Vonage Anyone?

[km]

Has anyone tried this broad-band telephone service from Vonage? $29/month with unlimited free local and long distance calling sounds too good to be true.

I'm tempted to try the free 30 day offer.

I'm wondering what the catch is, or if there are hassles such as the necessity of retaining an Internet connection at all times and what if the cable or DSL goes out? Is the regular phone hook up still available in an emergency?

[Paladin]

I heard a computer tech on the radio (last year) say that the sound quality was not quite as good as "normal".

This is from last year:

"There are newer forms of Internet Telephony that use a telephone on both end. I use Vonage at home and it's quite good. The Vonage terminal adapter plugs into your cable or DSL modem and you plug a phone into it. You can use it to call another telephone anywhere in the world for very little money. Japan, for example, is 3 cents a minute. Local calls in the US and Canada are free. The service costs US $30/month and is painless to set up. It took me about 10 minutes. I recommend these kinds of services for businesses. They offer all sorts of interesting options, like inexpensive 800 numbers and local numbers in many cities for a very reasonable price.

Quality is generally very good, although if there's a lot of Internet traffic they can become unusable."

Set Up:
http://www.g4tv.com/gear/features/61/Leos_Tips_VoIP_it_up_with_Vonage.html

VolP Rankings/Info:
http://www.myvoipprovider.com/

VolP Reviews:
http://www.top-voip-reviews.com/

:eek: Vonage Review (Poor Customer Service, among other things)
Number Of Reviews: 46
Recommended Yes : 24
Recommended No : 22
Avg. Rating 3.5
http://www.whichvoip.com/voip/user_reviews/vonage_user_review.htm

----------- Paladin

[km]

Thanks alot Paladin, i'll read up on it from your links.

[MikeDee]

Food for thought on internet phone service.

In a power outage basic phone service (land line) still works, as long as you have at least one basic phone that does not have to be plugged into a electrical socket in the wall. I keep a cheap phone on hand that I can plug into a phone jack and it works on the phone line just for this purpose. You can rely on your cell phone if you want , but they are usually overloaded in a power outage situation and don't get through either.

In the past five years how often has your basic phone service failed? How often has your internet service failed? In my situation I can't think of a time when my local phone service failed to work. I can't count the number of times my internet service was unable to get to a web site for one reason or another.

When the service breaks who do you call and how does it get fixed? You may feel the customer service of your telco is lousy, but you can get through and they will send a repairman, and it will get fixed, eventually. Who is going to fix your internet problem if you can't get through via the internet?

When you dial 911 on your internet phone where does that call get answered?
Does your internet phone company have the technology to route your name, address and phone number to your local police, rescue, fire, etc.? Do you want to trust the internet when you are making maybe the most important phone call of your life?

[chuck]

Ken,

I switched over about 9 months ago. All in all, I am happy with the service. There have been a few times that calls have been garbled. In those few instances it sounds like a bad cell phone connection. Most problems are corrected by rebooting the modem. Remember that the calls are only as good as the internet connection. If you have a bad or intermittent connection the calls will be bad. Lots of nice features, call waiting, call forwarding , voice mail, caller ID are all included. One particularly nice feature is the voice mail forwarding. You can set it up so that your voice mails are forwarded to you via a email with a WAV file. Also voice mails are available via the web.

I'm using the 14.99 option, that includes 500 outgoing minutes a month, also calls to another Vonage customer are free. Those 500 min are anywhere in the USA. You have to check your calling patterns to see if you use more than the 500 ouitgoing min or you might need the unlimited for 24.95.

As far as 911 calls, you give them your address and they actually figure out which 911 call center should your calls be routed to. I actually checked this and mine is correct.
Also keep in mind that if you lose power or your internet connection you will not get calls. You can set up another number to be called in the event that this happens. I have mine going to a cell phone.

You can request that you keep your same phone number, this takes a couple of weeks until your other company releases your number. Vonage will give you a temporary number until the transfer takes place. I just kept both number until it was complete.


Hope this helps

[km]

Good information you guys - thanks very much.

[William]

I have been using Vonage for almost a year now and the savings are tremendous. And with long distance phone calls not costing anything, we have been more prone to call and talk with friends and relatives scattered around the country much more than we ever have.
My internet connection is Comcast and, fortunately, has very little down time. 911 was an initial concern but having a cell phone handy alleviated that concern somewhat and the VOIP's like Vonage have been mandated by the Fed. govt. to upgrade the 911 service. So....bottom line.....count me a very happy customer of Vonage.

[HBee]

Ken,

I have been using another VOiP, Packet 8, (www.packet8.net) for about 4 months, and am extremely pleased. It has all of the Vonnage like features, including the federally mandated 911 service, but for 19.95 a month plus taxes ($22.05).

The voice quality is generally very good - although, as Chuck mentioned, occasionly the incoming call has some issues (my problem is an occasional 'echo' on my end). Most of the time, the person on the phone is surprised to hear that we are talking on the internet.

It makes keeping in touch with friends and family around the country so much easier without the cost factor continually popping up. When a long distance call comes in, I just tell them that I'll call them right back!

By the way, my ISP, Comcast, is offering the same service for $39.95 a month. I don't understand how they are doing the math, with much lower priced options available :rolleyes:

I hope this helps.

Herman

[km]

Thanks for your insights William and Herman.

I called my cable company Adelphia (the company who's founder and sons are in prison) and asked if there will be a package deal: Telephone - High Speed Internet - Digital Cable T.V.

They were positive about it, so I'll wait until next year and then try it when they have a special offer. It would be nice to wrap all 3 utilities into one bill each month. That's probably going to be a big seller for the cable companies in the coming years as the technology gets better. (We have movies on demand also, no more video store visits).

Right now, my cell phone allows me 1500 free long distance minutes per month @ 29.95 so my regular monthly phone bill is low. How are the phone companies going to compete as more and more people flee from expensive traditional phone service? I have heard that up to 10% of Americans no longer even have a regular phone hookup and rely completely on cell phone or Internet for communication.

[MikeDee]

Adelphia will go away next year as they are coming out of chapter 11. In our neck of the wood Time Warner is taking over all of Adelphia and Comsat customers. I think in other parts of the country comsat is picking up the pieces.

Verizon and SBC/ATT are going to be launching new ventues into cable TV soon and I am sure they to will have the all burger packages of video, data and voice.

I for one can't wait to be able to buy only the cable channels I want. Rather then the bundle of useless and repetitive crap I get now.

It looks like everyone and their brother will be offering internet phone service soon. Yahoo just announced a plan in the morning paper and I think ebay has one as well.

[CMarvin]

I saw an article in the January PCWorld magazine ... page 28, which describes how the telcos are, or are going, to fight back. The excerpt: "If you can't beat 'em, block 'em. Increasing competition from Internet phone providers like Vonage and from services such as Skype is causing traditional telephone carriers around the world to look at methods to slow or stop IP-based calls that cross their networks. The key technology, from a firm called Narus, can detect VoIP packets and either block them or deprioritize them to reduce call quality. A number of foreign telephone carriers have already enlisted the company's services. Bottom line: Domestic telecos are legally prohibited from completely blocking competing VoIP services, but there's no rule against prioritizing other traffic. And filtering software could put a serious damper on international-call savings if more countries begin to say Nein to VoIP." Competition in the marketplace? Hope this helps some.