Sunrocket going down?
 

It has been reported on several forums as well as some reputed technology sites. If you have the service, do not disconnect the gizmo otherwise you wont be able to get back on. Forward your number to a cell or some other phone. Take printouts of your bill etc.

For further discussion see:

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/mess...748582&start=0

Pretty smart of them to take a full year prepaid from people. They were letting folks signup as recent as last week.

Hopefully those folks can dispute such charges w/their credit card companies...

Do you know how far back would credit card companies allow to dispute?

Down
 

Down,

Chase just informed me I had four months to dispute, I resigned up on 3/27/07, so I MIGHT see something, or everything, or nothing.

Started the process with them.

Two other accounts are from November, so not sure on that one.

Phone is currently dead. I'm going to walk over to their offices here in Palo Alto tomorrow morning and see what is what.

I got a dial tone, but the red service light is blinking.

Oops, can't call out or receive calls. She's dead alright.

Please keep us posted about your meeting or the results. My phone service is dead too.

double post. sorry . . .

Mine's dead...I'm on the phone with Amex now.

I'm only on the monthly plan, so I have a whopping $10.71 in play. But it's the effing principle - I want my ten bucks back.

I am so glad they were useless at porting my Vonage number forcing me to cancel my sunrocket trial account. 200k people are suddenly without a phone line.

Hmmm....so what's the next-best deal out there? I just need a local number to dump telemarketers into and to make 100-ish minutes per month of int'l calling out from. I'm assuming my Sunrocket number is dead and gone...

Via talk is offering special deals for sunrocket customers. Read the thread linked in OP.

many
 

there are many deals out there for voip, but viatalk seems to be a reasonable option.

Depending on what telephone company you are with, one could get free LD for 10-15$ a month added. Or, a voip solutoin for 15-24$ a month added.

Viatalk offers many pricing plans, and also has an offer for SR customers, buy their 199$ plan for a year, and get your remainder from SR ported. Which is BASICALLY the BOGO offer they had on this AM. Bas...rdo! Nothing like jacking up the price of the lifeboat once people are IN THE WATER!!

VT also has some reasonable month to month options, for 12$ or so, so it could be a stop gap.

Porting is another issue. Some companies, won't port from level 3. So, it might be hard to get it hooked up with ATT or Verizon even IF one is signing up with their VOIP service.

At the moment, I say wait it out. I'm heading to their local office here in Palo Alto tomorrow and will report back tomorrow.

It is a bummer though. I personally, had NO problems with the service save for about 1-2 outages a year of 1-2 hours each, that I didn't really even know about. As well, I have four phones around the world that are in use. Last one was for my dad, to call his GF in Japan all the time. She has one too, so she can call HOME all the time and her family in the US. For 99$ a year, that just could NOT be beat. So, I don't plan on seeing a deal of this value for a while.

My line is still working. I just grabbed all remaining voicemail off the system, forwarded my main number to my cell, and was successful making an outgoing call to 411 for kicks.

SR served me well for over two years. I'm sad to see them go. An article I read at nytimes.com before I left the office cited an "unnamed source" that existing SR subs would be picked up by other carriers. I decided not to chance it and disputed my most recent renewal charge.

Eh, I take that back. Save that one call to 411 (which now no longer works), it's dead.

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

I have posted your email and your reference at FW. http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/mess...8582&start=980

Thank you :) I sent the email out to the FCC commissioners about 30 minutes ago. I will post any responses I receive.

At the moment, my SR service is still working for both inbound and outbound calls. I don't think there's anything actionable until the service actually stops functioning. That's only a matter of time, though.

The calls are working on Sunrocket in limited area. I know they are not working for me, even after power cycling the gizmo. I am on wait and see mode but thanks for the links to the FCC

Has anyone ever heard of Vonics? They are offering a $13/mo plan for 500 minutes and no contract terms.

Response from the FCC
 

well...kinda...


Dear Consumer,

Thank you for contacting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This is an automated message to confirm that we have received your correspondence. We will review your information to determine how we can best serve you.

If you need to send additional information, you may reply back with this email, leaving the case number (example: CIMS0123456789) in the subject line, or contact us at our toll free phone number 1-888-Call-FCC (1-888-225-5322) and reference the case number.

The Federal Communications Commission

Got an email from SR this morning...

Dear Customers,

After significant effort by the Company to avoid this result, SunRocket is in the process of closing its operations and therefore will no longer be able to provide you with the phone service that you have been accustomed to. However, this email provides you with an opportunity to sign up with select service providers who we believe will offer outstanding replacement service

In order to assist you, we have entered into negotiations with a number of service providers. As a result of those negotiations, we have entered into agreements with 8x8, Inc., provider of the Packet8 service, and Unified Communications Corp., provider of Teleband service to offer you the best options and we are proud to recommend the following alternatives to you. Please make your decision to move to a new service provides immediately as future service is uncertain.


Followed by info on how to transfer my service to two other providers I've never heard of. I think Vonage is going to be the big winner here.

teleblend
 

I think I am going with the 12.95 teleblend offer. It appears that someone there has just taken over the SR accounts, and systems. Since, well, there is no change out of equipment, they have ALL my information in their system already and service will just continue as is hass

Same T&C's to the LETTER essentially, and 3.00$ a month international credit. It appears, someone managed to sell the assets out, and carry on the service.

Other best options are net2phone.com, which is allowing a credit of up to 12 months of SR service, users only pay the 39$ activation and shipping charge, numbers will be ported over, no additional charges or fees for the remainder of you SR contract up to 12 months.

Not a bad deal either.

I'm just going to add unlimited LD on the home phone with ATT for 12.00 a month, and use the teleblend just to port my office number for a period of months. I won't have the free LD, but with onesuite I can manage the .02-.03$ cpm to europe, china, japan, etc.

WOW. Teleblend looks absolutely terrible. Bad website and their answer to the FAQ "who are we" says " we are teleblend".

How they think they can provide unlimited service for $12.95 is beyond me. Vonage can't do it, and Sunrocket clearly couldn't do it either.

It looks like Teleblend is part of some tiny Maine CLEC called "USA Telephone".

From the discussion on Fatwallet it would seem like most people are "a little" suspicious about Teleblend, and rightfully so IMHO.

Before today there was NOTHING on the web about "teleblend", so they have no history, no experience and clearly were just setup. Smells fishy.

I've yet to receive an email from SR.