Vonage - Broadband Phone Service (VoIP)

[Illuminati]

Amy and I just signed up with Vonage and have been pretty happy with the features that come with this Voice over IP system. We've had it now for about 2 days and no complaints yet.

Since many of you possibly have cable or DSL for your internet connection, you could save a lot of money by signing up with Vonage. I may sound like I'm advertising for them, but if you live in the STL area, the standard package that CenturyTel tries to sell everyone is about $47 per month... this includes Caller ID, Voicemail service, and Metropolitan calling (can call 314 area code and its not long distance).

With Vonage, you get everything indicated above, but with unlimited long distance anywhere in the US or Canada. And if you get a voicemail, you can set up your account to email you notification or the actual voicemail attachment in a .wav file! All of this is only $25 per month! that is pretty darn close to a 50% savings!

Amy and I will be happy to refer you if you are interested and we can get you your first month of service free. And just so you know, we get 2 months free service for getting one referral to sign up!... so you can sign up like us, get your first month free, then start recruiting people (like I'm trying to do) and get more months of free service!

So if anyone is interested or has any other questions, post here and we'll do our best to answer them by trying it out for ourselves if it will help convince you to sign up through a referral!

[Illuminati]

Did I mention no contract or deposit fees?

[T-Shirt]

Yup, VoIP IS the killer app. we've all been waiting for.
actually it's been in use commerially for a number of years.
Vonage definatly has the most consumer level experience.

[capper5016]

I was reading that the sweet ride is coming to an end. Seems that the phone companies are crying unfair practice....and with their finacial backing, are pressuring politicians to implement taxes on VOIP that would level the playing field and make it much less attractive.

[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.

[capper5016]

I think the telecom companies arte just scared that they'll actually have to provide good service at a decent price.

[infinitevalence]

Well what i really want is decent broadband for less than $40-60 a mth. in nashville i am paying $100 a mth for cable internet and BASIC cable. where as my family in rural vermont pays $110 a mth for cable internet, digital cable, all the movie packages, and DVR. and people wonder why i feel like im being ripped off. If i did not already have a cell phone with more than enough min, and free longdistance then vonage would be a good idea for me.

[T-Shirt]

I was reading that the sweet ride is coming to an end. Seems that the phone companies are crying unfair practice....and with their finacial backing, are pressuring politicians to implement taxes on VOIP that would level the playing field and make it much less attractive.

But inspite of their whining, yhey aren't winning with that arguement, the FCC is going after local phone companies that attempt to block incomming VoIP calls, several court rulings have backed up the 'no VoIP local tax' stance from the feds.
This technology is being given a chance to grow.
The traditional phone companies have used digital switching for years and have had the ability to offer this to the public for at least a couple years, BUT as long as they had their high profit share of a near monopolies (for local service) they have done nothing.
Time for them to change or die!

[T-Shirt]

Well what i really want is decent broadband for less than $40-60 a mth. in nashville i am paying $100 a mth for cable internet and BASIC cable. where as my family in rural vermont pays $110 a mth for cable internet, digital cable, all the movie packages, and DVR. and people wonder why i feel like im being ripped off. If i did not already have a cell phone with more than enough min, and free longdistance then vonage would be a good idea for me.

WOW! that's pretty high!
Ours is $57 for the very basic cable TV and broadband 3meg/256k (should be 4/368 by the end of the month)
The next monopoly to watch out for is the broadband providers. yes,they are investing billions and deserve a reasonable $ return. but where ever there is little danger of competition =IE only cable or only DSL, or given exclusive franchise rights by local government (to encourage building out an area) they have taken full advantage and jacked the price up. Obivously they still need strict regulation.
On the other hand areas where the customer density makes it extremely profitable, 2 or 3 types of service (FIOS will come very quickly) prices are in the $50 range, and services are very competitive, and work hard on customer satisfaction/QOS.

[Apoptosis]

I pay $44.99 for basic cable and cable internet here in St. Louis and that is after a $5 raise they implemented on Jan 1st 2005! Like T-Shirt said I can get DSL, Cable, Dial-up, and Sat so the market is very competitive here.

[FZ1]

All I have to say is I love their comercials...woohoo, woo hoo hoo...woohoo woo hoo hoo.

[Illuminati]

All I have to say is I love their comercials...woohoo, woo hoo hoo...woohoo woo hoo hoo.

OMG.. LMAO!

[NAiLs]

I think we pay ~$90/mo for expanded cable and internet through Charter. Charter offers 3mbps / 256kbps which isn't too bad. I think we pay $42/mo for cable internet, no modem rental as we own it.

My networking teachers have been praising this VoIP service. We talked about it for a good 25 minutes in one of my classes a couple weeks back too.

[infinitevalence]

Well if all goes well my friend and i will be moving in the next few mths and we will be getting a comercial acct since between the two of us we generaly pull around 2mb dl at any given time and we need a static ip for the server we just got, dual xenon baby

[capper5016]

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

[Illuminati]

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...

[NAiLs]

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.

[capper5016]

Cable isn't bad per say.....just that Cox High speed sucks...too many outages and I never see anything close to the 5mb speeds. My 3.5mb DSL was actually faster and in a year and a half never went down. But for $5 more a month, cable suffices for right now.

[fortytwo]

All I have to say is I love their comercials...woohoo, woo hoo hoo...woohoo woo hoo hoo.

hehe.. I go around the house singing that and it pisses my wife off.. its so great.

Now, whenever we go somewhere and some kid starts singing that song, she goes ballistic.

[anonymous06]

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???