Hi here is the link to this company wondering if anyone has good/bad feedback: $39.95 + Taxes is very good for both Hi-speed internet and Home phone.Thanks for any feedback.

Although this was a few years ago, I had an absolute nightmare with this company.

My voip and internet went out and I didn't have home phone and internet for 2 weeks. I work out of the house, so this was absolutely awful.


Nobody would answer calls in their tech support department.

The deal was too good to be true back then, but not sure if anything has improved.

I was using this discussion to jump into CIA home phone premium or not back in September 2009. I was using their DSL internet service from 2004 without much issue and finally decided to go for CIA digital home phone premium for a price of 39.95. Here are my observations.

1. First of all as many have experienced that their customer support is not that great compared to bell/Rogers etc.
2. I ordered by VoIP sometime in September and paid $80 for the VoIP adapter. For DSL modem, I did the same in 2004.
3. I got the temporary number and once VoIP adapter arrived, the setup was simple and temporary phone started working without any issue. The setup for dsl is
Modem--VoIP--Router.
4. As I was switching from Bell to CIA with same phone and my internet was through DSL. So after I placed the order with CIA, bell technician installed Dry Loop at home, he took less than 10 minutes to do it.
5. After I got my VoIP and temporary phone, one day, my bell phone was disconnected and my DSL internet was gone. I called help desk, but was not getting much help. So I went to the basement where the bell technician has installed the dry loop. I found he had installed the new jack. So I just hooked my modem to this new jack and found that modem was getting the line (SOLID). I was thinking that once the bell phone is disconnected, my home network would be connected to dry loop, but that did not happen. I believe that is the catch from bell, as they know you are ditching them for some other provider. So you won't get it free. So here is what I did. As I found that there are two jacks in the basement, one which has a phone wire (coming from outside) connected and other is new dry loop. So I disconnected the outside wire from the OLD jack and then connected the dry loop jack and the old jack with a regular telephone wire. With this I was able to get the modem from any phone jack in the home.
6. In terms of phone quality, I would say that you would hardly find any difference most of the time.
7. The only issue is that now for phones to work, you have to have a multi handset phone that required the wired connection to one base.
8. Let me share that since 2004 my internet speed does vary on a day to day basis, but pretty much good enough for a moderate use who does not do heavy download and most of the time, it is around 2mbps, but does go down some days.
9. My suggestion is the if someone is looking for this cheap VoIP service, you should go for Cable internet option as that way, you will get internet through cable and you just need to disconnect from bell network, only at one place in the basement, where you have one phone wire coming from outside of home to your current jack. And with internet though cable internet, you can join the VoIP output to your home network (provided you have disconnected the bell network from home wiring already) and that way you can plug any phone to any jack in the house.
10. And finally the cost is roughly 39.95+5 (dry loop), cable is probably 2 $ more that this assuming you have the modem in both cases.
11. And I would emphasise that you should not expect top of the line service for less money, but I believe for moderate users of net, this service does the job.
12.HTH

After a long and tiring battle with Cybersurf I am happy to report that I have helped them to achieve a F rating with the BBB. Don't be fooled, one day they will do something to get you too. The latest for me? I cancelled all of my services back in July, today I look at my cc bill and what do I see? A charge from CIA for $10.45. Nice. Now I have to phone those a-holes again.:mad::mad::mad:

Be weary with CIA. I recently went back to Shaw after having nothing but problems with CIA - their customer service is horrible - long phone waits and representatives that give you different answers, always having to "escalate" your issue and delaying a response to your problem. I had internet and telephone service - problems++ setting up both. With the telephone I had a number assigned to be that wasn't properly closed off from another account - I couldn't receive calls, could only dial out. Oftentimes the telphone service would simply not work - this is a big problem specifically if you are dependent on the phone to work. Goodluck if you choose CIA - perhaps you may have a positive experience. At least with Shaw I can get quicker and more effective and knowledgeable service, and a technician can even come over to resolve a problem versus trying to do so over the phone.

Goodluck with trying to reverse that charged amount! I was just one the phone for around a half hour about a random charge for Dec even though I ended service with them in Nov - one representative weeks ago told me it would be credited to me, this one this time said that it cannot be as it's part of the billing cycle?! I can't be bothered fighting this as it is a measly $4.15 but it's the principal that bothers me!

