Cheap Phone Service

December 3, 2004

Here's an excerpt from Phone Service at $199 per year.

A start-up company will use Internet technology to offer flat-rate phone service for $199 a year.

The service, from a company called SunRocket and started by former MCI employees, includes unlimited local and long-distance calls as well as two new cordless phones.

Serving about 50 markets--including the Chicago area--with fewer than 50 employees, SunRocket illustrates how easily entrepreneurs with little money can start a phone company using what's known as voice over Internet protocol.

Ok, $199/year works out to $16.58/month. I'm not sure why they are offering a "yearly" charge as opposed to monthly. In the article it states, "SunRocket's main appeal is that unlike the $40 or $50 flat-rate monthly calling plans offered by traditional phone companies, there are no fees or taxes to inflate its once-a-year charge. Because the technology is new, government officials haven't settled upon rules for regulation and taxes."

However, as far as I know, Vonage, Packet8, and all the other VoIP service providers that offer VoIP services on a "monthly basis" (not yearly) ALSO don't have to pay fees, taxes, surcharges, etc. I don't get it.

So this looks to me like this VoIP provider has a hefty "up front" charge that most people wouldn't want to fork up. Maybe I'm missing something? Let me know if I am in the Comments. Thanks.

Here's the full story:
Phone service at $199 a year: South Florida Sun-Sentinel



Post a comment

See this page in TechnoratiTechnoratibook mark in del.icio.usDel.icio.usSlashdot.comSlashdotSubmit to Digg.comDigg

Tags: , , ,

Search Technorati: , , ,
Related Tags: , , , , ,

Listed below are links to sites that reference Cheap Phone Service:

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/mt3/t.fcgi/477

Comments to Cheap Phone Service


  1. Bob :
    December 14, 2004 7:43 PM

    SunRocket charges a monthly flat rate just like the other VOIP companies--$24.95/month in this case. The $199 price for a full year is a special that they are currently running.


  1. hj :
    December 21, 2004 3:13 PM

    no phone to call you if needed, a neather words you are dead as in i say contact, regards, as is


  1. pl :
    March 12, 2005 9:39 AM

    I'm not sure what's wrong with paying $199 a year upfront, versus $17 a month. Financially, you lose 2-3% interest and may have some credit risk. But the saving of about $20 a month or $200 a year should more than offset. Just think about paying a bell company $50 to activate your line, $10/month to get the dial tone, $5-10 to dial in your "local" area, etc. To me, SunRocket is a no brainer.


  1. Lourence :
    March 31, 2005 10:21 AM

    for a cheap international telephone calls from UK are few companies who offers cheaper rates than skype - a comparison website www.internationalcheapcalls com has some info


  1. Miguel :
    April 15, 2005 8:52 AM

    Sunrocket.com...It was nice and cheap, only to find the worst technical and customer support from anybody. Blocking features don't work, days and days and nobody returns your call, reps don't have a clue, keep issuing trouble tickets. My advise is to pay a little more for a better company/product.


  1. mad :
    September 28, 2005 7:59 PM

    SunRocket is simply not reliable. Its is silly, it is always, about 20 times a week down for a period of time. It dials then gets a busy signal for no reason, it will do that for up to an hour. They will loose there network for hours and in some cases a whole day or two. It is not (not not not) a primary line if you need reliability. Also, privacy issues I have had a call waiting call enter into my other call. Bad at this stage sunrocket customers are test rats.


  1. Michael Hughes :
    October 17, 2005 1:04 AM

    Low cost, high quality calling, conferencing and call recording from any phone, landline or cell! Advanced call control from your PC, see and control who is on the call. Click-to-call any number in any PC app. Click-to-add up to 30 people into an instant multi-party call. Click-to-record any call! Schedule conference calls with professional email invitations. Free license, no fixed fees, no new hardware. Great call rates. Free trial calls!


  1. NetPoint :
    January 17, 2006 8:18 AM

    I offer you an alternative for your phone services and more ... : a high quality professional telecommunication solution to reduce national and international call, telephony and telecommunication related cost, an advanced telephony service for making international and national calls at low rates: http://www.netpoint.ro/en


  1. IS :
    February 2, 2006 1:31 AM

    Find out the Best Phone Rates in your area with the help of this Fastest Best Phone Rate Calculator. Pull out your phone bill and compare with the results generated by this Calculator. You will be amazed, how much you can save! Shrink Your Phone Bills Starting Right Now!!!


  1. James :
    February 27, 2006 5:54 PM

    Hi everybody. I just want to share with you my experience on cheap calls. Even though VOIP is the cheapest way to talk now-a-days, I still like to hook up my calls through the ordinary phone. There is a company by the name of Optimacalls.com that caters wonderful communications without the need of broadband, and honestly speaking, their customer service is amazing. Better yet, this company believes in word-of-mouth and gives credit to all of us who talk about it with our friends. My tip to you is go to Optimacalls.com, sign-up and pass the word around, you will rip benefits from there on.


  1. Bella :
    March 8, 2006 7:38 PM

    Wish we had read Miguel's and "Mad's" April and September postings about SunRocket. Talk about inept customer service. We keep getting service reps in either the Philippines or India who have no idea of how to solve any problem, other than to issue case numbers and trouble tickets. More than a week of calls, and we still cannot receive incoming calls -- worse, everyone calling in gets the message that "this number has been disconnected." We paid $199 upfront -- what a waste! We are now looking for another provider and keeping our fingers crossed . . .


  1. VoIP routes :
    May 4, 2006 6:06 AM

    Low cost, high quality calling, conferencing and call recording from any phone, landline or cell! Advanced call control from your PC, see and control who is on the call. All these add on features for free with a voip phone at $199. If you still miss it, you gotta be dumb.


  1. JOE DE BIASE :
    January 12, 2007 11:17 PM

    I have been using Vontage for 18 months of trouble. The price is $24.99 and they do charge tax that adds up to $32.95 Their techs. have no idea what is going on and ask the same questions over and over. I believe they are part timers who also work for computer companies. I was put on hold for over an hour this week and that made up my mind to switch back to Verizon


  1. Hunt Gallina :
    May 25, 2007 6:01 PM

    Sunrocket has a real problem with handling there service problems,they never do anything to solve the problems. I is like they just hope you quit complaining and it may go away. The worst problem is their billing, they cannot get it strait, I went from the yearly plan of 199 to monthly but they would debit my account for 5 months then showed I had a credit,so I close my acct.to get the credit back and now I have no credit. THEY STEAL YOUR MONEY. It makes no differance who you talk to, they say they cannot do anything about it. DO NOT USE THESE CROOKS. HUNT


  1. Ethan :
    June 12, 2007 11:53 AM

    I've been using Sunrocket for over a year without problems. I signed up for one year at $199 and 3 months free. I've only had one issue with the service and they cleared it up quickly with one phone call to tech support. With the amount of long distance calls I make, it saves me money, and I can bring my phone and plug it in when I visit people with high speed internet. I also like getting my voicemails by email, and I use the call forwarding feature all the time. So I'll use this until a cellphone company comes out with a affordable plan where you can call anywhere, anytime.


  1. Local Home Phone Service :
    July 15, 2007 9:42 PM

    Those Rates are not awful, but I would have to say that they are a bit outdated. As Voip becomes more popular, the rates will go down. The companies I know of have different prices than that.


(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)