It's Hard to Pick Up Lingo

Primus' VoIP service offers low-cost international calls, and that part of the service works well. The trouble starts with the special features

by Olga Kharif

Editor's Rating:

The Good: Low-price unlimited calls in certain regions, good tech support

The Bad: User-unfriendly Web menus and voice navigation

The Bottom Line: Despite flaws, a low-cost international option

Reader Reviews

Lingo is basically a good, cheap phone service that's especially good for customers who make lots of international calls. But Primus Telecommunications Group (PRTL), the company that owns and provides the Lingo service, has a ways to go in making Lingo's Web site more user-friendly.

The Internet-based calling service is the subject of the latest in our series of reviews of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) providers (see BW Online, 12/12/05, "AOL's Muffled Voice").

Before delving into the best and worst features, here's a look at installation. As VoIP calling goes, Lingo's setup is fairly straightforward. I shut off my computer and my digital subscriber line (DSL) modem to install the phone adapter Lingo sent, and then I plugged in a few cables. When I got stuck, Lingo's knowledgeable, helpful tech support offered very pleasant guidance.

YOU RANG?

Once the phone was on and working, the call clarity was good -- close to that available over a land line. And Lingo offers all the basics you can get in making calls using a traditional phone company, such as voice mail, call forwarding, and caller identification.

The price is right, too. For $19.99 a month (the first month is free), you get unlimited calling in the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe. Many VoIP services go for as much as $30 a month.

Lingo also offers a bunch of features not available from basic phone-service packages -- including holding and transferring calls. One I found especially cool: one can assign a distinctive ring tone for individual callers. Lingo also offers three-way calling, though when I used it, I encountered static and an annoying time lag between when I spoke and the other parties heard my voice.

TECHIE MENUS.

But it was in managing these functions that I encountered problems. You can manage features from the phone or over the Web. When I used the phone menu, the choices were listed too quickly.

Using Lingo's Web site was harder still. At first, the site appears to be user-friendly, offering separate sections for changing billing information, tracking orders, and managing features. But the pages themselves had few explanations. And many of the menus looked like something out of a programming manual. That was the case with a page called Time Schedule, in the Features section.

Other site features had descriptions, but they still turned out to be a headache. One example: Advanced Call Forwarding, which lets customers forward calls to another number at certain times and days. There are no fields on the screen that let you actually enter your schedule. It wasn't until I pressed several buttons that I finally figured out that you need to press "add" to get going.

MUST BE MOTIVATED.

As for voice mail, it promises several intriguing functions, but you may not be able to use some of them. Distribution Lists lets a customer send a voice mail to a group of users, and do so in one fell swoop. Problem is, they all have to be Lingo users. And I don't happen to know any. While this feature could come in handy for farflung family members who want to take advantage of Lingo's free in-network calls, it, too, was difficult to get up and running.

The personal-greetings option, while very alluring, is a stumper as well. It lets you upload a personal greeting from your computer. Too bad it -- like so many other of Lingo's promising attributes -- was so poorly explained. Such flaws add up to a big hump, but in the name of low-cost international calling, it's one worth trying to surmount.

Kharif is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com in Portland, Ore.