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What are your experiences with Vonage?
- Thread starter mysterytramp
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Heard of it, but, as they use AT&T's phone lines, I can't imagine a real lot in savings.
I have been with Southern Bell, renamed Bellsouth, then renamed AT&T since 1983. No reason to change now.
I have been with Southern Bell, renamed Bellsouth, then renamed AT&T since 1983. No reason to change now.
Vonage doesn't use AT&T's phone lines. It's VoIP, the calls are routed through the internet.
Which means it uses land lines, which comes back to AT&T. Not to mention, you have to have Internet service as well. So the cost really isn't that low. My standard phone service is $17.95 a month, which is cheaper.
If you have DSL, then yes, it might go over AT&T's lines for a short while until it gets onto some of the huge internet trunks running across the country, which can be owned by any one of a number of carriers.
If he has, say Comcast for example, and someone he's calling someone with Verizon service at home, it's entirely possible for the call to never go across anything owned by AT&T.
The OP is in Maryland which I believe is a Verizon area, so his phone calls may never go across AT&T lines.
Yes $25 to call anywhere in the US and actually I've called Canada and the UK and found no additional hike in my bill. This is in stark contrast to the landlines from pacific bell, at&t and the likes. The baseline bill would be $20 or so and with taxes and surcharges then their newfound desire to divide even the same area code into regions, the bill was easily $60 if I didn't ever talk.
For me some months I use a ton of talk time others barely any. Each month is $25 and I'm never surprised. Plus, you can have any number really. It's nice.
Quality wise, I've run into a few issues, mostly on the current network setup I have. Basically the cable internet is spliced and the wires are all quite old. I attribute the issues mostly to everything being in one general corner and perhaps that's not the best setup. I never ran into issues at my old place.
Another thing to consider is I can change a lot of features right on the web. I don't need to call someone to have them set up my account for something new, which in my experience has always led to more charges than I had planned as they try to give you some package deal they think suits your current needs. I have full control, not to mention fantastic, searchable by phone number, logs. I can tell who (as long as the number isn't restricted) has called me and how long we talk. I get the phone bills have this, but this is nice because I can search back for months and months.
For me some months I use a ton of talk time others barely any. Each month is $25 and I'm never surprised. Plus, you can have any number really. It's nice.
Quality wise, I've run into a few issues, mostly on the current network setup I have. Basically the cable internet is spliced and the wires are all quite old. I attribute the issues mostly to everything being in one general corner and perhaps that's not the best setup. I never ran into issues at my old place.
Another thing to consider is I can change a lot of features right on the web. I don't need to call someone to have them set up my account for something new, which in my experience has always led to more charges than I had planned as they try to give you some package deal they think suits your current needs. I have full control, not to mention fantastic, searchable by phone number, logs. I can tell who (as long as the number isn't restricted) has called me and how long we talk. I get the phone bills have this, but this is nice because I can search back for months and months.
And you're paying extra for long distance, caller ID, taxes, etc. Based on the advertising -- caveat emptor, I know -- our household should save quite a bit.
Thanks!
For the record ... Verizon for phone and Comcast for cable internet.
Two questions I should have asked in the original post ...
1) Do you get to keep your old phone number?
2) There's been talk about surcharging cable Internet subscribers based on their throughput. Something like Vonage would be factored in, I assume. Any idea how much a phone call constitutes in bits and bytes?
thanks
mt
I love it. We've been using it for about four years. One of my favorite *free* features is that your voicemail can be forwarded as a small *.wav file to your e-mail. If people call while we are out I can get the message on my iPhone.
I don't know bits/bytes used per month, but I can say that I think the quality of the sound *may* be better than a normal landline. It must be reasonably low bandwidth as it is not affected by heavy torrenting etc.
The cost savings is great.
I don't know bits/bytes used per month, but I can say that I think the quality of the sound *may* be better than a normal landline. It must be reasonably low bandwidth as it is not affected by heavy torrenting etc.
