Well,  I think that I have come to an end to at least part of my VOIP experiment with Digitalvoice.ca.  Today I signed up to switch our main line to Shaw.  It is still an internet phone based phone so we will see if its better but it would be hard to be worse right now.  Now, it is not all the fault of digitalvoice.ca and I may end up having the same issues to an extent and I will be keeping one line and internet with digitalvoice as a second line and a 1-800 number (planned at least).   The fax remains on myfax.com and that seems to work very well.

 The problem today is that when you dial in to the Abbotsford number you get a busy signal (or you did - now they are trying to fix it and you get a number not in service message - Not Good!) but the forwarded number that is really mine (604-288-4236) works fine.  Its just the routing that is screwed up somewhere (apparently not digitalvoice.ca as they are calling the number provider - which sucks because they - whoever they are- seem to be slow at responding).  Now if it really is the number that is having issues I may have all the same problems with Shaw and then I will either have to 1) get another number or 2) see if I can live with the problems.

The long and short of it is, for a business, the number I was given is not reliable enough with this provider and so I have to switch.   And of course the fax was even worse - though again it may have been due to the number.  

 Conclusion?  Your experience may be different but if I were to do it again I would get 1 land line, 1 internet fax and then 1 VOIP line with internet.  And that’s what I’ll have at the end of this.  The cost higher than all VOIP but lower by far than all Land line.  For and all Telus solution I would be paying over 100 for internet and 1 line, but it will be about 96 for 2 lines, 1  1-800 number, 1 1-800 internet fax line and internet (which is better than my ADSL at home - running 2.5mbps). 

 Hope this helps and sorry if you can’t reach me today!

We’ve now added ziplocks, brochure holders, tarps, tie downs and fabrication supplies to our website.  All told we have over 200 items up now!  If you are wondering where the resins are they are going to be a while.  Right now we ship with Canada Post and they will not ship liquids or gels.  If I switched to UPS I could do some products but not anything that became ‘hazardous goods’ which is many of the resins anyways so I have opted to keep the shipping costs down at the expense of a greater selection.

 Thats all for now!

 Graham

Well,  I thought I would pass along the most recent experiences.  I still haven’t gotten the fax to work and at this point I have given up and will likely shut that line down today.  ADSL is working very well but digitalvoice.ca is just reselling it for Telus so no real surprise there.  Phone service is OK but still not 100%.  A bit of a bad thing that happens occasionally is that it will keep ringing for the person you are calling for one ring - its a bit odd and puts the receiver off (I know because someone else here called my cell phone).

To replace the fax, I got an internet fax with a 1-800 number from myfax.com.  It works well so far - even receiving a fax over the VOIP line.  So for the little faxing I am doing I may just fax it to myself and then forward the resulting e-mail to another fax number.  Most everything else I’ll just fax from my e-mail which is a good thing when you have writing like mine!

PlasticWorks is also looking at moving both branches to a hosted PBX VIOP solution which we will likely test out before Christmas.  If we switch to that I may need to turf digitalvoice.ca’s service but we’ll see.

Well, if you were looking forward to my upcoming projects I am sorry to announce that they have been put on hold.  As of this week our new location in Abbotsford is now open at #21 - 2337 Townline Road.  We’re doing a soft opening until Nov. 5th so that I can pound the pavement and introduce myself to the businesses in the area.  So if you know anyone who needs plastic in Abbotsford - send them our way! 

 Graham Facer

Well, this post is quite unrelated to plastic but some people out there will find it a lot more interesting.  PlasticWorks has just opened a new Abbotsford location and as part of our goal to keep costs down we decided to try VOIP phones.  After a bit of research, I decided to go with digitalvoice.ca (not one of their franchise websites - which look almost the same but I never got a response from the first one). 

 The installation would have been quite straight forward, they just send you an ADSL router (if you need one) and the VOIP router, you plug in the phone(s) and away you go.  We have a 2 line system set up - with 1 line for the fax.  We had a bit of a problem because we also got them to do the ADSL service.  Now they really just resell it for Telus but you end up having to go through them and not Telus directly.  This was a bit of a pain as in a business location the phone system can be a bit complicated.  Our unit had an old PBX phone system that had been disconnected and 1-2 jacks reconnected for the last tenant.  My problem was that as I was only getting ADSL and not a phone line (or on a ‘dark line’ they called it) I had no idea which phone jack had the ADSL hooked up to it because there was no dial tone.  In the end I got the ‘pseudo number’ from the tech guys at digitalvoice.ca and then I snagged a telus technician that was working in the same complex and he figured it out in a few minutes.  I only write this as I was looking for this sort of blog entry when I was troubleshooting.