I had a similar case where a small amount of $3.76 cents was charged to me, and it was such a hassle trying to get everything back in order. I contemplated just letting it be, but didn't want to have the problems repeat themselves. The principal of it bothers me as well, seeing as things like this should never happen regardless of the amount.

M. Harmm PR Director
Phone Service (http://www.myvoipprovider.com/phone-service)
http://www.MyVoipProvider.com/

I've been a happy 3web/CIA/Cybersurf customer since 2006 out west in Calgary. Good speed for a good price. No billing or technical problems of note. But yeah, the multiple company names and outdated websites aren't very assuring...

I'm considering doubling up to 15 mbps download, 1 mbps upload, and 100 gb data for an extra $5 -- bringing it to $37.95 unbundled.

Not bad but this is coming from a lucky man who, after 4 years, hasn't had to experience any of the horror stories mentioned above.

I was with cybersurf/3web for 6 year from 04 to march 2010. More recently in November last year, I got their VOIP services as well. For the first few months things were going OK, but in March most of the time my phone was not able to get any call and most of the incoming calls were going to voicemail and also DSL speed was going bellow 1MBps all the time.

So I called Bell and have shifted to Bell Phone ( will call waiting) + 6MBps/65GB limit for a monthly charge of $58 + taxes.

I think currently cia is sold to distributel and that is why they are having network issues.

I just want to share this info, as when I was searching for the new services, I do search this group and hope that my experience would be helpful for someone.

THanks.

Had no problems for a few years with them while living in East York in a single detached home. Ever since I moved to a condo 2 years ago in Etobicoke, I've had several issues. The one I'm currently stuck in is my internet speeds at peek hours (after 6 PM weekdays, weekends all day and night) have been downright shameful. My DL speed usually ranges from 280-400k . . that's K . . Having felt these speeds for about a month now they finally notified me yesterday that these speeds are due to "saturation of the area" and that they were upgrading their hardware to be able to better handle the demands of my area but gave me no ETA whatsoever. All they gave me was a poultry $5 credit to my account for the month even though I'm paying for 5 MB service.

Unfortunately, I can't leave them yet . . I'm moving in a little over a month and still need internet until then. I can't wait to drop their shameful service and horrible customer service.

I have been a 3web user (internet and phone) or also known as CIA or cybersurf. Today, they only allow you to connect modem > VT1005 > router (wrt54g). It used to be that I could connect with the router before the voice terminal but not anymore.

I have issues when downloading large files or torrents. The VT1005 will go inactive and my phone goes dead along with my internet connection. I would like to know if someone can help with configuring the connection where my router is brfore the VT1005. I tried tonight with no success. I have read some posts and tried to port rage forwarding, DMZ ( i gave the vt1005 a hard coded address for this) and QoS. My VT1005 will not get a dail tone if it is behind the router.

The help desk just says that they do not allow this but I'm sure there is a way to configure the router to be able to have the vt2005 behind the router.

I'm on a cable line in Calgary. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Seriously, i am surprised that this provider is still around...

If you want serious billing problems, then go for it. They will have YOUR credit card and billings errors are always in their favor...

Seriously, i am surprised that this provider is still around...

If you want serious billing problems, then go for it. They will have YOUR credit card and billings errors are always in their favor...

I actually find them to be pretty decent now. I have just their local phone service ($3.95/month + $1.95 Call Waiting (Caller ID / Voicemail included).. Never had any billing concerns and why would you as long as you are only making local calls.

I was able to pull the CIA SIP Credentials from the voice terminal and have setup a home virtual pbx system (thanks to pbxes.org) which I use CIA for local calls and incoming calls. If I need to make long distance calls, pbxes avoids CIA and uses Voip.ms as its $0.0052/minute (yes, 1/2 cent) to call anywhere in Canada and $0.011/minute (yes 1.1 cents) to call anywhere in the U.S.

My telephone bill on on average never exceed $8/month (taxes in).