The cost savings is great.
no. it is VOIP and does not use any landlines at all if you have cable internet - it is a small box that plugs into my network via ethernet.
you get a huge cost savings. to do the identical level of service with Verizon (i am in new england) was costing us about $75/month including fees with caller ID, voicemail, and unlimited national calling (not sure if that included Canada + PR - i do not think it did)
my vonage bill is $32.31 including all taxes and fees, and i also get 25 something calling features, as well as an online page that i can use to control the service and to see every call, duration, etc...
You can actually control the amount of bandwidth your service uses. I have done this when I was faced with poor call quality being reported by the people on the other end. I never noticed it, but people were asking me constantly if I was swimming in water. I may talk to you in the shower, not so much while swimming.
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I got Vonage back in 2003 and loved it until I got greedy and moved to a cheaper VOIP services, which were all horrible (except at&t CallVantage). Vonage was $24.95 per month with a $.99 surcharge. Now, Vonage charges all sorts of fees that brings the total monthly charge to at least $30 per month.
Recently, I left CallVantage and moved to Ooma. The initial charge for Ooma is $249 and there are no monthly bills afterward. The call quality is excellent and I'm very happy with their service. Some people are predicting that they won't stay in business for long, but as long as I get at least ten months out of the service, I will have recouped my investment.
They (Ooma) are having a sale until December 3rd where you can buy the system for $200.
Speaking of staying in business, Vonage is having their own problems. At this point, they've been losing more customers than they've been able to gain. People are turning to the cable companies for their phone service. That's something for you to consider.
Recently, I left CallVantage and moved to Ooma. The initial charge for Ooma is $249 and there are no monthly bills afterward. The call quality is excellent and I'm very happy with their service. Some people are predicting that they won't stay in business for long, but as long as I get at least ten months out of the service, I will have recouped my investment.
They (Ooma) are having a sale until December 3rd where you can buy the system for $200.
Speaking of staying in business, Vonage is having their own problems. At this point, they've been losing more customers than they've been able to gain. People are turning to the cable companies for their phone service. That's something for you to consider.
I have been very unhappy with Vonage... Must just be where I am located. The modem I got when I started using it has to be re-booted at least twice a day. I've already burned through one modem, and now this one is going out. Whenever I call someone, they say they hear a high-pitched scream and nothing else. I've heard a few messages I've left and people's houses, and they sound like I'm on a tunnel, with wind and streaming over the internet through dial up.
Plus, they're based out of India, so all the tech support people can speak almost no English.
But that's just me, so maybe I have a problem!
Plus, they're based out of India, so all the tech support people can speak almost no English.
But that's just me, so maybe I have a problem!
i've never been anything but pleased with vonage, and their customer service when I have called as sounded american. My bill runs about 31.00 a month for unlimited, and i like the fact that i can have it simulring my cell phone. Also I can dial in remotely to check voicemail, or log in and listen to them on the computer. I enjoy it, and have very few complaints that can be tied to Vonage as opposed to my cable company (Charter communications). If you have a real low bandwidth internet speed (like 1 or 2mbs) you might be limited in what you can do, but I noticed once I got my internet service above 5mb, I can do almost anything except bit torrents and still talk. Now with 16mb, I can do anything I want and still talk with no issues.
Vonage has worked very well for me.
I like it because I call Canada all the time, and it has unlimited long distance to there.
The only time I've ever had problems is when my internet goes down- but, when that happens, it automatically forwards to my cellphone, so I don't miss any calls. Oh, and my internet hasn't gone down in months and months, so it's worked perfectly during that time (now that I've said it though, I bet my internet goes down for the count tomorrow).
They'd better send me my endorsement cheque now......
I like it because I call Canada all the time, and it has unlimited long distance to there.
The only time I've ever had problems is when my internet goes down- but, when that happens, it automatically forwards to my cellphone, so I don't miss any calls. Oh, and my internet hasn't gone down in months and months, so it's worked perfectly during that time (now that I've said it though, I bet my internet goes down for the count tomorrow).
They'd better send me my endorsement cheque now......