Is Joiphone sound quality is good?
Is JoiPhone an good replacement for SunRocket users?
How’s the Customer’s service?
Which Plan should I choose when sign up with JoiPhone?
I am getting lot of emails from last 4-5 days full of the queries mentioned above regarding JoiPhone. So, I decided to check their quality of service and opted for JoiPhone trial signup to test their service 3 days ago (They offer 30 days Risk Free Guarantee). As an existing SunRocket Gizmo user (After unlocking It), I opted for BYOD (Bring Your Own Gizmo) scheme and signed with them.
I might be lucky one and got the password and other settings with in 6 hours from them and my service was up and running with in another 10 minutes, so overall it took 6 hours and 10 minutes to get connected to world through JoiPhone VoIP Service. Some of my readers are reporting that it was taking more than 18-24 hours in getting their password and setting details, looks like it depends on the workload they are getting due to sudden demise of SunRocket.
One thing we need to admit that presently every VoIP company is performing under pressure and not able to provide their quality of service as they suddenly got truck load of customers after the SunRocket died suddenly. It will take some time for these companies to adjust and serve these customers in well managed manner.
Facts about JoiPhone Plans are:
a) JoiPhone Unlimited $8.95 Monthly Plan (More Details):
When you Sign up with JoiPhone Unlimited Monthly plan you need to pay:
$8.95 Monthly service for the First 2 Months then $17.95 for rest of Year.
$30.00 One time set up Fee
$14.95 Shipping and Handling Fee (Presently this is waived when you use Gizmo)
$0.95 911 Emergency fee
$0.55 Universal Service Fund (Federal tax of 6.16%)
Final Bill: $55.40 (1st month), $10.51 (2nd month) and $20.01 (For Rest of Year) = $266.01 for 12 months
b) JoiPhone Unlimited Yearly Plan (More Details):
When you Sign up with JoiPhone Unlimited Yearly plan you need to pay:
$107.40 JoiPhone Unlimited Yearly Plan ($8.95 X 12 months)
$30.00 One time set up fee
$14.95 Shipping and Handling fee (Presently this is waived when you use Gizmo)
$11.40 911 Emergency fee ($0.95 X 12)
$6.62 Universal Service Fund Tax (Federal tax of 6.16%)
Final Bill: $170.37 for 12 months
JoiPhone is currently not charging any fee to get your number ported unless it is a virtual number or an 1-800 number.
Tip: If you are going to sign up with JoiPhone then you should use their BYOD scheme and use your Unlocked Gizmo to avoid shipping charges and secondly you will also get your service activated fast, looks like they are facing equipment problem after SR burst.
Pros:
1) No Yearly Contract commitment, you may cancel at any time and get back the prorate refund.
2) Overall Sound Quality is good and does not break. Due to the SunRocket burst they are getting lot of new customers and you might face some problem for little span of time. (We hope that JoiPhone will increase their capability as well so that customer continue to get the same quality of sound).
3) Customer Service is biggest asset of JoiPhone before SunRocket brust. They are good and quite responsive to customers except some cases as reported across internet, I don’t know why?, this might be some marketing tactics of competitor companies? Presently have an slight delay in taking calls, responding to emails due to the fact that they got truck load of customers after SunRocket burst. (This fact they have accepted over their website in BOLD RED letters (We apologize if we cannot accommodate all your calls), At least they are honest with this fact.
4) You can use your Gizmo to signup with JoiPhone and will get Free shipping (i.e. an saving of $14.95)
5) Good Pricing Plan as of today among its competition.
Cons:
1) SunRocket users over different forums reporting that the customer service is not functioning properly and very late in responding to the queries. As I mentioned earlier JoiPhone providing good service (One of my friend using their service from last 4 months and never had any problem), but as we all know due to SR brust they are getting truck load of customers and might be due to this they are not able to respond to the consumers query propely. But another fact also we have to accept that when consumers are paying for any service then they should get that without any excause and due to this reason I put their customer service under questionable category. But I am hopefull that they will improve the customer service soon.
2) International charges to some countries like India, Pakistan and other Asian countries etc are high as compare to SunRocket and other providers. They should have to revisit these and make it at par with competition.
3) More Competitive Pricing structure , so that consumers will get maximum benefit.
Finally, I want to say that JoiPhone is good service provider when we look at the options available to us as of today in cheap VoIP providers category (ViaTalk, JoiPhone, voip etc). You can Sign up with JoiPhone using your Gizmo and avoid shipping charges and also go for their Yearly plan to get cheaper price as you can cancel the service any time (No contract, you will get money back on prorated base).
Request all of you to carefully study the terms and conditions before sign up, so that you will not got in any trouble at later point of time.
If you want to go for high end VoIP provider then you can choose from Vonage, Lingo, Packet8 etc.
I will update more on JoiPhone after some more days of use of their service. Keep watching this space…
Also invite all of you to leave comments with your feedback, queries and reviews on JoiPhone so that other readers will get benefit from this.
More Reading:
Ex SunRocket Users: Use JoiPhone and Start making calls within the same day!
Joiphone has been pleasant to work with, I was up quickly on my SunRocket Gizmo and later switched to Joiphone’s Gizmo (It was free). The posting of my old phone number took between 2-3weeks, they said the delay was due to the local holder of our number. I filled out the form that they said the local company needed, and two days later, my original home number was back on line. If you call the tech support, just endure the silence, they will answer, but it would put you at ease if there was some background music.
Joiphone has been very supportive and comes with a high recommendation from me.