Sunrocket -- the no 'gotcha' phone company -- yeah right.

It's called Sunrocket. Well, it was called Sunrocket.

And it was great. Before Sunrocket, I had used a standard landline my entire life. But I grew tired of my $20 monthly phone bill turning into $50 because of taxes, government 'fees' (translation: more taxes) and phone company add-ons (translation: passing the cost of their taxes onto the customer -- thus more taxes on me). In other words, the "gotcha" costs.

I had seen these new internet phone companies advertised and assumed they were just too good to be true. Sunrocket, in particular, advertised themselves as the "no gotcha" company because they charged $199 for a full year of service -- no taxes, fees or other add-ons. Local and long distance service included. Also, they included voice mail, caller id, call waiting, call forwarding, a 2nd phone number and tons of other features at no extra cost. Too good to be true?

No. Well, not for the first 15 months. For 15 glorious months, I enjoyed the benefits of Sunrocket and having no monthly phone bill. Yes there was the occasional hiccup... but for the most part, it was worth every penny of the $199. I rejoiced with each and every phone call I made, basking in the knowledge that I was sticking it to "the man."

It was so great, I recommended it to friends. My friend Fafa (not his real name... more on that in a later post) signed up. And.... gulp... I recommended it to my father-in-law -- with many caveats, I might add.

He peppered me with questions. Most of them I answered as well as I could with the information I had. I warned him of the drawbacks (mostly the chance of intermittent outages, cell phone quality of calls at times, etc). However, I clearly recall him asking the following:

"Watts" (he calls me 'watts' -- short from scotty wotty -- don't ask...they are the in-laws, I just go with the flow) "What if they go out of business?"

"Oh, that's the least of your concerns there" I said confidently. "They will sell out to Vonage or some other competitor before just bagging it -- their value is in their customer base and someone will certainly buy that."

Resting solidly in that knowledge, he signs up. And for over a year he's had good success with it so far and has been pleased.

That is, until 2 days ago. Guess what?

Sunrocket tanked. Their gone. No more. Completely disappeared. Bankrupt. Everyone laid off. In layman's terms, the "no gotcha" company just pulled one big "gotcha"...

I was able to catch wind of this news before it became public and quickly switched over to another similar company (viatalk). In the meantime (it'll take a week or so to get set up with the new company), my phone no longer works. I can't make calls. I can't receive calls. And I'm not sure my phone number will "port" (to steal a nerd term) over to the new company.

In short, I'm screwed until I can get it back up.

Then it dawns on me. The in-laws can't receive calls. Can't make calls. And I'm the one who "recommended" Sunrocket to them.

Crap. Now, I realize -- I really am screwed.

(post script: thankfully, the in-laws are on vacation in the U.K. and won't be back for another week or so. this gives me time to find a solution)