1) CIA Local Phone (for unlimited incoming / unlimited local outgoing)
2) Voip.ms for Long Distance (Canada, US, International)
3) Pbxes.org to control how a call is received/sent

1) + 2) + 3) = You are GOLD!

djino

When you use Voip.ms for Long Distance, do you also have another did from voip.ms? If not, can you explain how you get long distance charges using your cia number?

When you use Voip.ms for Long Distance, do you also have another did from voip.ms? If not, can you explain how you get long distance charges using your cia number?

Signing up with CIA automatically means you are signing up for a DID that allows you to receive unlimited calls and make outbound LOCAL unlimited calls. They preconfigure your Voice terminal with the setup.

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Signing up for Voip.ms (free) just means an account on their system (can't do much with it), but its an account. Voip.ms has a ton of features. Most all features are pay per use. Once you deposit money onto your account, you can start taking advantage of most of these features.

Voip.ms splits up its service into incoming (DIDs) calls and outgoing calls (termination). Having a voip.ms account doesn't mean you have to have both (DIDs and termination routes). Since I already have an incoming DID (from CIA), I only need termination with Voip.ms. furthermore I need only long distance with Voip.ms (since I have termination with CIA as well), but Voip.ms long distance rates are better than CIA, hence the reason I want them for termination. Though if you wanted to strickly use Voip.ms for DID and termination, they maybe a better alternative then the way I am going. Since I live in a house with the 3 of us, I thought unlimited incoming/outgoing local calls would be a better course with CIA than going with Voip.ms for everything as voip.ms you pay per call and if you have no idea on how many incoming/outgoing calls you make, you may want to have an unlimited option.

So again, once your free account is created and you deposit any amount into the account. You then are allowed to start making calls anywhere (termination). Their termination rates are amazing. No monthly fees, just strickly $0.0052 (1/2 cent/minute) for most all places in Canada. $0.011 (1.1 cents/minute) for most places in the U.S.A. Whenever you make calls, it just decreases the money you have available in your account. Voip.ms charges in 6 second increment, which I find is amazing. So if you only make a 30 second call within Canada, you will only be charged $0.0026 (thats 0.26 cents).

At this point you still cannot receive calls, because you have not ordered any DIDs. If you wanted to stay with Voip.ms for DIDs as well, then they have a order DIDs section. Their DID rates are 99 cents/month plus $0.01 per minute on all incoming calls or you can go $4.99/month and have unlimited incoming. You can order multiple DIDs from them to ring the same account. All calling features are free. You can choose any number in Canada or anywhere around the world. If you want 911/e911 access that is an extra $1.95/month. You have the option of porting your number to voip.ms to use as a DID, the onetime cost of that is $25. I suggest experimenting with their DID first before porting. Again, setting up a DID with Voip.ms means they automatically deduct the amount from your account balance monthly. You can tell Voip.ms to send a reminder email/etc when your account balance reaches a certain amount ie, $5 so you can top it up.

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As I mentioned before, I didn't bother with using Voip.ms for DID as I have CIA. CIA only charges $3.95 (comes with unlimited incoming, unlimited local outgoing, call display and voicemail and 911 are included. I pay an extra $1.95 for Call waiting so essentially I'm at $6+tax for everything here. CIA charges $0.04 (4 cents/minute) for calls anywhere outside your local calling area (within Canada/US). I bought my voice terminal from CIA years ago for $60 but you could also rent it from CIA for $5/month. After a year, it pays for itself, so why rent.

So, how do I get it to route long distance calls to Voip.ms?

This is were pbxes.org comes in. Think of pbxes.org as a secretary/receptionist that will control your CIA and Voip.ms accounts. You will program it on what to do when calls are received, and how to handle outbound calls. They have about 4 different types of accounts, but for the features that most home users will use can be handled by the free account.

So you sign up with pbxes.org. At this point you should already have your CIA and Voip.ms accounts and their SIP Credentials (its not as easy to find the CIA Sip credentials as customer service would not tell you, nor will they tell you how to get administrative access to the voice terminal). Let me know if you require help with this as this will be a tad bit difficult but still do-able.

