Vonage - Broadband Phone Service (VoIP)

[bubba]

they just got DSL in my area, I'm still on sucky dial up. no cable in the area as of yet, charter says another year if not longer before its brought in.

Thought about dumping the phone and going wireless (phone and net), but cant get a signal where I'm at, well I can... just not a strong enough.

[Illuminati]

is very poor. People get my incoming recording and its chopped up like diced onions several times every week. This recording is maintained by Vonage, yet they will try to blame it on my ISP or equipment. When they say they will make adjustments, it does not help.

When you call them on the phone, you are put hold forever. Then they transfer you from one depatment to another and then hang up.

They advertize they can get you a fax line for $10 per month but what they don't tell you is that they will not port your fax number, it has to be a number assgined by them. They only do this aftey you have signed on with them, dropped your old line and would get a penality if you discontinuted Vonage Service. Then you have to pay new customer fees to sign back on with your old carrier.

And you like thier commercials???

Wow... good to have a customer service comment! I've not experienced any problems before, so I have not had to call customer service in my 12 months with having Vonage. I have had my Vonage router connected to Charter Cable (that's what I originally had when I signed up with Vonage) and then when I moved, I could not get cable, so I got DSL. I was able to just plug the router in right off the DSL modem and it just worked with no problems. Now I'm cheap and just got the 256k/256k DSL line and the only issues I have is when I'm surfing the web and talking on the phone... then it gets a little choppy. But I know this is caused by my low bandwidth.

I hope you get your voicemail issue ironed out... that's just crazy that the VM recording is choppy!

Thanks for the post and hope you stick around! (even if you're anonymous )

[Mortious]

Here in Vegas I'm paying $50 for 5MB cable...not bad, but I have to honestly say that I do miss DSL.

Is the DSL a higher speed than cable in Vegas? I doubt it, so why would you miss DSL over cable? Cable can handle much higher bandwidth than a phone line...

Agreed. I like my cable and wouldn't trade it for DSL. THe only thing that I find good about DSL, is you're dedicated that bandwidth, whereas with cable, you share with your block so to speak. Cable providers should have plenty of bandwidth to shell out to the entire city, so bandwidth sharing shouldn't be an issue.

Makes no difference though, once your on the backbone your sharing bandwidth anyway.

Im on Time Warner (Roadrunner) with the full package (digital cable, with DVR, 6mb down, and Digital Phone) I pay about 120 a month. Been very happy with them.

[doghucat]

Nice to see all the revies of VOIP been thinking about trying it for a while now but i think I will give it about another year cable and internet here runs 73.46 for a 5mgb service 34.95 for broadband and the other 36.00 and change for expanded cable not bad for in the sticks.

[Tim Burton]

even if they increased taxes, it would only raise the 24.99 plan to at most $33 or so with tax... that's still over a $15 decrease in your phone bill.

And 8 more dollars that the government takes, when they already take huge amounts.

[Illuminati]

even if they increased taxes, it would only raise the 24.99 plan to at most $33 or so with tax... that's still over a $15 decrease in your phone bill.

And 8 more dollars that the government takes, when they already take huge amounts.

???????? Might want to explain a little further... since this is an old thread, I'm not sure where you are going with this.

[T-Shirt]

probably means the taxes/fcc recovery fees/ 911fees/ USF etc. that get tacked on by SOME providers.

Some of these charges are legit, some are money grabs by the telcos or govt.
I always look at the total cost/bottom line on my bill to decide if it's a good value, not where that money goes

since the last time I posted in this thread my basic cable plus internet has been $42.30 total (getting a $13 promo discount until june) up $0.03 in 18 months, speed has increased to 6Mbps up/ 384k down, about to get another "free" speed boost (8/768?) from comcast because fios is installing less than 2 miles away and approaching fast (hopefully getting here Before my promo rate expires......again (not too hard to get a new discount

