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 an 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!

Update:  We’ve now decided to remove digital voice.  It did OK as a second line for outgoing calls and the 1-800 but it was never that reliable.  My brother also got them for his house and has been very unhappy with the results there.  Instead I’ll have 2 shaw lines now with shaw internet (high speed ADSL was not available in our new location – even though its a newer area!).  I will miss the large toll free dailing area though.

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.

 That's 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.