 Once that was sorted out, I hooked up the phones and then the fun started.  First of all, the service is not bad.  Occasionally I will have a problem dialing and I might have the occasionaly problem receiving a call (that is harder to tell) and I definitely do get an echo on my side every now and again but overall it’s OK.  At our Surrey location we switched to Roger’s which uses land line technology and it also has issues compared to Telus - which really does remain the gold standard. So if the relative cost of the phones is not an issue - I’d stick with Telus.

Other problems I have had seem to be a mix of technical problems and the lovely world of phone deregulation.  The first major issue was that my main line would not go to voicemail - it just rang and rang (but not at the store - it stopped after about 5 rings there).  Somehow, the number itself or the router that hosted it or something, had an issue that would not go to voicemail.  So now I have the orginal number that is really forwarded permanently to a new number where the voicemail does work.  Its a bit of a kludge and I think I should have just switched at the beginning but I had already given the number to city hall for a business license so that is the solution digitalvoice.ca came up with and it does work.   The one downside is that my voicemail waiting indicator doesn’t work - so I have to check it manually but I should be able to manage that.

The second issue is another fun one.  When I got the phones working I tested them a bit (thats how I found out about the voicemail) and checked the numbers etc.  Well, I must have just checked the second line, which is the ‘fax’ line, by calling out and asking the Surrey location to check the number on call display.  And that works fine.  It also calls out fine.  However when you call that number you actually get an Asian woman answering in a language other than english and not our fax number.  It seems that the number provider, not digitalvoice.ca, ported the number away from them without authorization so its seems that the Asian women has a better grip on that number then I do.  I have no idea if any number will reach my second line or if any long distance would be billed to them or what.  We’re still working on that one as it just popped up yesterday - a few days after I got my business cards with that fax number on them!

Overall, digitalvoice.ca has been quite responsive to my issues and I would chose them again. They did waive some charges for the first issue - we’ll see about the second issue when we figure it out.  Fax usage seems like it is not the best use for VOIP as I did seem to have some issues when faxing out some things today but we’ll see how that goes as time goes on.  I may switch to internet faxing and just forward the number there.  I am also thinking of adding a 1-800 number so I post more feedback as this experiment goes along or e-mail me any other questions and I’ll respond when I have time.

 I hope this helps someone make a decision out there and if you sign up please refer to my number 604-288-4236 or click on digitalvoice.ca which has the link already in it.

Thanks for reading!

 Graham Facer

I have a couple of small projects that I did in the past that I will try and post some images of.  The first was a water fountain in the back yard that I made with Bondaide epoxy putty stick and chunks of granite.  Simple but it looks nice and was really easy to make with the Bondaide.

The second project was the rebuilding of a rotten window sill with the Industrial Formulator products RotFix and Sculptwood.  I did that one 2 years ago but haven’t really sanded it smooth so we’ll call that project, umm, ‘ongoing’.

 The final project I have is to try out our new Peek Polish.  It says that it will polish plexi and fiberglass but I’m going to try it out on my wife’s car wheels (aluminum mags) first and see how it does there.  Once the can’s open I’ll try some fiberglass and acrylic (plexiglas) and some other things.

 That’s it for now!

 Graham

Well we don’t like to do it and I am not making any promises but once in a while we will cut large sheets (max 10′ cut length though).  This sheet of 3/16″ white Lexan was about 14′x8′.  One of the biggest our saw has seen!

Hello and welcome to my blog on the PlasticWorks Website.  I’m going to try and go though new and interesting things that are happening at PlasticWork’s and some problems that we have solved for recent customers.

One problem that we are working for a customer is a Shower Knob lock out box.  The customer is a local care home and they have a problem where they need to cover the shower temperature knobs so that patients cannot start the showers and potentially scald themselves.  The solution that they have been using is thermostat covers but they have been breaking repeatedly so they thought that a Lexan (Polycarbonate) lock out box that was custom made for them would be better.  I have priced out an order of 100 (all with matching keys of course) and now we have just gotten a prototype ready.  The new box, while it may be a little more expensive will not break without quite a large blow and should be much longer lasting than the previous version.  

Here’s what it looks like:

 In other news, I am trying to get brochure holders and some of our stock fabrication items on to the webstore shortly to join the newly added Fiberglass tools section.  For now, as we ship Canada Post, we are limited to non liquid items but if you all help out and buy lots we can move to a regular shipper like Canpar and ship out almost everything except hazardous goods. 

 If there is a problem we can help you solve, let us know!  - Graham