Frequent outages, poor customer service, long hold times when customers contact support, and erroneous billing have forced Summit landline’s customers to look for reliable alternatives.
This article provides information on the drawbacks of having Summit Broadband landlines and the best alternative for homes and businesses.
Drawbacks of Summit Broadband Home Phone Service
1. Frequent Outages
Several customers have expressed concern over the frequent outages that have led to severe downtime. Customer apathy from Summit Broadband has made several people take to social media and review forums to express their displeasure.
2. Poor Customer Service
Customers claim that they have had to complain or be very vocal to receive assistance from Summit Broadband when their lines have gone down. Long wait times when people call support is another reason why customers are utterly displeased with the carrier.
3. Phone Lines Down During a Power Outage
Your Summit Broadband phone service will go down during a power or network outage or scheduled or unscheduled maintenance.
You will have to buy a battery backup to continue using your landline during power outages, but it is expensive and is not the perfect solution. The backup battery can help you only if you have a power outage, but your phone lines will be down if your fiber service provider has an outage or other issues.
4. Expensive Bundled Options
You may have to bundle your landline with TV or other services you do not need when you get a Summit Broadband landline. This bundling increases your phone bills and may also cause a poor phone and TV viewing experience as the internet bandwidth gets shared between the devices utilizing the fiber internet connection.
5. Poor Call Quality
Summit Broadband landlines use the internet for making and receiving calls. Call quality and clarity on fiber service phones depend on your internet speed and consistency. Since consistent internet connectivity and speeds are subject to time of the day, network congestion, and your device, you may have call drops and poor voice quality on your OneSource home phone.
6. Safety and Security Issues
Calls from your Summit Broadband landlines may leave you vulnerable to hacks, attacks, malware, and internet-related threats, as it uses the internet for voice communication. Hackers may intercept your data, leading to data and identity theft.
For example, you may be liable for credit cards, expensive purchases, and loans you never took.
7. Installation Costs and Challenges
You must install internet at home for Summit to provide landline service. The expertise required for installing fiber-optic cables and their delicate nature make the entire process complex and expensive. A minor breakage or an incorrect setup could lead to myriad problems leaving you stranded without a landline.
Drawbacks of the Summit Broadband Business Landline Service
Summit Broadband has UCAAS (Unified Communication as Service) to facilitate communication for business. Here are some drawbacks of having the Summit Broadband business landlines
1. Poor Customer Support and Erroneous Billing
Customers have been vocal on social media about Summit Broadband’s erroneous billing and unhelpful customer support, which has caused them severe business losses. This apathy, businesses claim, has forced them to move to Summit’s competitors.
2. Security and Confidentiality Issues
A cloud-based setup from Summit Broadband poses a higher risk of security breaches than an on-premise setup, as a lot of information is shared through the cloud. Hackers or scammers could steal confidential information, launch ransomware attacks, or plant malware, stealing confidential information. Such actions may result in a breach of customer trust and heavy penalties based on state or federal laws.
3. Installation/Migration Cost
Migrating to the cloud may cost you lesser than an on-premise setup but increases the risk factors considerably.
If you want excellent business communication solutions for your organization without investing in on-premise solutions or heavy-duty cloud setup, talk to a Community Phone business specialist at 866-352-5572 to learn more!
Community Phone - The Best Alternative to Summit Broadband for Homes and Businesses
Community Phone is the best wireless landline and business phone service provider in the U.S., revolutionizing traditional landlines to combine reliability, flexibility, and excellent features. Their wireless landline base connects your business phone to local cell towers, eliminating the need for high-speed internet to make or receive calls.
Experience superior voice quality and reliable connectivity across 99% of the U.S., including rural areas. The unique landline base design ensures superior voice quality in rural and low-reception areas.
Enjoy unlimited nationwide calling, features like spam call blocking, a custom dial menu, call routing, voicemail-to-email, 3-way calling, and more at affordable prices. With US-based support, no hidden charges, and flexibility, Community Phone is the best business 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.
What Makes Community Phone Better than Summit Broadband for Homes?
Here are some salient Community Phone features that make Community Phone better than Summit Broadband landlines for homes.
1. Reliable Landline Service Without Bundles
Community Phone is the best wireless landline service in the US, fighting to keep the landline alive. The company provides affordable and reliable landline service, the freedom of wireless access, and excellent calling features without bundling it with the internet or other services you don’t need.
2. No Hidden Charges
Community Phone boasts transparency and does not surprise customers with hidden charges on their bills. You pay what you signed up for.
3. Zero Cost 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
2. Connect the base to a power outlet. Do not turn it on yet.
3. Hook your phone to the base per instructions in the manual (Phone 1/Phone 2 port)
4. Toggle the ON/OFF switch to the ON position
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.
