[Merged] Has anyone used Brama Telecom?

[tp02ga]

I'm interested in signing up with them, as $10/month for unlimited VOIP calling sounds good to me.

I want to know if they have a reliable service with clear voice calls... anyone know?

[maebach]

+1

I would like to know too if anyone has any experience with this or any other voip . How easy is it to set up, clarity of calls and what's involved if we want to cut off Bell but still keep the hi-speed internet with voip. I think Bell still charges approx $8/mth for a dry loop. Thanks

[johnrobe]

I want to know too. I was very close to signing up with Vonage because of their prices and features, but these guys make Vonage look expensive!

[jjoaquin23]

ya, i just saw this advertised on redflags and very interested, please, if anyone has brama please give a review of it :)

[max011]

Be aware that this "deal" would cost you $80 to start with [the hardware]..
That would buy you almost a year of service at some other VOIP providers [Comwave.net would take only $50 deposit for modem]
Also, Intr.l rate are not so good; some countries are missing altogether.. etc

Shop around..

Or, have you seen magicjack.com???

[arthurkok2]

Or, have you seen magicjack.com???

is this available in canada?

[Blackmajik]

I would be cautious about deals being too good. I have been ripped off by companies in the past and the bottom line is, if the deal is too good, there has to be a catch. :(

[Moe Hunter]

I was considering calling this Company to provide VoIP service for our Home and just thought I would ask into the RFD Fourm what were or are your experiences with Brama Telecom.
Thanks,
Moe in Ontario

[sakvoyaj]

hi- i guess its nice- pay 10 $ per month-try it

[Moe Hunter]

Has any one got Personal Feedback on these guys ????

it would be great if there was a comments box at the bottom of the Listing, strange that there is NOT

There has too be at least one member who has experance with them, you would think. . . would'nt you ???
Tks, Moe

[vvv999]

Hazard: bramatelecom.com!

I saw in RFD homepage there is an ad from a relatively new VOIP provider. bramatelecom.com is the site. It doesn't make much sense. $10 a month for the service? How the hell do they make any money?

They cheat, deceive, and fool customers around. That's how they make money.


I called today to get a line for myself but I didn't place the order because Im still not sure how reliable they are. I was wondering if anyone has had experiences with them.

I had, I was their customer and a victim of bramatelecom.com



Are there any hidden fees?

There are many hidden fees: $100 for the modem, system access fee, and they show just the lowest long distance rates to few destinations. When you dial your destination, it's usually much more expensive than posted. And they round up to the next minute, and on, and on......


Beware of bramatelecom.com. bramatelecom.com - keep away. bramatelecom.com is hazardous for your wallet

bramatelecom.com disgusting VOIP telephone service and long distance provider.

On top of that there is 8 to 15 send connection delay. In other words, when you dialled, you have to wait 8 to 15 send before the phone rings at the destination. If you make many outgoing calls, it's really annoying

[dolmite]

I have been with them for 3 months and so far no problem
I call long distance and no charge I pay 11.75 per month tax and 911 fee included. first month was free.
yes you have to buy your phone adaptor one time which is
approx 80.00.
the only thing I can say about this company is the customer service is not that great but thats why you pay
cheap. You leave your number on there website to have them call you back and they do sometimes a day later
but thats fine with me I am only paying 11.75 per month
also they are having problems with fax transmittions and
are currently working on it.
other than that the phone works fine.

[ItemFinder]

Stick with Acanac for $10/month service.

[tp02ga]

So I caved and ordered the service. The very next day I had a guy at my apartment installing the modem for me at no charge (even though it said there was one, the guy was nice enough to do it for free... granted it's not brain surgery to setup)

Yes you pay for the modem, but if you're not happy with the service for the first year, you can return the modem for a fully refund.

I pay $11.75 a month after taxes and the $0.50 911 charge.

Pros
----
1. Clarity of the calls are up to par with regular phones
2. There are plenty of calling features included with the phone and they all seem to work.
3. $11.75 a month (after taxes and 911 charge) for free, unlimited calling in Canada
4. Fast and painless delivery and hookup
5. I haven't seen the service go down yet, I've been a customer for 3 months so far.
6. You can set the service up so that if your VoIP goes down, it forwards the call to any phone of your choosing (at no extra cost)

Cons
-----
1. Majority of customer service agents either don't speak English very well, or don't know the system well enough to answer your questions... but I did manage to get a hold of a fluent English speaker, and he answered all my questions and set everything up the way I wanted it.

2. There is a delay between the time you dial a number and the time the phone on the other end starts ringing... 8 seconds is probably the average time.