Back on topic, I've had VoIP for about 2 years (free to me, part of a beta for a large undisclosed ISP) which would normal be billed at $24.99 (flat rate no other fees or taxes), other than some early adjustments the quality has been equal or better than verizon/AT&T.
Would I pay for it?
Maybe, calls to my inlaws in oregon, california and Hawaii used to run $25-40 amonth, and local long distance calls (almost everywhere from my house) and landline another $30
so even keeping the landline for inbound and guaranteed 911 service (a test requirement) I'm way ahead on the pricing, plus I make more long distance calls then I otherwise might.
One of the nice things is getting my voicemeail by email or email from anyphone (800 number) and being able to use the 800 number for free outbound calls from any phone.
the Cable connection has been very stable (down for 1/2 hour last night for upgrade work, first outage in a year) so if I switched to a payed VoIP account I might drop verizon (unless I get fios and get a big "triple play" discount.
finally real side by side competition is coming soon
When I first moved here 15 years ago, "internet" acsess was 2400 bps paid by the hour have had v92, satellite, DSL, cable ,and soon fiber.
so 6-8mbps seems excellent to me (about the same total cost per month)[/i]

[T-Shirt]

BTW, after 2 years of my whining, my dad got vonage at his house (quality seems excellent) and now I don't have to listen to his whining about his 7 different 'dial-around' calling cards and how my mom (he did it too!) used the wrong one, and ran up a huge bill (probably more than if they just used regular verizon/AT&T long distance, month after month)

cheaper, better quality, and alot simpler

[Pesto]

I've had vonage for about a year now, running it on 5meg cable, no problems .. quality is great.. and all the features are great..

the only complaint is i can't run Azureus while im on the phone.. lol.. but i can watch things on video.google.com while on the phone and no lag/dropped packets..

[Antonik]

I've had vonage for about a year now, running it on 5meg cable, no problems .. quality is great.. and all the features are great..

the only complaint is i can't run Azureus while im on the phone.. lol.. but i can watch things on video.google.com while on the phone and no lag/dropped packets..

Yuck, use utorrent, but thats for another topic.

[Black Mesa Scientist]

Comrade where are you at the contest??

[doghucat]

The Vonage price of $24.99 is that the total price for a month or is there hidden charges you see later when you get the bill, thinking of getting the service to try if find a good offer at a good price.

[Illuminati]

I have the 500 Minute vonage package for 14.99 and the total bill is 16.84... So there are taxes (at least in MO).

[Kill_A._Byte]

I know nothing about this service. When on the phone, do you have to talk like a walkie talkie (over) or is it like a regular phone call?

[Illuminati]

I know nothing about this service. When on the phone, do you have to talk like a walkie talkie (over) or is it like a regular phone call?

Hehe... No, you plug a normal telephone into the VoIP router. It is just like a regular telephone... but a lot cheaper than a landline + long distance plan.

[Kill_A._Byte]

Thanks for clearing that up. I had visions of a netmeeting type connection. I used to try and talk to my mom in AZ on netmeeting/dialup connection An* *ou wou** get e**ry other *ord. Kind of tuff to carry on a conversation.

[Tim Burton]

even if they increased taxes, it would only raise the 24.99 plan to at most $33 or so with tax... that's still over a $15 decrease in your phone bill.

And 8 more dollars that the government takes, when they already take huge amounts.

???????? Might want to explain a little further... since this is an old thread, I'm not sure where you are going with this.

The government taxes EVERYTHING! In fact, you are still supporting a war that is over 100 years old.

http://www.ioerror.us/2005/07/02/spanis ... ues-today/

http://www.lp.org/article_154.shtml

Been trying to repeal this thing for 6 years plus:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquerytr/z?d109:HR01898:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.01321:

[Illuminati]

Sounds like a good cause and all.. but is that really relevant to Vonage specifically?

[NAiLs]

Woot for year old posts!

[Tim Burton]

Sounds like a good cause and all.. but is that really relevant to Vonage specifically?

It is when you consider the FCC is discussing taxing Vonage at Telephone company rates....