Blog/The Best Alternative To Sonic VoIP

The Best Alternative To Sonic VoIP

Reviews on social media show Sonic customers’ dissatisfaction with the company's service, customer support, aggressive sales personnel, outages, and unfriendly cancelation policies. So, many people are now looking for an alternative to Sonic VoIP that will provide them with a more reliable and cost-effective solution.

This article will cover the following:

  1. The drawbacks of Sonic VoIP
  2. The best alternative
  3. The benefits of getting the best alternative

Drawbacks of Sonic VoIP

Here are some drawbacks of Sonic VoIP

1. Unskilled Technicians

Several customers have been vocal about how Sonic VoIP's technicians do not comply with their requests during installation, leading to slower internet and patchy phone service. Some claim technicians cannot resolve issues after several visits, costing customers hours away from work.

2. Unaccountable and Unhelpful Customer Service

A common complaint many Sonic customers have is about the company's customer support reps. They claim the reps are rude, shift the blame when customers escalate issues, and do not queue or prioritize technician visits for repair despite having all information. Working on issues after leaving negative reviews for the company on social media forums seems to be the trend, per customers.

3. Expensive Bundled Service

You must get Sonic internet to have a landline connection with the company. Several customers claim that the price the company charges for the internet speed and patchy phone service are too high.

4. No Clarity on Service Coverage

Customers were displeased when they signed up with Sonic and waited days to install the internet but were told that the company does not provide coverage in their area. This apathy and incompetence have forced several customers to look for reliable alternatives.

5. Price Hikes Without Notice

The company may increase prices without notifying you as per customers. Long wait times to reach the billing department for clarification and subsequent rude responses have turned customers away from Sonic.

6. Unvalued Customers

Several customers have reported that the company reps do not want to resolve an issue or clarify billing. When the customer gets displeased, they offer to cancel services at the first instant, making customers feel undervalued and their business unappreciated.

7. Patchy Connectivity

Sonic’s VoIP phones need more bandwidth than normal browsing. So, you need a high-speed internet connection for good call quality. Fluctuating internet connectivity in urban areas and blind spots at home will lead to issues such as call drops, jitter, latency, and poor voice quality.

8. Your VoIP Number May Be Marked as Spam

Studies have shown that over 66% of high-risk and 61% of nuisance calls originate from VoIP numbers. Your loved ones and friends may ignore your call, fearing it to be spam if you call from your Sonic VoIP number before sharing it with them.

9. Phone Lines Down During Power Outages

Sonic’s VoIP lines will go down when there is a power outage. Investing in a battery backup unit can be an option, but it is expensive and is not the perfect solution. Backup power units can help you only if you have a power outage, but if your VoIP provider has an outage or other issues, your phone lines will be down.

10. Safety and Security Issues

Using your Sonic VoIP phone for voice communication will make you vulnerable to hacks, attacks, malware, and internet-related threats. Hackers may intercept your data when you use the internet for communication, leading to data and identity theft.

For example, you may be liable for credit cards, expensive purchases, and loans you never took.

11. Poor Call Quality

Your Sonic VoIP phone's call quality and clarity depend on your internet strength and speed. Internet speeds depend on various factors like network congestion, time of the day, your device, surrounding vegetation, etc., and are inconsistent throughout the day. This fluctuation can lead to call drops, latency, and poor call quality.

12. Challenges With Emergency Tracking

First responders, especially 911, cannot trace your location accurately if you make an emergency call with your Sonic VoIP phone. Since the information comes from an IP address with no GPS data and is not from a physical address or cell tower, location tracking becomes difficult.

13. Specialized Hardware

Sonic has specific policies concerning their modems, as per customers. You will have to buy their modem if BYOD (bring your own device) doesn’t work. You must also get their ATA device to ensure your home phone is compatible with their service.

Community Phone - The Best VoIP Alternative

An image of Community Phone landline service

Community Phone is the best wireless home phone service in the US, revolutionizing traditional landlines to combine reliability, flexibility, and excellent features. Its wireless landline base connects your home phone to local cell towers, eliminating the need for high-speed internet to make or receive calls.

The company provides solid coverage across 99% of the US for you to experience excellent connectivity and superior voice quality in rural and low-reception areas.

Enjoy unlimited nationwide calling, features like spam call blocking, call forwarding, call waiting, voicemail, 3-way calling, and more at affordable prices. With US-based support, no hidden charges, and flexibility, Community Phone is the best landline service.

