated "Loolee" when she was an ass to a friend of mine.

Ah well, it will be interesting to see how it goes down.