SunRocket’s explanation
July 15, 2005 by Mike Wendland
I received an e-mail apology and explanation from SunRocket today about the big system shutdown earlier this week that sent me, hat in hand, back to SBC to get my landline restored.. Here’s an excerpt:
On behalf of SunRocket and all of our dedicated employees, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience that resulted from a SunRocket network disruption that occurred on Monday, July 11. The disruption was caused by recent surges in subscribers and call volumes. Unfortunately, one of the partitions in our network was unable to handle the demand, and it took several hours for our engineers to fully restore the network. While thousands of subscribers remained in service during the disruption, we failed to meet our reliability standards. Last week, we activated a new partition that doubled our capacity, but we had not begun the process of rebalancing the system load between the partitions prior to Monday’s disruption. While that rebalancing is now underway, we will be activating a third partition within the next week to further augment our system capacity and improve the reliability of the SunRocket network. We also recognize that we need to improve our ability to provide real-time status and notices during network disruptions, though our primary goal is to ensure that our network is fully operational at all times. You expect and deserve reliable phone service, and SunRocket remains committed to providing exceptional service at an exceptional value.
The note was signed by Kevin Bennis, Chief Executive Officer for SunRocket. It’s a nice note and certainly a step in the right direction, albeit four days late. I still have the service, but I now also have my old SBC landline back. Here’s a link to a column I write today about it.
Meanwhile, we’ll see how SunRocket does. I’ll follow up after a few weeks and let you know how it’s working.
Hi Mike, long time first timer, I love your reporting. Always have. To the point . . . I had a dial-up connection in Clarkston. I moved to Troy last August. Got hooked up with Wide Open West cable. Then in January, I was checking into cable internet and found that WOW was going to be offering internet phone service. My January phone bill with SBC was $125. That was the third month in a row over $100. I got a digital cable/internet/phone service bundle for $134 a month. No long distance charges, no local toll charges. None of SBC’s crap. No problems whatsoever. Just super fast internet and cheap phone service. I run a marketing biz from my home so my phone and internet r important to me. I guess start-ups can run through some gliches but after four months, I am glad to be off SBC’s customer list. Sorry to hear about your bad time. . .but I am always glad to hear your reports. Keep up the gr8 job. :->
freemarcon
Glad to see Digital Dave’s good vibes with WOW. They have just come to Birmingham & I have been thinking about switching from Comcast. I too am fed up with SBC — almost jumped to SunRocket when Mike did, glad now I didn’t. Sorry, Mike. I’ve heard that Comcast may soon offer a phone package, too. That might be worth looking into. Continue the great work, Mike!
I haven’t heard anything in a while about Comcast rolling out a VOIP system. I know they have been testining it in some area’s but haven’t heard about a release? I did hear that if they do they will be providing a battery back up so you can still use the service if your power goes out.
I’ve had Vonage for a couple years and love their service.
I’m just glad that Camcast has provided very reliable service because when my cable goes out I lose everything, TV, Internet and phone. Personally, I think Comcast rocks. I really like the dual tuner HDTV, DVR that they just installed yesterday. It is totally awesome.
~John
Good Service
Sorry about the SunRocket problems. I have it too and noticed the phones we mostly not working the day of the outage (I was receiving calls from some people, but couldn’t get or call others).
I understand the wife’s, uh… unhappiness. But, honestly, I’ll take a couple days a year with no VOIP phone if it saves me $450 a year like SunRocket does. POTS is just way too overpriced to keep, especially if you have the extra services they provide (caller ID, call waiting, etc.).
I’m glad to hear you are keeping it and echo your wife’s sentiments that the technology is “unproven”. I’d say that they are having growing pains not unlike many upstarts. Either they will handle it (not without trouble) or they will go under like many dot-coms of the past.
I suggest this: keep SunRocket and use it for all your outgoing and long distance calls. Strip your SBC service down to nothing. Don’t even pay the $1 a month for their long distance plan. Use it only for incoming calls. Keep as much of your money out of their pockets as possible. You are probably paying at least $25 a month for the new service.
One last thing: do you know if SunRocket TRULY has E911? Many companies claim to, but either have standard 911 (no address) or none whatsoever. They lie about having it (not available in all areas) or they say they are “working on it”. My co-workers want me to call 911 to be sure, but I am uncomfortable doing so.
Keep up the good work.
Dan