3. I have had one strange problem calling people in Calgary, AB from Toronto, ON. It seems as though the phone on their end just doesn't ring at all when I call using the VoIP phone. I need to investigate this problem further.

Overall, I would give the service an 8.5/10. It's very affordable and so far it has been very reliable and clear with no hidden charges. I can't say I could ask for anything more than that from Brama Telecom.

[eknc]

I wonder if an old Linksys VoIP box from Vonage will work with Brama Telecom... I really don't know if I want to buy any hardware in risking to find out if the service is good or not...

[rb]

Hazard: bramatelecom.com!



They cheat, deceive, and fool customers around. That's how they make money.




I had, I was their customer and victim





There are many hidden fees: $100 for the modem, system access fee, and they show just the lowest long distance rates to few destinations. When you dial your destination, it's usually much more expensive than posted. And they round up to the next minute, and on, and on......


Beware of bramatelecom.com

bramatelecom.com disgusting VOIP telephone service and long distance provider.

On top of that there is 8 to 15 send connection delay. In other words, when you dialled, you have to wait 8 to 15 send before the phone rings at the destination. If you make many outgoing calls, it's really annoying



The modem is 79.95 and what is the system access fee, I just joined and so far so good for $10 a month you are getting 90% of the quality of a landline + tons more features , one third the cost and no long distance for anywhere in Canada

[p13m4n]

These people are rather unscrupulous - I signed up for one callback, now they're just constantly calling me. :mad:

[naveed3434]

I caved as well and signed up last Saturday, but I still haven't received my adapter,

I tried calling customer service today and they said the line was down for the person they needed to escalate to (odd for a telecom company).

They said they would get back to me in 5 or 10 minutes. 30 tops. After an hour no call. Called again, they said they would get back to me in 5 minutes. two hours later no call.

Filled out an online form to find out what is going on, it has been about half an hour, no response so far.

Starting to get a little worried that this company is just stealing my money.

[tp02ga]

Well, I knew this was going to happen... Brama charged my credit card $20 for no apparent reason.

I called in, the dude on the phone was horrible at trying to explain it to me, but from what I understood, he told me that because of their billing cycle, I'm being charged $20 and that I will get charged less than the usual charge on the NEXT bill... I'm eagerly awaiting the next bill.

Has this happened to anyone else?

[kleung21]

I can see why there are all these negative comments; but with a free trial offer (1st month free) and the option to return the modem within 2 months for a refund and NO contracts; I bit.

So far, so good. They are a small canadian shop located in Markham (I went to their office to pick up the adapter).

I've phoned in several times for service and although they didn't always have an immediate answer; it worked for me.

The voice quality is OK; but I have a main Bell phone line and use Brama as my long distance line. My previous LD provider was Yak and I still use them for my main phone line; but it's nice having an extra line with unlimited Canadian LD for $10 per month.

If it ends up going bad; I will drop them; but to be honest, I've used them for 2 months and the service seems fine.

I agree that it is a buyer beware situation; but their return policy is reasonable and the worst case is that you drop them within the return period!

Caveats

1) Fax does not seem to work over VOIP; not a problem with my main Bell line, but not great either

2) The voice quality is not as good as a regular line; but the people I've called haven't complained; and honestly, it serves my needs

3) The VOIP adapter is locked (I think); you can get in to change the IP settings and such... but the other option is to buy your own VOIP adapter and configure it yourself to their service; they allow that!


Anyways, I am an independent customer; no relations to Brama; but they are ok for the price... Like I said; if they go bad, I'll drop them, but my experience so far is positive.

For example, today, I called because the original number they assigned me was for Brampton but I live in Aurora. They had a new number assigned to me within 5 minutes. No cost, no arguments.

I've been dealing with Bell for years and although I pay 5x the amount, I cannot say that their service has been better.

In FACT, I got Brama because Bell wanted me to pay a $200 service fee to change my plan (I wanted to DROP call waiting). I said F*** that and got another provider as a backup instead!

SCREW YOU BELL!!!

[naveed3434]

I've now been with the Brama service for 6 days. After a tough time trying to get it installed it has been rather stable for the 6 days. My internet went down once so it didn't work, but it wasn't the culprit.

So we will see, one thing that is rather annoying I have a couple web servers running on my home network, mostly to listen to my MP3s @ work.

I can't figure out how to forward traffic on port 80 traffic the VOIP adapter.

I think I will try putting the adapter behind my router instead of in front of it and enable QOS to give it priority.

Another small thing just popped into my head. They said you can upload an MP3 to have as your 'on hold' music but I've never seen where you can do that.

Not a big deal but annoying.

