Hoping Verizon will re-enter the VoIP Market

[bmcneely0]

I was a little surprised, not exactly stunned, to hear about the announcement to discontinue the Hub.  My can't say I'm stunned because the price point was a little high.  Having said that let me say this.  I've been a Hub customer for about 5 months now and this is by far the best VoIP service I've had.  I strongly encourage Verizon to find a way to leverage the investment in the infrastructure they've put in place for this venture.  Here's why I love being a Verizon VoIP customer versus the other services I've tried over the past 4-5 years.

1. The service works.  I know some people reported problems. I really think a lot of that was around the routers that people used.  Maybe there needed to be a FAQ for certain routers that needed some manual attention.  But from my experience the service worked.

2. Best support ever.  This alone makes it worth the money.  Anytime I had to call customer service I spoke to someone for whom english was a first language.  I can't tell you how valuable this is.  Verizon needs to leverage this.  If you look at the commercials for the Jitterbug cell phone, they promote their North American based customer service.

When I called customer service last night to inquire about the state of the service I was told that all contracts will be honored and supported so its not like we're being abandoned.  Let's put some truth into the picture.  I really hope the execs that made the decision to pull the plug will take the opportunity to think about how to re-enter the VoIP market.  I believe that between the quality of the service and the top notch customer service that Verizon can be a major player in this market.

[searchforwisdom]

"Contracts will be honored and supported so its not like we are being abandoned."

We are being abandoned.  Firstly, the "contract" I am under that they are honoring is not a good thing.  It means I cant get out of it.  And as far as support, yes if you call they will try and help or just send you a new one, but abandonment means that they will no longer  develop the software or hardware of this broken device.  So while you are on your first year they will keep sending you refurbished ones.  But what about after that?  Your to sit around until your contract is up, and then get rid of the service.  There is no reason to keep it much longer than that.  No new software will come out to fix any more glitches.  No new applications will come out to make the device more innovative.  No new HUB will be coming out so you can eventually upgrade to it.  This phone is it, stuck in time, until you get rid of it.  This phone has the problems of a prototype, which is fine and expected when getting in on new tech.  However, you then upgrade to the 2nd generation where they improve on all the ideas and iron out the glitches.  We have no 2nd generation of HUB to look forward to.  There is no light at the end of the tunnel.   We have been abandoned.  

The only way I would feel some sort of satisfaction is if they let us out of these contracts so we could move on to something that will continue to grow and evolve, not just making us sit here so they can extract the maximum amount of money from us until we all eventually get rid of it from being glitchy and outdated.

 You say it is router problems, but I have seen on these boards alone MANY routers have had issues.  It is not model or company specific.  And there is an FAQ for specific routers to set it up.  Putting routers to those settings has , in many cases, has not resolved the many issues.

[bmcneely0]

OK.  You're thinking along one line of thought while I'm thinking about what Sun Rocket did to their customers. 

[searchforwisdom]

I agree that this is not a SunRocket situation as that was a company shutdown.