Monday, July 21, 2008

Packet8 Launches IP Key System Service

8x8 has introduced new Packet8 hosted Internet Protocol telephony services designed to replace traditional premise-based telephone "key systems" typically used by companies whose size or structure dictates the sharing of multiple, common phone lines among employees, regardless of where the employees are located.

Note the key phrase "shared line appearance." Since one of the issues hosted IP telephony providers have faced is a bit of confusion about why to adopt, the new Packet 8 service goes about as far as one can to position a feature other than "saving money" as the reason for a particular buyer segment to dive in.

Driven by the new Packet8 675xi series of IP desktop phones and the addition of shared line appearance services to the Packet8 Virtual Office platform, the new hosted key system solution provides businesses an opportunity to migrate to VoIP without altering the features, functionality and user behavior they have traditionally relied upon.Packet8 Virtual Office hosted iPBX solution," said 8x8 Vice President of Sales & Marketing Huw Rees.

The system is said to be ideal for offices where multiple users require the ability to view and answer more than one shared phone line at their desk or anywhere in the business

The SIP busy line appearance function apparently is quite difficult to do, but is essential for customers that require the ability for somebody else to pick up an inbound call without parking, says Rees. "It seems like a small function but it is actually quite complicated to do."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Packet 8 is horrible. They promise many discounts and features, and then bill for the full rate. Good luck getting a sales rep to call you back, much less admit what they did.

Len Rapoport said...

I agree, they claim to offer great customer service because they actually have people talk to you on the phone. Unfortunately they are uninformed about many of the problems dealing with porting numbers over to their system.

They almost lost my 15 year old business number to Verizon and didn't know how to get it back. Each time you call the rep makes you repeat the entire story over and over again and then they will never let you speak to a supervisor. They will then give you wrong information as to why the number has not been ported over.

I have spent so many hours on the phone with them with no progress, that after losing my number for almost 3 months, I decided to simply go back to Verizon for about the same cost as Packet 8.

When I called Packet 8 for a refund and termination of my account, they offered me the December credit, which is only 8 days into the month and nothing more.

They take no responsibility for their screw ups, they have no idea of what customer service means and they are untrained and won't deliver what they promise.

Side note, I will put this matter in dispute with American Express so they will have to prove they gave me the service I paid for. They claim in the past 3 months I used approximately 1000 minutes. that is 10 minutes a day...not to mention that anyone calling my number was told it was disconnected.

This company is still not ready for prime time, poor quality, poor support, poor customer service.

Read more about them on my blog...

http:://dontgetmemad.blogspot.com

Len Rapoport
President

International Press Association
internationalpress.com

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