Seems like they will say anything to get you to sign up.

[tp02ga]

Just got my new bill. And it shows that they owe me $8 and change, so it seems as though everything's okay. Strange that they would bill me for a month and a bit on one bill, then issue a credit on the next. But as long as I'm still paying the normal 11.45 (after tax and 911 charge) I'm happy. :)

Well, I knew this was going to happen... Brama charged my credit card $20 for no apparent reason.

I called in, the dude on the phone was horrible at trying to explain it to me, but from what I understood, he told me that because of their billing cycle, I'm being charged $20 and that I will get charged less than the usual charge on the NEXT bill... I'm eagerly awaiting the next bill.

Has this happened to anyone else?

[rb]

hows everyone phone quality been so far?

[Harry_H2O]

I've been with Brama Telecom for about six weeks.

I signed up as I figured there's nothing to lose with a one month free trial which, to their credit, they don't insist on taking your credit card details... just as well...

While the quality of the calls have been good, or as good as YAK ever were, for the past tens days I have had no incoming calling. On dialling in the caller receives busy tone, however outgoing calls are still working.

I have reported this problem to Brama support, through numerous emails plus a couple of voice mails, yet nothing has been done to fix it.

Added to this, their invoicing system is a little haphazard (I have already been sent a bill that is incorrect in regard to the taxes applied, and while I was assured in an email that it would be fixed, it hasn't been...)

Saying all that, I haven't paid anything yet, as I didn't register my credit card with them, and refuse to do so until the incoming calls issue has been fixed.

Overall, Brama Telecom is a two-bit VOIP company that offers a low-priced service which, when working is fine, but when you hit problems don't expect any customer service.

Oh and in regard to the phone adapter, I was able to reuse my old Linksys voip adapter that I had in my cupboard from when I used YAK, two years back.

[drsassafras]

I have been with them for several months now.

I really don't think they are trying to cheat and steal from people.

This is what I think:

* They have extremely poor communication skills. Poor organizational skills as well.

*They have tech support without the tech guys... makes it hard to troubleshoot.

*Never had anyone who could understand English. Oah well. English is over rated.

*Mail messages constantly fail. It sounds like you are recording a message, but it often does not get to me. Yes tried calling tech support several times, Sometimes they don't get back to me. Other times they tell me I just forgot to check my messages. That is why I am not receiving them.... Ya... so much for tech support.

*The same thing often happens with phone calls. I will get a message and the phone will have been quiet. Someone called, but phone did not ring.

*Because of there poor communication skills, you don't have a clear idea of how much you will be billed. Rest assured its never very much though....

So, this service might be for you if you meet the below criteria:

*Your time is not worth much
*You have the diligence to continually bug the company to keep your service running almost smoothly
*You don't mind if calls & messages go missing without reason or rhyme.
*You speak the same kind of broken English and hence can communicate in some way
*Your intelligence is not offended easy.

The services does:
*work most of the time.
*Is cheap
*Has reasonable sound quality.... Certainly not the best. Could be much worse.
*Most of "extra features" work

[Paul22]

Had a friend join up this summer (2008). Took a while to get connected, and when she was, she promptly canceled because the quality was very poor.

Still, as of Oct 21, she has not got money back (on the Linksys SPA2102 Phone Adaptor), and she says customer service is 'non-existent'.

She has asked me to post to warn people off Brama Telecom.

She found the deal here at RFD. It would help if it were possible to comment on the sponsor's page!

http://www.redflagdeals.com/deals/main.php/alldeals/comments/sponsored_brama_telecom_voip_home_phone_service111

[naveed3434]

Yeah, my quality is very poor.

I was going to cancel but we actually use the calling card service.

You can set up a couple numbers to call a local number and you get free calling in North America.

Nice little feature my wife uses to call her family in central ontario.

[rb]

My quality was poor but has since improved

I make sure i am not downloading when I am on the phone - also added a gigabit switch which has helped too. I don't get many complaints now from people saying they can't hear me

[TheRequiem]

I'm seriously considering signing up, or at least trying the free month. I have my own ATA, so buying their $80 locked one doesn't matter to me. I don't need it.
(You can buy your own factory unlocked PAP2 for around $50, FYI: $53 @ NXSource (http://www.nxsource.com/products/218402/Linksys/PAP2T_NA/) )

The main feature that got my attention was that they offer local access numbers you can call with your cell phone and use as mobile long distance, included in the plan already. That's a pretty great deal, considering a comparable service costs at least $5/m.

Sounds to me like a lot of the people complaining of quality issues just need to set up proper QoS on their routers, but I understand that is beyond the "average customer."

