Was Simul-Ring Removed from Add-On Line?

[caseydoug]

I just noticed that Simul Ring is no longer available from my addon line. The tab is there, but a message says it is available only for the primary line. When did this happen?

[VOIPoTim]

It's always been like that for most accounts, but we noticed today that Sim Ring had been pushed to some of the accounts, but it was never supposed to be available on any of the addon lines so we had to correct it for the ones it was.

I believe what happened is someone had said it was "missing" from their vPanel once for a cloned line and it got mass pushed out by a developer with the intention of "fixing" it even though it wasn't supposed to be there for a reason.

The addon lines are converted virtual numbers and it's meant to allow a user to have a VN directed to its own "line" instead of ringing only the main line.

Sim ring at minimum quadruples incoming call costs because at minimum we pay for the incoming part of the call AND the outgoing part of the call for the entire duration of all incoming calls (1x for incoming and outgoing costs 3x as much as incoming regardless = quadruple). So there's no way we'd be able to allow sim ring on both lines since that's potentially 8x the cost as normal for incoming calls if they use it actively on both lines. The other thing we have to be careful with is some users appeared to be using the cloned line as a way to get unlimited forwarding on a virtual number. This is actually what prompted me to investigate how some abusing users were racking up so much usage so quickly and I discovered that it omehow got added to the new cloned line vPanel template at some point.

We've tried to include as many of the standard features with the cloned line as possible since I know once people get used to them, they're hard to go without, but the ones that allow extra external usage (like sim ring) just are not feasible for a cloned line due to cost and the abuse issues with it. I know most users won't abuse it, but for every 10 of those, there is 1 that will majorly abuse it that makes up for it.

If there are users who had previously used it assuming it was part of it and legitimately had low usage with it, I am open to reviewing the usage on a case-by-case basis to look at re-enabling for some users. No promises though, but we're trying to be reasonble sine this was a mistake made by us that caused it to unintentionally get pushed out to some users.

[caseydoug]

Well, I certainly understand, although it took me by surprise.

I found it useful to have my cell phone ring when I knew I would be in and out of the house and didn't want to miss a call. No-answer forwarding would have worked also, but VOIPo has not implemented that. There are just two of us in the house, and we basically use our two numbers so that I get most of my calls on one line and my wife gets most of her calls on the other.

[VOIPoTim]

Well, I certainly understand, although it took me by surprise.

I found it useful to have my cell phone ring when I knew I would be in and out of the house and didn't want to miss a call. No-answer forwarding would have worked also, but VOIPo has not implemented that. There are just two of us in the house, and we basically use our two numbers so that I get most of my calls on one line and my wife gets most of her calls on the other.

Sure, PM me and we can look at your situation and work with you.

[dude]

So is the lesson here that any beta features might be stripped from the add-on line without warning?

[usa2k]

They are beta. Normally Tim is the kind of person to explain things very clearly.

[VOIPoTim]

So is the lesson here that any beta features might be stripped from the add-on line without warning?

To answer you question, beta features are always subject to change or be removed....the only features advertised or officially offered are the ones listed on our site: http://www.voipo.com/features.shtml

Assigning a virtual number to the cloned line is not even something we advertise as an option and is a BETA feature.

With that being said, sim ring was never offered on the 2nd line to begin with, but a developer had inadvertently pushed it out to some (but not all) of the 2nd lines out there so some assumed it was part of it, but it never was.

We take some risk with situations like this coming up by offering beta features and being open about them. Most competitors choose to not offer an open beta and keep all their beta features private and unavailable until they are out of BETA. We feel that the advantages of being open about them and involving the VOIPo customers outweighs the potential for situations like this where beta features change.

I can understand someone being upset if a feature we offered was removed. Again though, this was never advertised as part of the 2nd line and the 2nd line isn't even "officially" offered. We only officially offer the cloned line which has a single number for both lines.

As I said though, we will look at individual cases of users that used it responsibly in the past if they PM and try to accommodate when we can. I see a few have PMed and will go through those and review usage with our developers over the next few days since they need to determine how to apply exceptions to this.

[dude]

It's the "without warning" part I have trouble with. It's pretty discomforting to know that a system you think you have in place is actually a mistake, and is liable to be gone at any moment without notice. There's got to be a better way.

[caseydoug]

It's the "without warning" part I have trouble with. It's pretty discomforting to know that a system you think you have in place is actually a mistake, and is liable to be gone at any moment without notice. There's got to be a better way.

It might have eased the pain to get some warning, but on balance, I think anything labeled as "beta" should be considered as tentative. The whole point of a beta program is to see whether a particular feature works out. If it doesn't work out, either for technical reasons or because it becomes subject to abuse, expect it to be removed.

A while back we had the VOIPo Connect experiment. It didn't work out, and it was removed without any warning that I can recall. Perhaps it, or parts of it, will be brought back (hint ). But we shouldn't complain about losing something that was not promised in the first place.

[dude]

Tim, I PM'd you two days ago and haven't heard back. However, I just checked my PM Sent folder and it's empty, so maybe I malfunctioned. Did you get a PM from me or should I try again?