4. Reliability
Resilient technology and thoughtfulness make your Community Phone landline 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. No 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. Take your landline with you anywhere across the country. You only need a power outlet and a phone to get reliable landline service without changing your number, as Community Phone works off local cell towers.
9. 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!
10. 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.
11. 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.
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.
The soon-to-be-launched "blocklist" is an aggressive spam blocker that blocks over 6 million spam calls based on an ever-growing database of spam numbers and a spam score. You can actively contribute to this database by adding a spam number to protect yourself and other Community Phone customers from scams and fraud.
Talk to Community Phone specialists to learn more!
Statistics reveal that American businesses lost over $10 million more to phone scams in 2021 than in 2020. With an average scammer making nearly 200 million scam calls in a year persistently targeting unsuspecting people, businesses need a robust spam blocker to protect their businesses from losses and increase productivity by eliminating distractions. Talk to a Community Phone business specialist to learn more about how their spam blocker services can help your business.
Call Waiting
The call-waiting feature helps you handle two calls simultaneously. You will hear 2 beeps when there is an incoming call while you are engaged on one call. You can place the first call on hold, talk to the second caller, or route it to voicemail. Both businesses and households can utilize this feature to suit their specific needs.
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:
- Get a dial tone
- Dial **21*1
- Dial the 10-digit number you want the calls forwarded to and #
- Three beeps will indicate you have enabled call forwarding.
Follow the same steps, but press ##21# to turn off call forwarding.
Talk to a Community Phone specialist at 866-352-5572 to enable conditional call forwarding or call forwarding without a phone.
Caller ID For Individuals
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:
- The person has enabled caller ID
- Has registered in the national register
- Your phone can support the caller ID feature.
Community Phone does not use third-party apps to provide the caller ID feature.
Caller ID for Businesses
If you are a business owner, the caller ID feature is paramount to your business as neighbor spoofing is one of the latest and trending scams. Enable this feature to show your business name and number to build trust in your customers and encourage them to engage with your business.
By default, the recipient of your call will see your number, but you can have Community Phone enable your caller I.D. to show your name when you call.
Landline Texting for Households
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.
Landline Texting for Businesses
Over 65% of customers prefer businesses texting them over calling for fear of spam. To ensure you protect your customer, and engage them in your marketing efforts, use the landline texting feature from Community Phone.
Sending bulk messages can be counterproductive to your business from a customer connect perspective. Some providers may also flag your number as spam and block it.
Engage with your customers, wish them on special occasions, inform them of product and offer launches, and collect feedback through the Community Phone personalized messaging feature that does not let the customer or service provider block your number as spam.
3-way Calling
Connect with 2 or more of your loved ones simultaneously with the 3-way calling feature, spend some great moments, and create memorable experiences. You can connect with your loved ones on the same call and hear them speak simultaneously without worrying about free calling apps, internet bandwidth, or patchy and dropped internet calls.
If you are a business, you can use this feature to collaborate with your employees, or team members when working from home. If you have an irate customer who was transferred incorrectly, use the 3-way calling feature to patch in the appropriate person to diffuse the situation and create a wow customer experience.
Community Phone Business Features
Dial Menu
Create a great first impression among your customers and callers by enabling the Community Phone dial menu. You can program the automated answering service in the dial menu to custom greet your callers, share important information or announcements, and route calls to appropriate departments or voicemail using business voicemail greetings.
You can program this multilevel answering service to suit your business needs to help create an incredible customer experience, reduce wait time, increase employee efficiency, and enable efficient staffing and scheduling.
Have recorded FAQs in one of the 9 levels of the interactive response unit in the dial menu to help callers find information quickly without waiting for a rep. Share information on discounts, business hours, offers, and promotions on another level. Have call routing at the second level to ensure callers reach the exact person or department they need based on the options they choose. The possibilities are endless!
Call Routing
Route calls to the appropriate person or department with the Community Phone call-routing feature. You can program several phones in your business to ring simultaneously so that an available representative can answer the call. The simultaneous ring feature could reduce wait times for your customers as they get an immediate response. If the person who answered the call cannot assist the customer, they can use the live call transfer feature or 3-way calling to better assist the customer, depending on the scenario.
If the first option does not fit your business needs, you can program your phones to ring sequentially if the first number does not answer or is busy. This way, the customer will be able to receive appropriate assistance. This feature can set up call distribution equally among several representatives in your organization. Repeat callers can be routed to the same representative, increasing customer satisfaction.
Live Call Transfer
Community Phone has customized the standard "dial an extension" feature to help businesses reduce customer wait times, help collaboration, and reduce incorrect transfers.
Anyone in your organization can use the live call transfer feature to call any extension if you have multiple people handling different inquiries. You or anyone can route the caller to the appropriate department or person by pushing a button against the infinite number of extensions you can program in your transfer list without placing the caller on hold.