How It Works

The Community Phone landline base does not tie your phone to the internet as it works off resilient cell towers. The company's partnership with nationwide carriers and the unique design of the landline base ensure connectivity across 99% of the U.S., including rural areas. The built-in antennas on the base amplify signals from mobile towers to ensure superior voice quality in low-reception areas.

The 12-hour backup battery in the base ensures your phones continue working during a power outage or blackout in your area.

Why is Community Phone better than VoIP Providers?

Here are some salient Community Phone features that make it better than VoIP providers:

1. Connectivity

Community Phone has partnered with nationwide carriers to ensure coverage across 99% of the U.S. Since the wireless landline base does not need an internet connection to work, you will not face issues such as call drops, jitter, or latency.

2. Reliability

Resilient technology has made Community Phone landlines the most reliable option to stay connected with loved ones and emergency services. Their landline base works off resilient cell towers with power backups to support them during a massive outage. The base also has a 12-hour backup battery that keeps your phone working during a power outage or blackout in your area.

3. Security

Since Community Phone does not tie your landline to the internet, it does not leave you vulnerable to hacks, attacks, data, or identity theft. You get an additional layer of security as the wireless landline cannot be wiretapped like conventional landlines.

4. Call Quality

Community Phone has partnered with carriers nationwide to ensure robust coverage and clear voice quality in rural areas. The landline base has built-in antennas that amplify mobile signals to ensure crystal-clear voice quality in poor-reception areas.

5. Geographical Limitations

Community Phone's landline service covers 99% of the U.S., including rural areas, making geographical limitations and the monopoly of certain carriers a thing of the past. You can take your Community Phone landline anywhere in the US, as all you need is a power outlet and a phone to have a landline.

6. Flexibility

Community Phone's partnership with nationwide carriers and the unique landline base design ensure excellent voice quality and connectivity across 99% of the U.S. Experience extreme flexibility with your Community Phone landline, as you can take it anywhere without changing the number. Plug it into a power outlet and a phone, and your landline will work as well as new!

7. Installation

You do not need a technician or advanced skills to install your Community Phone landline. You can set up your landline in 30 seconds with the following steps:

1. Unwrap the landline base

An image of Community Phone Landline base

2. Connect the base to a power outlet. Do not turn it on yet.

An image of Community Phone Landline base connected to power supply

3. Hook your phone to the base per instructions in the manual (Phone 1/Phone 2 port)

An image of Community Phone Landline base connected to power supply and landline

4. Toggle the ON/OFF switch to the ON position

An image of Community Phone Landline base connected to power supply and landline and turned on

5. Turn on the power and wait for 5 mins. Once the base finishes setup, make a test call to ensure your phone works as intended.

An image of Community Phone Landline base finishing setup

8. Emergency Tracking

First responders can easily track your location in an emergency, as they can trace the data originating from the cell tower and zero in on your location.

9. Hardware

You don't need fancy equipment for your Community Phone landline, except the landline base and a SIM. You will receive the SIM with the base when you sign up with Community Phone.

The landline base is compatible with all phone models, saving you the hassle of buying new phone equipment. Save time and money with the zero-cost installation of the landline base.

Community Phone Landline Features

Spam Call Blocking

68.4 million Americans were victims of phone scams in 2022, a 23% increase from 2021. Manual call blocking is no longer effective due to scammers' persistent attacks. According to reports, con artists have discovered a technique to get around the STIR/SHAKEN regulations that the government has implemented for customer safety. You need a spam blocker to block unwanted calls before your phone rings.

Get the Community Phone spam-blocker, your one-stop solution to barring unwanted and unlawful calls from ringing your phone. The spam blocker challenges robocalls and blocks them before the call can ring your phone, ensuring protection against spam.

An image of Community Phone landline spam call blocking process

The "Safelist," a new Community Phone feature, allows you to list the numbers you want to accept calls from. Your phone will ring to let calls from these numbers through and block all others before the phone rings. You can update your allowed list anytime to add or delete numbers, or Community Phone specialists will be happy to assist you.

Studies report that several people miss legitimate calls fearing spam. Understanding the need to balance robust spam protection and legitimate calls, Community Phone is launching another iteration of the Safelist soon.

This feature will allow you to accept calls from numbers you want and route the rest to voicemail. Since Community Phone will not block other numbers, you can check your voice messages and respond to the ones you deem necessary.

Talk to Community Phone specialists to learn more!

Call Forwarding

Enable call forwarding to forward important calls when you cannot answer them from your business landline. You can opt from one of the several Community Phone options to forward your business calls to a number of your choice.

