service running back up again here in Menlo Park,

INBOUND and OUTDIAL are both fine

Same here, in Maine. But then again, it's the interwebs, so if it's up at the home office, it's up everywhere.

Its working for me too... I won't disconnect anything.. and hope it works until we figure out whats going on.

news story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...33088920070717

Just noticed something.. the additional number I had on my account..
disappared... :( no big deal since I hardly ever used it... but you
may want to check it.

I can't believe I didn't know about this! What a bunch of crooks they are for not informing their customers ahead of the planned shutdown and giving people an opportunity to port out numbers and make other arrangements.

I will disputing the charge for my two years of service with Amex and I expect to receive a credit back. My main concern right now is preserving the phone number - does anyone have experience or knowledge of what might be involved porting a number away from Sunrocket given its current state?

Sunrocket is totally t*ts-up in KS, but at least I have my home number forwarded to my cell. Better'n nothing...

I'm up a creek with Amex :( Fair Billing Act or some similar anti-consumer nonsense restricts billing disputes to 60 days - since I paid a year in advance, I'm out the $200+ for remainder of my two year package.

Since I need to keep a basic landline, which costs $28 w/tax, and replacement VOIP through Vonage would run $19 a month with taxes and fees, it looks like the best deal is to add a few extra services to my landline and call it a day.

Viatalk will give you voip and give you credit for sunrocket time left on your account..

http://www.viatalk.com/

I believe only if you give them $200 for another year. I think I'm done giving these crooks money up front for businesses that are teetering on the brink - even Vonage is one bad day away from the end.

I'm curious what they're going to offer (the specifics)...so I'm caller number 75 on hold to speak to a rep this morning. I will post what they tell me - although it will be interesting how they handle my situation, given I have 1.5 years left on my Sunrocket agreement.

ended
 

I think that deal ended at 00:00 tuesday morning, but YMMV.

what is sort of beat about vt, is that on Monday morning their deal was 1yr 199$, PLUS one year. Then, about noon the whole thing changed to 1yr 199$ and we will credit UP TO 12 MONTHS for SR accounts. (so basically 1yr)

then, at about 21:00 it changed to credit SIX MONTHS only. So, seems a bit sneaky regardless.

I'm not getting in the boat with anyone on a prepay again till the VOIP market shakes out again. At least not a 200$ 1-2yr prepay.

My Sunrocket service is still working here, didn't get down to PA yesterday, but will try for it today.

After being on hold for almost an hour, I extracted the following info from Viatalk..

1) the Sunrocket contract buy-out offer is only applicable to new prepaid accounts and only for a maximum of 6 months - they are basically screwing a captive and panicked market, and for that I won't give them any pre-paid funds. If you sign up for a pre-paid year, it is an agreement, unlike Sunrocket. Not only will they not refund any money on a pro-rated basis (like Sunrocket would), they assess a hefty cancellation penalty

2) they have month-to-month plans available, which can be billed monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually - if you do not want to front them the money, the quarterly billed plan is only $5 more than what I was paying Sunrocket (net cost), so it should be a fair deal for most

3) the same company held phone numbers for both Sunrocket and Viatalk, but ports could still take upto 30 days and ports are not guaranteed - no refunds will be given if a port fails

4) for the tech-savvy, their BYOD plans come with no connection or shipping fees - use the link that follows to unlock your Sunrocket Gizmo (no guarantees though) and you can repoint it to the Viatalk servers
http://gizmopasswords.blogspot.com/

5) someone registered a website domain for a class-action against Sunrocket and its principals - while I want to see those .......s fry like chicken mcnuggets, the website requests alot of personal information and there is no clear data on who registered the domain or who they really are - please resist the urge to give ANYONE personal information over the phone or via a website regardless of who they claim to be

6) before any lawsuits are filed, you can still contact the FCC and demand they take action against Sunrocket and its principles for the way in which they terminated service (including 911 access) without notice and failed to make arrangements to transition customers to alternate carriers, provide notice to customers so they could make alternate arrangements, and failed to provide access to 911 emergency services or informed customers that access to emergency services would be unavailable as of a certain date. You may contact the FCC commissioners directly at the following email addresses:
Chairman Kevin J. Martin: [email protected]
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: [email protected]
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: [email protected]
Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate: [email protected]
Commissioner Robert McDowell: [email protected]

Here is the text of an email I am about to send them:

I am writing the Commission to request that swift and decisive action be taken against the corporate principals of the former VOIP provider, Sunrocket. Although the FCC does not regulate the VOIP market or its service providers, the behavior of this corporation and its principals has gone beyond a simple loss of phone service and is akin to reckless endangerment - many of the 200,000 affected customers have lost their only access to Emergency 911 service and now have no way of knowing when or why their service was disrupted and may not be able to summon emergency response if needed.

It is incumbent upon this Commission to protect the interests of these affected customers and ensure a precedent is set so other providers of VOIP services understand that they cannot demonstrate a complete lack of regard for the safety and wellbeing of customers who rely on these services to connect them to emergency response. In addition, in clear violation of federal law, Sunrocket continues to advertise the availability of products and services on its website and permits prospective customers to sign-up for new service (although the process does not fully complete) - the company continues to demonstrate a wanton disregard for its customers by not providing any messaging to inform customers of its shutdown, provide information on alternate services or advise customers their access to 911 services is no longer working. I can only hope that none of Sunrocket's 200,000 customers required emergency services and were unable to summon help due to this sudden and unannounced permanent outage.

Please take swift and decisive action in concert with other appropriate agencies to secure the assets and persons of the principals of this company and prepare to draft a policy for the remainder of the market participants to prevent something like this happening again.

Thank you

Great email... Would you mind offering this template to everyone so that they can just send the email and copy it to everyone on the list above.

I think it's only going to get traction if alot of people send something. I have no problem with folks using that email as a template, but it might be better if each person customize it abit so the Commissioners don't get exactly the same email from hundreds or even thousands of people (if word spreads).

If anyone has posting rights at fatwallet.com, feel free to post a link to this thread there, or repost my email so folks over there can start taking some action and spreading the word.

Whoa. By coincidence, I just ported the number I use from SR to Vonage. The one I don't use is still on SR but I can't call it.... "All circuits are busy"

Very much in the news today, too:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...?hpid=sec-tech
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/te...ss&oref=slogin
http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...huts-down.aspx