Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: sorenson

  • Videophone Incompatibility–I’ve Had It!

    man on videophone

    I think videophones are the greatest invention since dark chocolate peanut butter cups, but today, I’ve had it.

    I had an interview set up this afternoon for my next book. The person called me using an ntouch by Sorenson. I used a Z-20 by ZVRS. We could not see each other.

    This is actually old news in the videophone industry and I’ve been aware of it for a while now. But today, I became rip-roaring mad. If you know me, it takes a lot to set me off. When I can’t run my business because of videophone incompatibility, it makes for one cranky entrepreneur.

    So I’ve had it. I’ve filed a complaint with the FCC, but my complaint is just one of many, many, many complaints that were filed with the FCC. It will take up to two weeks to submit my complaint to Sorenson and they have 30 days to address an answer to me.

    A call to the FCC confirmed that they’re aware of the issue and working to ensure that all videophones are compatible, but the slow pace of this fix is frustrating. The ntouch was released ONE YEAR ago this month. Prior to this, I could call a Sorenson videophone, but since the ntouch was released, it’s been a real problem. I still can’t leave an answering machine message when I call a Sorenson videophone. A call to Sorenson provided no answers as to when this compatibility issue will be fixed, just that they’re “aware of the problem and working to fix it.”

    Today, I couldn’t conduct business and we ended up turning to an alternative way to connect. That is totally uncalled for. Can you imagine Verizon and Sprint pulling this kind of thing off? If they so much as went one day where someone couldn’t make a call because of cell phone incompatibility, the media would be all over it.  Can you imagine an AT & T customer calling a T-mobile customer and not being able to access voice mail because of “incompatibility?”

    For crying out loud, (and we can’t even hear it) let’s get this incompatibility issue FIXED so we can go about the business of connecting with one another.

  • Hearing Folks Can Call Each Other, Why Can’t Deaf/Hard of Hearing Folks?

    “I am really frustrated,” said a customer recently.  “Every time someone calls my Z videophone from a Sorenson VP -200, their number shows up as an 866 number and I can’t call them back.  Hearing people don’t have any problem calling from a Verizon phone to a Sprint phone, so why do we deaf folks have so many problems?”

    Indeed, as a Sales Manager for Zvrs, I shared that same frustration as this customer.  Several times, I would see a missed call from an 866 number and I’d have no way of calling that person back.   The 866 numbers no longer function, except when a caller uses a VP-200 to call another VP-200.  When a person uses a videophone from a different company, the call is automatically routed to a relay interpreter.

    I also learned that Sorenson customers automatically have their 866 numbers displayed as the default setting.  This is the reason why the 866 number is showing up in the caller ID instead of a local number.  However, Sorenson customers can change the way the caller ID number is displayed and set it so that the LOCAL ten-digit number is displayed instead. 

    How to change the 866 number to display the new local number:

    Go to Settings > Personal > User and then select “Local.”

    Fo more information about calling 800/866 numbers, read the two editorials by Dr. Z and You:

    The 800/866 Fiasco

    The 800/866 Fiasco, More Information

    Update:

    The FCC has temporarily reinstated the 800 numbers and ordered the 800 numbers to be put back into the national database so that they can function from one provider to the other.  This means that for the next four months, the 800/866 numbers will connect properly between videophones.

    Ed’s Telecom Alert shares more on this issue: VRS 800 Issue.