Temporary Forwarding: Use the manual process to turn call forwarding ON/OFF if you are temporarily away from your business phone. Here's how you can enable it:

  1. Get a dial tone
  2. Dial **21*1
  3. Dial the 10-digit number you want the calls forwarded to and #
  4. Three beeps will indicate you have enabled call forwarding

Follow the same steps, but press ##21# to turn off call forwarding.

Unconditional Forwarding: Forward all calls from your landline to a cell phone or another number of your choice and ditch your landline.

Conditional Forwarding: You can program several phone numbers to ring simultaneously with one incoming call, allowing the person available to answer the call.

You can also have numbers ring in succession if the first number is busy or does not answer. For example, your cell phone can ring if you do not answer your landline within 20 seconds.

An image of Community Phone landline call routing feature

Call History

Enable the call history feature and access information on incoming and outgoing calls to and from your Community Phone landline.

You can use this feature to

  1. Return missed calls from known contacts
  2. Store legitimate contacts
  3. Check caller information against known contacts
  4. Send a message or
  5. Block spam calls.

An image of Community Phone landline call history page

Caller ID

On Outgoing Calls

Opt for the caller ID feature so the recipient can see your number or name when you make outbound calls. This feature can help loved ones answer your call or return missed calls without mistaking them as spam.

Incoming Calls

You will be able to see the caller ID of the person calling you if:

  1. The person has enabled caller ID
  2. Has registered in the national register
  3. Your phone can support the caller ID feature.

Community Phone does not use third-party apps to provide the caller ID feature.

Landline Texting

Studies reveal that millennials and later generations prefer texting to talking. Stay in touch with younger children or grandchildren by texting them from your Community Phone landline through the landline texting feature. The unlimited text feature and 2-way messaging enable you to see the messages from the recipient and continue the conversation.

An image of Community Phone landline texting feature

Benefits of Switching to Community Phone

Besides having a reliable landline service that does not require internet, Community Phone members enjoy the following benefits:

Unlimited nationwide calling and text: Stay in touch with loved ones across the U.S. with Community Phone's unlimited talk and text.

No internet needed: The Community Phone landline base works off cell towers without tying your phone to the internet. Since your phones are not dependent on the internet, they will continue working during an internet outage or maintenance.

Number choice: You can get a new local number FREE when you sign up with Community Phone. You can also transfer your existing number through their unique hand-held porting process.

An image of Community Phone landline phone number example

Zero-cost Installation: The landline base does not require a technician to install it. You or anyone in your business or household can install your Community Phone landline in under 30 seconds and be ready to make calls in 5 mins.

An image of Community Phone landline zero cost installation

Reliable customer support: Contact Community Phone customer support via phone, email, and live chat to experience world-class support from live agents. Glowing customer reviews on BBB and Trustpilot are testimonies of their commitment to customers.

Works during power outages: Save the money you would invest on installing costly inverters or backup power, as the 12-hour backup battery in the landline base ensures your phones continue working during power outages and blackouts.

How to get a Community Phone landline?

Follow these steps to get a Community Phone landline:

  1. Call Community Phone at (866)-340-6256 and speak with a specialist.
  2. The rep will check your area for coverage. Since Community Phone covers 99% of the US, this should not be an issue.
  3. You get a local number FREE when you signup. Choose a new number or port your existing number. The specialist will help you get a similar number if your preferred number is unavailable.
  4. Choose a plan to suit your needs.
  5. Complete the signup process
  6. Wait for your landline base, and install it per instructions. You can contact Community Phone support if you have challenges or questions.
  7. Wait until the base completes the setup. Make a test call to check if your landline works as intended.

FAQs

What are the drawbacks of Sonic VoIP?

Here are some drawbacks of Sonic VoIP

  1. Landline must be bundled with their internet service as it is VoIP
  2. Unaccountable and unhelpful customer support
  3. Aggressive salespeople
  4. Confusing billing
  5. Unskilled technicians

What is the best alternative to Sonic VoIP?

Community Phone is the best alternative to Sonic VoIP. Their wireless landline service does not require internet to work as it uses mobile signals from local cell towers. Set up your Community Phone landline in under 30 seconds and enjoy unlimited nationwide calling to stay connected with loved ones.

Experience world-class support, less than a minute’s wait time, and great features like spam blocker services, call forwarding, caller ID, call history, landline texting, voicemail, and more at affordable prices. Talk to their specialist today to learn more!

Conclusion

Community Phone is quickly becoming the go-to choice for those seeking an alternative to Sonic VoIP services. With its reliable and cost-effective calling plans, easy activation and support, and straightforward billing structure, Community Phone provides a superior experience to Sonic VoIP. Talk to their specialists today to learn more!

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