With pbxes.org, you need to setup your Trunks. Trunks are the companies you use to receive and make calls by. For this scenario, you'd have a CIA trunk and a Voip.ms trunk. You'd enter their SIP credentials for each trunk and give it a name (I have a CIA trunk and a Long Distance trunk). Yes, thats right, you wont be inputting your CIA/Voip.ms credentials into the voice terminal. This will be supplied by pbxes.org

You then need to create extensions with pbxes. The free account allows for 5 extensions. All you really need is 1, but using more you will find its advantages as you can also create PSTN extensions (that ring your cell phones etc). So you create your SIP extension and this is what you input into your voice terminal.

You then need to create an inbound route to tell it to ring your SIP extension above when someone calls your CIA DID. This is where I say having more than 1 extension has its advantages as you can actually tell it to ring your cell phones or more SIP Extensions with the use of Ring Groups. You can also specify times during the day on when it should do what. I signed up for their SoHo account $3 euros/month = $4.50 CAD to have the ability to use 10 extensions and a Digital Receptionist to handle incoming calls when I'm not at home or sleeping (ie, the caller will have the option of pressing 1 to send the call to my cell phone and other options for other cell phones depending on the extensions I have/send to voicemail/etc).

You then need to create outbound routes with pbxes. This is the purpose of using pbxes for my setup. So you can tell it to automatically use CIA, if its a local call and Voip.ms, if its a long distance call. You will need to read up on how to create Dial plans. basically you want it to use Voip.ms should someone dial "1-Nxx-xxx-xxxx" or "011-N-x." as the LD rates with Voip.ms will be cheaper than CIA (even for international calls). Any other type of dialing can be handled by CIA. N represents a number between 2-9. Remember to make an additional Outbound rule for Toll free numbers (1-800/866/877/888 numbers), though it shouldn't matter because toll free numbers are free to call on either CIA and Voip.ms.

It will take a lot of time/effort/testing to get this to work exactly the way you want it. I spent a weekend fooling around with my setup to get it exactly the way I want it.

At the end of the day, I pay:
- $3.95 + $1.95 + tax = $7 CAD/month tax included
- Depending on the amount of long distance calls, but usually under 50 cents/month to Voip.ms
- pbxes.org I pay $4.50 CAD, but this is because I wanted 10 extensions and a Digital Receptionist (if you only need 5 or less and no DR, then it will be free).
=$12 CAD/month for all the features I could ever want in a home phone system.

djino

Thank you for the information. I got it working perfectly now. I did notice my cia.com DID can dial out but not receive calls. This happened today (June 7, 2010). I called support and I am waiting for a second tier person to look into it.

Are you having problems receiving calls? I am in Vancouver.

Thanks.

CIA is working fine here for both incoming/outgoing calls. (I am in the Ottawa/Gatineau area).

djino

Thanks for the info. They are having an issue with my area ... 2 days down for incoming .. oh well.

PS. I setup an Asterisk Server and route two VOIP numbers to one phone. And thanks to you, I route all long distance through voip.ms. My only complaint is that they don't carry forward my Caller ID Name description like CIA does.

Did you check out freephoneline.ca? This seems very interesting, the number is free (no charge for the number) but the catch is you pay $50 for the sip info.

I believe pbxes.org will carry forward Caller ID info on both CIA and voip.ms.

Yes I've looked at them (freephoneline.ca), and I did consider trying them out for months. I'm just nervous that should you have any problems in years to come, will they be there to support you. I mean once you've paid them $50 for the sip info, and say months/years later the servers go down or you are effected by some sort of unsatisfactory call quality, will they be there to assist you.

I feel as though if I am paying someone monthly, (like CIA, and voip.ms) that they have to stay around and be pro-active in responding to consumer complaints.

I'd also be nervous about issues if I wanted to port my number out later (due to them not fixing any technical issues), would this be possible? I feel as though this is a company built on the fact that they won't stay in business not less they keep getting new clients (who'd have to pay $50). Once they hit their peak, then they'd have to start cutting cost which could affect quality of service later on.

I'm probably just being paranoid, I just prefer the comfort of paying a company monthly (instead of a one time for life thing). This is nothing to say their service is bad or that they wont survive, I just want security in that I won't be left out to dry.

djino

Before i signed up with 3web or cia.com with ther $39.95 deal with internet and tlephone no contract ext ext .there offer seems to good to be true.all comments would be appreciated