Pricing

inTALK's sole unlimited plan is competitively priced for those who register for the annual plan, though consumers who choose to pay monthly as opposed to annually will find themselves paying prices that are closer to the higher end of the pricing spectrum. inTALK offers one plan with flexible pricing, so that you can choose whichever plan you feel more comfortable with. The pricing structure works as follows:

It is important to note that the inTALK annual plan comes with a free VoIP phone adapter, but if you're planning on choosing the monthly payment option, you must be prepared to factor this $55 fee into the cost of your plan.

Features

inTALK offers a satisfactory feature list, though it lacks many of the extras such as alarm clocks or international minutes that are offered by other residential VoIP providers. If you're thinking about using inTALK for your home business, you should be aware that inTALK does not offer toll free numbers.

Features include:

• Unlimited minutes
• Online Account Management
• Voicemail
• Voicemail to Email
• Adjustable Ring Length
• Caller ID
• Call Waiting
• Call Waiting Caller ID
• Call Hold
• 3-Way Conference
• Contact List
• Speed Dial List
• Simultaneous Ring
• Find Me, Follow Me
• Do Not Disturb
• Online Call Logs
• Call Screening
• Click 2 Call
• E911 Services

Sound Quality

During the scope of our inTALK review we tested the service by calling and receiving calls from other VoIP phones, cell phones and landlines. There's no question that the call quality on our side was excellent in all trials, and that our test call recipients were generally satisfied. In some calls to cell phones the recipients complained about a bit of static, though it's difficult to tell if this was because of inTALK's service or the cell phone's service.

Customer Support

inTALK shares a customer support interface with its parent company, Nextiva. Nextiva's phone support is available only on Monday through Friday, and only from 6am-6pm MST. The strongest benefit of Nextiva's customer support is the short hold time required for phone service - in only one of our 6 calls to the customer service center were we required to wait longer than 2 minutes. Although we wished that 24/7 support was available, we found the company's customer service representatives to be pleasant and competent, and we were satisfied with the level of phone support provided.

Like the phone support center which is shared with Nextiva, inTALK's Knowledbase is linked directly to Nextiva's Support Suite. We were supremely disappointed that the search function seldom worked properly. Our standard searches for terms such as 'toll free number' and 'three-way calling' yielded no results. Needless to say, the failure of this independent search feature makes users more reliant on the customer service center, even for quick or trivial questions. Nextiva does offer a wide range of video tutorials, though they all need to be downloaded, and cannot be streamed directly off the site as is possible in the help sections of many other VoIP providers.

Inefficient Support Suite

The company's email support system was equally inefficient. Our first email to the customer service center received a response by phone, which we found inconvenient. Although we eventually received an email response as well, it took about a half day to receive the response. Upon follow up, we were satisfied to see that the reponse took significantly shorter, but we would have preffered to receive the proper answer the first time, so that follow up would not have been necessary.

Additionally, in one of our email correspondences we received a response that the respondent did not understand the question. As you can see, we emailed regarding our VoIP service, and received a response asking about a (non-existent) fax service. In another case, we sent an email and received a response that we should call in at our earliest convenience to discuss the matter. Overall, we found that inTALK's email support center needs significant improvement.

Email reply from inTALK

Ease of Use

As compared to other residential VoIP services, we found inTALK to be shockingly difficult to use. Our biggest complaint was that our password repeatedly failed, and we had to ask for a new one at least four times during the scope of our inTALK review.

Once we were able to login, we found inTALK's control panel to be relatively straightforward, though no information was offered in regards to how to activate the features that were offered. Even creating an outgoing voicemail message, a service which should be intuitive for any VoIP service, was complicated with inTALK, and had no choice but to ask for assistance.

On the positive side, we were able to figure out how to use most of the features after spending a significant amount of time prowling around the control panel. However, users who are interested in quick and easy setup may want to consider a different residential VoIP service.

Money Back Guarantee

Customers can cancel their inTALK service within the first 30 days for any reason, provided that they have not used more than 500 minutes out of the unlimited plan. Users who have registered for the annual plan will be subject to a cancellation fee. Equipment must be returned at the expense of the customer with an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization), with all original packaging and in new condition. Equipment must be returned within 14 days of receiving the RMA or a penalty will apply. Shipping charges are not refundable.

International calls and payphone calls to Nextiva toll free numbers made during plan usage cannot be refunded. Directory assistance fees are also non-refundable.

Summary

• Competitive price
• Clear call quality
• Poor customer service
• Steep learning curve for account setup