If the call reaches an incorrect extension erroneously, that person can transfer the call to the correct extension again. Use this feature to connect departments within your organization or branches of the same organization by programming the numbers in the transfer list.
Voicemail-to-email
A Community Phone specialist will be happy to set up the voicemail-to-email feature to ensure you get your voicemails as audio files and text messages in the mail I.D. associated with your Community Phone user account.
If you configure a generic mailbox with shared access to your employees, they can promptly respond to missed calls and voice messages. Set a definite strategy and timelines around how and when your organization will respond to customer missed calls or voice messages to build trust, improve service, and enhance your brand reputation.
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
- Return missed calls from known contacts
- Store legitimate contacts
- Check caller information against known contacts
- Send a message or
- Block spam calls.
You can access call history from your Community Phone user account even if you are not a business customer. Talk to a specialist to learn how!
NOTE: Individuals can also get business features enabled through a custom plan to accommodate their unique needs. Talk to a Community Phone specialist to learn more and build your custom plan.
Why is Community Phone the Best Alternative to a Summit Broadband Business Landline?
1. Connectivity
Enable seamless communication and create a rich end-user experience with Community Phone's business landline, which has a higher uptime than most internet-based phones. 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 your Community Phone landline the most reliable option to stay connected with employees and customers during emergencies.
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.
On the off-chance your area has a cell tower outage, you can still return missed customer calls through the Community Phone voicemail-to-email feature. Customers who cannot reach you get routed to your business voicemail. Enabling the voicemail-to-email feature for your business ensures you can access these voice messages as text and audio files in the email I.D. associated with your Community Phone user account and respond to customer messages promptly.
3. Security
Since Community Phone does not tie your landline to the internet, it does not leave your business 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. Take your landline with you anywhere across the country. You only need a power outlet and a phone to get your Community Phone landline to work.
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: Stay in touch with loved ones, business associates, employees, and customers across the U.S. with Community Phone's unlimited talk and text.
Many companies and customers prefer phone calls to resolve complex issues and decrease churn. Utilize the unlimited time to launch marketing campaigns, engage with your customers, get their pulse, and decrease churn without a massive long-distance bill.
Unlimited text: Customers prefer texts over calls from a business, fearing spam. Send personalized texts from your Community Phone business landline to stay engaged with your customers, inform them of offers and discounts, and collect feedback. Text your loved ones and carry on conversations with the 2-way messaging feature.
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.
If you are a business, you can get your business a toll-free number to encourage customers to call you when they need assistance. Tie various marketing campaigns to the toll-free numbers to measure their effectiveness or run outreach campaigns. The possibilities are endless!
Get a vanity number for your business to help your customer remember your number easily to get referrals. Contact Community Phone and speak to their specialists to learn more and get a number!
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.
24/7 reliable customer support: Contact Community Phone customer support via phone, email, and live chat 24/7 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.
No hidden charges: At Community Phone, you pay what you signed up for. They do not bundle your service or charge you exorbitant equipment fees. You will not see unexplained charges crop up on your bill, nor will you have to knock on customer support's door to get these charges waived.
14-day FREE trial: Try the Community Phone landline service for 14 days FREE without obligation. You can cancel anytime without jumping through hoops if you think this is not for you.
Hand-held porting process: Community Phone has the quickest, hassle-free porting process among telco providers. Their unique hand-held porting process can transfer your number from the previous provider in 3-5 business days without disrupting your service.
How to get a Community Phone landline?
Follow these steps to get a Community Phone landline:
- Call Community Phone at (866)-340-6256 and speak with a specialist.
- The rep will check your area for coverage. Since Community Phone covers 99% of the US, this should not be an issue.
- 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.
- If you are a business, you can discuss getting a toll-free or vanity number with the business specialist.
- Choose a plan to suit your needs.
- If you are still looking for a plan that suits you, request the specialist to draw a custom plan. Community Phone is an expert at creating custom plans to suit your individual or business needs and will be happy to accommodate your needs.
- Complete the signup process
- Wait for your landline base, and install it per instructions. You can contact Community Phone support if you have challenges or questions.
- 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 Summit Landline?
Some of the drawbacks of Summit Broadband landline are
- Frequent outages
- Unavailability of technicians to resolve issues
- Poor customer support
- Erroneous billing
- Long hold times to reach customer service.
What is the best alternative to Summit Landline?
Community Phone is the best alternative to Summit landlines for homes and businesses. With wireless technology that does not use the internet, world-class support, quick and easy installation, and great calling features at affordable prices, Community Phone is the best landline service in the US.
Conclusion
Business and individual customers have been displeased with Summit Broadband’s unreliable service and customer apathy. Get Community Phone, the best wireless landline service in the US, with fantastic features for businesses and households. Community Phone is the ideal solution for your business or household with no hidden charges, ever-helpful support, and future-proof technology.