Are you among the many disgruntled customers of SunRocket’s (News - Alert) VoIP service, which was suddenly and unceremoniously shut down on Monday?

If so, don’t give up on VoIP just yet … 8x8 (News - Alert) Inc., provider of the reliable Packet8 VoIP service, is making a special offer to all SunRocket subscribers. The company is waiving all “regular” start up costs associated with its residential service, plus it is offering one month of service for free to all SunRocket customers. 8x8 claims it has signed an agreement with “an organization managing the wind down of SunRocket, Inc.” to present this special offer to SunRocket subscribers.

"8x8 is pleased to be able to quickly transition SunRocket subscribers that opt into the Packet8 service," said 8x8 Chairman and CEO Bryan Martin in a press release. "In addition to special pricing, Packet8 is making arrangements with its network service providers to rapidly port SunRocket phone numbers to Packet8's network in order to minimize the disruption that this transition may cause to their communication services. SunRocket subscribers will be able to choose from several plans, including the Packet8 $199 Freedom Annual Plan which they may already be familiar with."

SunRocket customers who are considering migrating over to another stand-alone VoIP service will no doubt find comfort in the fact that 8x8 is a 20-year-old, publicly traded company which has been offering it VoIP service to residences and businesses since 2002. The company, which holds 68 U.S. patents for voice, video and VoIP technologies, reported more than $53 million in revenue and approximately $12 million in cash at the end of its 2007 fiscal year, ended March 31, 2007, and has showed significant progress toward becoming cash flow positive.

"While we are very sorry to hear about SunRocket's financial issues, we want their former customers to know that 8x8 is very committed to providing the best possible communication services, features, prices and customer service to our new customers from SunRocket,” Martin said. “We have offered residential phone service over the Internet for nearly five years, and are one of the only service providers who own all of the core technologies underlying our services, enabling us to also provide video services with our VoIP offerings, and complete, turnkey telecommunication services to more than 8,000 U.S. businesses."

Three-year-old SunRocket abruptly ceased operations Monday after months of struggling financially in the low-profit-margin yet highly-competitive VoIP market. The second largest provider of residential VoIP in the U.S. (next to #1 Vonage (News - Alert)) is reportedly looking to sell its assets, following two rounds of layoffs and the departure of several top executives, including CEO Lisa Hook, who announced her resignation last Friday.

Although most customers will be migrating over to other VoIP services, such as Packet8, many are already in the middle of two-year contracts and therefore might have to forfeit some of their money. Unlike Vonage customers, who are billed monthly, SunRocket subscribers prepay for two years of service.

According to published reports, former employees of SunRocket said the company had been seeking a fourth round of financing in recent months to add to $80 million it received from investors since March 2005. Last month the company reportedly laid off 30 to 40 employees - about a quarter of its workforce - to reduce overhead and attract potential investors. This was followed by another round of layoffs last Friday that eliminated another 200 positions – practically all of the company’s employees.

A dismayed customer emailed TMCnet on Monday and said she was “at a loss with Sunrocket” because her service had gone down, and yet she was unable to get any information from the company about what was going on.

“I am a subscriber and haven’t been able to use my phone in 24 hours at all,” the customer said in an email. “Their customer service number says it is no longer received calls from customers or new accounts. So, I tried looking up the corporate office after email a few times and no response.”

Many of these customers will now sign up for VoIP services with other providers.

At $24.99 a month for unlimited anytime calling to the U.S. and Canada, Packet8’s VoIP service is competitively priced. Plus the company offers a range of additional features and services – such as the Packet8 Tango Video Terminal Adapter and DV 326 VideoPhone, which allows you to hold face-to-face video communications with other videophone users; Packet8 Virtual Office, a hosted PBX solution for small to medium sized businesses offering powerful business class features; and Packet8 Softalk Office, a PC-based soft phone client offering high quality voice and video in-network calling as well as outbound calling to the PSTN.

For more information about 8x8’s Packet8 VoIP service, visit www.packet8.net.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine and Assignment Editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.