[henesse]

WARNING STAY AWAY FROM BRAMA TELECOM, the service is not $10.
They keep charging my Visa $20 a month + some random charges.

[rb]

WARNING STAY AWAY FROM BRAMA TELECOM, the service is not $10.
They keep charging my Visa $20 a month + some random charges.

There billing system is horrible - they did charge me $20 but I see on my account balance it shows a credit owing - i checked back some of my bills and they have actually undercharged me (gave me 2 free months instead of 1) ...anyhow I will definately keep an eye on bills

[taltos]

i've been with brama for a bit, no complains so far. The way it looks they are pretty new so the are fixing some issues here and there, but for $10.00 it is well worth it. Btw, it seems like they have done the billing issue. I have logged into my account and now it actually displays the invoices and what i've been charged for.

[sominka]

I have signed up with them 2 month ago.
I 've had connection problems at first:-0, technical problems :confused:and now billing problems>:(. Oh, and they have decided to bill my credit card that I used to pay for the adapter:evil:!
I am out of it!

[ironhelix]

I like their voip services; sure customer service isn't great...
The sound quality is fine, things like getting charges $20 for it was for a two mth period of time, and I think they must be doing this manually, so one month I don’t get billed but the next I get to pay it, no biggie.

I have been with them for over a yr now, and I’m no associated in any way with
Them so those were my personal observation.

On the downside I can only recommend their services to pc literate people.

[marly]

Stick with Acanac for $10/month service.

I signed up with Acanac, the quality was quite good, but I wanted the $10 advertised monthly price... then they charged my visa $19.95. To get the $10 a month plan you have to pay for a year in advance! I have since canceled with them (3 days ago) and I am still waiting for them to actually cancel the service and refund my visa!.

[dshek]

I am a happy customer over 3 years, $9.99 pm, plus for the additionals feature you desire!
The lowest rate to India and most countries!

[ladybugg]

I signed up with Brama Telecom last week. I have my own adapter and could not get anyone to help with the setup. Was told that I would not have to pay an activation fee, and the very next day was charged $28.25 on my Visa. Now that I've signed up, I can't get through to anyone except the SAME guy at tech support, all other lines/extensions go to voicemail or nowhere. Voicemail messages don't get returned. Tech support was supposed to call me back within one hour to set me up, it's been 5 days and no call. Have now called to cancel and demand my activation fee back, since I've never been able to use the service as no one will call me back. Now I'm waiting for the billing manager "Olga" to call me back, was supposed to be right away and guess what, I'm still waiting. I believe they have 3 people working at this company, once I called and got through to someone named Maria...I called back 10 minutes later and got the SAME girl, who identified herself as Maria..then quickly corrected herself and said Olga.

Worst worst worst customer service I have ever come across, tech support is non-existent, no one speaks fluent English. Imagine, a telecom company that doesn't answer their phones!!??!! And the voice quality when I do get through to someone is terrible on their end, doesn't give me hope that the QOS would be very good with this company....stay far far away from this one.

[rb]

For 10bux a month my service, quality of calls has been great

sometimes though their promises aren't kept

When I initially asked if fax was available they kept saying Fax would be available in 30 days that was 6 months ago - now its available apparently costs $30 (one ff fee to add) ..asked for it last week - said 2 days , still not on my line yet.


Overall though for $10 unlimited calls in Canada and good rates elsewhere + you can use thier service on you're cell , I am very happy - they are saving me a bunch

[nq88]

Brama Telecom is not really a company which will provide you with any service. What they really do - they charge you for installation, adapter box, activation ...and will never ship the box to you. So you pay your money and wait. Good luck. It has been 3 weeks already since I paid 120 bucks but guess what? The response was: submit cancellation form then we will refund your payment during next 2 MONTHS! GREAT SERVICE. PEACE OF CRUP!STAY AWAY FROM BRAMA!

[TheLakeGuy]

I've been using Brama for the past 2 months. It really works and now we have all the features with only 11.80/Month (I switched form Rogers).

BTW I am a little technical and I used my own VoIP modem (bought from Canada Computer) and set everything up myself.

Works like a charm.

[rockyj81]

DO NOT SIGN UP WITH BRAMATELECOM.
I used these guys' services for a few months. They started charging me $20 a month after a month without any explanations. I called them many times, at least 10 voicemails and no explanations. So, I finally decided to cancel the service.
Now there was a $80 deposit that these guys took from me for the modem. I shipped the modem back to them and they never gave the money back to me. It has now been 3 months. I took the case to BBB and they still didn't pay me back. Now BramaTelecom has a rating of D- in BBB because they have got too many complaints.