So now I've been using Sunrocket for a few days, and have had a chance to actually experience its features and reliability, so I thought I'd update my review.
To begin with, service seems reliable...no outtages that I've noticed. This seemed to be the main complaint against Sunrocket in the past, but since I've gotten up and running, the problems appear to have been taken care of.
I spent another couple of hours working on Sunrocket yesterday. I finally got through to their higher-tier technical support, and Georgepa of Anandtech forums posts that as of this week, their call centers are more professionally staffed, and that they now have the ability to transfer you directly to higher level staff, so escalation isn't such a pain.
The person I talked to yesterday was knowledgeable, and professional. The cell phone I was using died halfway, and he emailed me immediately, so we continued working via email updates.
It appears that my firmware viersion (1.54) is a little out of date (1.57 is current). However, others on Anandtech and elsewhere report that Sunrocket rolled back their versions due to technical problems with the newest one.
So I receive this email, just when I'd given up on Sunrocket ever getting back to me:
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Dave,
This is Travis from SunRocket technical support. Since you did not have a phone to call, I am sending this email to you to help get you installed.
From the email you sent in, it seems like you may have been connected behind your router at first and our representative had you change that. The gizmo should work either way as long as your firewall isn’t blocking too many ports, and if it is you can set the gizmo in the DMZ.
I did a search on your gizmo’s MAC address (or the one in the account anyway) and it was connecting fine, it just was trying to download a file that did not exist and couldn’t complete the setup procedure. I created that file for you so you should just have to connect the gizmo again and power it on. The MAC address I have on file it 00a0120c7388. If the MAC address on the bottom of your gizmo is different, please call or email us with the new MAC so we can change that and get your equipment working.
The solution, of course, was simple. I eventually took pity on the Sunrocket CSR and explained: you set up a fixed ip address on your machine, access the router switch to dhcp, go back and tell your tcpip connection to get an ip address from the dhcp server again, and then repair the connection in XP.
So now he's confused, and knows he's screwed up. Unfortunately SR has no system for escalating calls other than to send it to tech support. This was a call center in the Philipines...if you're lucky enough to get one here, you might have better luck.
Anyway, so he hangs up on me, on the pretense of transferring me directly to tech support, so they won't have to call me back. I call back again, and get a new breed of idiot, who makes me jump through the same hoops. I refuse halfway, and demand to speak to a supervisor. She says no. Reminding her that I work in internet marketing, have several blogs, and will share my experiences with the BBB, FCC, my organization (a network of community technology centers and advocates) and God, she changes her mind.
If you've been following my adventures in VOIP so far, you'll know that I was at a point in my tale where I was becoming frustrated with Sunrocket's complete lack of communication, as well as not knowing where my package was. I was seriously thinking I'd made a mistake in going with Sunrocket, and was wondering if I should check to see if they'd charged my card already...when I got the long-awaited email telling me my package had shipped out two days earlier.
So I get my packages, and realize they've sent me two gizmos. No complaints there. You'd think at least one of them would work, right? I try setting up my service. No go. Sunrocket sales swore I could connect this thing downstream of my computer, using my computer as a wireless bridge...nope. Nothing.
