NuFone support

I’ve been using NuFone for VoIP connectivity since I first turned up Asterisk at home. I’ve been very happy with their service–in almost 5 months, I’ve never noticed an outage–but their support system has been driving me crazy. It’s been taking me 3 or 4 requests before I get a single response from them. Once I get in touch with them, they’re fast and efficient, but getting them to talk to me in the first place is been like pulling teeth. Reading the asterisk-users mailing list shows that some people have my problem, while others enjoy good support.

I think I figured it out. When I send them mail from my home email account, I don’t even get a reply from their automated tracking system. When I send them mail from my work address, I get a reply back almost immediately. Problem solved: their email system doesn’t want to talk to mine, but it’s okay with work’s. Most likely, they found a spam blocking list that puts me in the middle of ISP space, even though I’m really in a business DSL block.

Hopefully we can get this fixed soon.

Update (9/1/2004): It’s been a week, and I still haven’t heard back from them. However, I seem to have acquired a new 800 number–a call to some number I’d never seen before showed up in my Asterisk logs last week. So, my theory has changed a bit: my mail is reaching them, but theirs isn’t reaching me.

Either that or they’re completely uninterested in talking to me.

So, last night I sent a message directly to a couple staff members there pointing out the weirdness. I asked them to call me back on one of my 800 numbers. Tomorrow, if I don’t hear back, I’ll try IRC, followed by a call to their support number.

And if that fails, I’ll start looking for a new vendor. I may be a piddly little customer, but Google likes me. I’m the fourth site returned when searching for ‘NuFone’.

Update (9/16/2004): They seem to have fixed whatever was broken. I sent them two more requests this morning and they were both answered within minutes. This is a great improvement. At this point, I don’t mind recommending their service to others.

Posted by Scott Laird Tue, 24 Aug 2004 20:51:21 GMT

Read full article 10 comments


Comments

  1. JonR800 2 days later:

    Fixed soon? Good luck getting them to put any effort into fixing it. I don’t think they really care about individual customers.

  2. Colin Frank 18 days later:

    The issue is that their mail relay has no reverse address pointer. To avoid spam, mail servers refuse to accept mail from them:

    postfix/smtpd[9996]: reject: RCPT from unknown[66.225.202.81]: 450 Client host rejected: cannot find your hostname, [66.225.202.81]; from=<a pache@rt.nufone.net rel=”nofollow” rel=”nofollow”> to=<…

    Forward lookup works: $ host rt.nufone.net rt.nufone.net has address 66.225.202.81

    Reverse lookup fails: $ host 66.225.202.81 81.202.225.66.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer unknown.ord.scnet.net.

    They need to get their ISP to point to something - anything other than “unknown”

    In the mean while, if you are using postfix, you can do the folliwing. Add 66.225.202.81/32 to mynetworks, which pokes a little spam hole in your mail server to recognize that single machine:

    vi /etc/postfix/main.cf: mynetworks = <your stuff>, 66.225.202.81/32

    [root]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/postfix restart

    Good luck…

  3. Greg Broiles 19 days later:

    I had the same experience with them - impossible to track down a human being. The uptime seems good, and the voice quality has been good, but I live in fear for the day when I need something.

  4. Greg Merriweather 19 days later:

    We are aware of the problems with returning messages and are reorganizing the support department. If you have any comments, suggestions, or plans please make us aware of them by directing them to sales@nufone.net or support@nufone.net.

    -Greg

  5. Scott Sanderson 24 days later:

    Just use VoipJet. Quality is perfect and they reply to email within hours.

  6. Scott Laird 24 days later:

    VoipJet? I haven’t dealt with them, but their prices look good. I see two problems with them. First, they don’t seem to do incoming calls. I have several 800 numbers through NuFone. Second, they’re in NYC, which is even further from Seattle then Detroit, where NuFone lives. I’d prefer to find a lower-latency provider, not a higher-latency one.

    I’m still waiting to find my uber-provider–west-coast based, 206 DIDs for cheap, IAX-friendly, decent codec support, and preferably prepaid.

  7. Andy 2 months later:

    Hi, first time surfing a blog and wanted to say hello

  8. james 4 months later:

    Voipjet now has an asterisk server located on the westcoast. They are testing it but it looks like it will be in full production soon. No 800 numbers yet though.

  9. Jonathon 5 months later:

    Any luck on West Coast IAX connections?

    Lattency is killing me.

    thanks

  10. Scott Laird 5 months later:

    Not yet. I’m upgrading my DSL this weekend, and I’ll be looking into DIDs and alternate providers once that’s done.