Voicestick i2Bridge & forwarding - how well does it work

[mrbarlow]

I just signed up for Voicestick after hearing about them on these forums (you guys really are a mine of information - thanks).

My plan is to use the service occasionally to make some calls (they seem cheaper than Skype & VOIP cheap for international calls) whilst at home but also when I travel to USA next year.

My idea was to get a Prepaid T-Mobile SIM and use Voicestick as a callthrough to call back to UK/Estonia. Can anyone who has a Voicestick account and has done a similar thing tell me how well the whole thing works, or would I be better off buying a calling card?

Any other hints/tips/tricks would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[DRNewcomb]

If you go back and read the threads on Voicestick, you will see that there is some issue using the I2Bridge where under some circumstances you get billed for 6 min on an unanswered call. That's all I can think of.

[Bruce_Nicklin]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

If you go back and read the threads on Voicestick, you will see that there is some issue using the I2Bridge where under some circumstances you get billed for 6 min on an unanswered call. That's all I can think of.

What triggers the 6 min. is when one makes a bridge call and you hang up after 5 or so rings. You hang up, but the bridge (asterisk box) takes 1 or 2 more seconds more to end the call and in this period the cell phone answers to voice mail.

The 6 min. now is from the cell phones message and then the lenght of time for the voice mail recording to stop.

Not sure if there is going to be a cure for this as it is a cell issue.

Bruce Nicklin

[TheMadBrewer]

I make use of the Voicestick forwarding feature and haven't had any major problems. I mostly used to fwd to a local country SIM -- I do forward to my UM SIM when no other choice but that gets expensive.

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by Bruce_Nicklin

What triggers the 6 min. is when one makes a bridge call and you hang up after 5 or so rings. You hang up, but the bridge (asterisk box) takes 1 or 2 more seconds more to end the call and in this period the cell phone answers to voice mail.

The 6 min. now is from the cell phones message and then the lenght of time for the voice mail recording to stop.

Not sure if there is going to be a cure for this as it is a cell issue.

Bruce Nicklin

How come I don't have this problem with other carriers?

It is a shame because voicestick seems to be a good thing...

As opposed to using voicestick, my calls can be forwarded from my home landline using verizon & AT&T and this absolutely never happens....the only problem with AT&T a one minute call to a UK mobile is 30¢/minute...with voicestick it's 16¢ and recently the connection via voicestick has become very very good and the caller hears a message please wait while we connect your call.

I just find it hard to believe this is a problem that can't be resolved.

[Bruce_Nicklin]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

How come I don't have this problem with other carriers?

It is a shame because voicestick seems to be a good thing...

As opposed to using voicestick, my calls can be forwarded from my home landline using verizon & AT&T and this absolutely never happens....the only problem with AT&T a one minute call to a UK mobile is 30¢/minute...with voicestick it's 16¢ and recently the connection via voicestick has become very very good and the caller hears a message please wait while we connect your call.

I just find it hard to believe this is a problem that can't be resolved.

You need to take into consideration what the bridge is doing. It is placing a new call which means that the call is place after the billing computer system.

We think we might have a solution, but it is going to be a costly add on inside of the system.

Not going to happen in the next days or weeks but it is being looked at. Also I should point out it only happens with certain carriers, not all cell phones.

We do offer credit when anyone emails us. Hope we do see a long term fix. The bridge is getting much more popular these days.


Bruce

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by Bruce_Nicklin

You need to take into consideration what the bridge is doing. It is placing a new call which means that the call is place after the billing computer system.

We think we might have a solution, but it is going to be a costly add on inside of the system.

Not going to happen in the next days or weeks but it is being looked at. Also I should point out it only happens with certain carriers, not all cell phones.

We do offer credit when anyone emails us. Hope we do see a long term fix. The bridge is getting much more popular these days.


Bruce

Thank you Bruce...I do think your service can be very very good and I can reiterate there has never been any problem with crediting the account when this happens so thank you for doing the best you can to rectify the problem (although you do understand that it is irksome at times).

[Bossman]

Unfortunately this is still a problem. Has happened at least 5 times within the last month. I Just did a test call to the UK that never connected. I was dinged for 120 minutes (2 hours)! Sometimes it's 60 minutes and other times it's 120 minutes.

What this usually does is put my account balance in Negative. Essentially deactivating the forwarding and the phone temporarily. At least until I contact voicestick. This problem makes the forwarding almost unusable! Since I will not know when this happens, I just will not be receiving any calls. The caller will also hear a message that the phone is inactive. Heck! The first call can potentially wipe out the entire credit and any other calls just won't go through.

Has anyone here used Kall8 to forward to international numbers, and how reliable is it?

Originally Posted by MATHA531

How come I don't have this problem with other carriers?

It is a shame because voicestick seems to be a good thing...

As opposed to using voicestick, my calls can be forwarded from my home landline using verizon & AT&T and this absolutely never happens....the only problem with AT&T a one minute call to a UK mobile is 30¢/minute...with voicestick it's 16¢ and recently the connection via voicestick has become very very good and the caller hears a message please wait while we connect your call.

I just find it hard to believe this is a problem that can't be resolved.

[snaimon]

Gents, I am a bit confused. Would appreciate if someone would clarify. Appears to me that the complaint is about I2Bridge. That is a different matter than GLOBAL CALL FORWARDING, true or false? My plan was to forward some inbound calls to my German SIM during my upcoming vacation. Will I have billing/connect issues using that option or not? Thanks, Stan

[Bossman]

Yes. the problem also happens with the global call forwarding feature which most of the complaints is about. There is probably another thread about the global forwarding issue but it's the some problem. That's the only feature I use. But, almost every call that hits VM has this issue. I even turned off VM on my IOM sim. Still got billed for 60 mins on each of the 4 test calls I made. Of course, I did get refunded. But, the problem is when I am in Jamaica or so, I do not want to have to call my voicestick number to see if it's still working.

Snaimon, you may want to do some test calls. Almost everyone here that has used the global calling feature has experienced this.

Here are some threads that mention the problem with global call forwarding.

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/show...ght=voicestick

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/show...ght=voicestick

Originally Posted by snaimon

Gents, I am a bit confused. Would appreciate if someone would clarify. Appears to me that the complaint is about I2Bridge. That is a different matter than GLOBAL CALL FORWARDING, true or false? My plan was to forward some inbound calls to my German SIM during my upcoming vacation. Will I have billing/connect issues using that option or not? Thanks, Stan