Anyone Have Vonage (Internet Phone)?

Melissa

If so how is the quality? Any problems with it?

I got an advertisement in the mail. $24.99/mo. (for residential) ($49.99 for business and comes w 2 lines) Unlimited local/long distance, voicemail, caller id, call wait/forward, and more. $29.99 for activation, $70 for equipment, but they'll waive this fee, and $14.99 to ship equipment.

Plus, you can hook it up to any high speed internet and use it, so if you're traveling or want to work from home, or if you move, you could easily do that.

Cole

I haven't used it but I plan on it.

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slickshift

Yes
Two years
Great

Phone/fax/internet(three comps & wireless)/TV all over the cable

Two drawbacks:

Occasional dropped/echo calls (maybe once every two months)
Hanging up and calling back corrected that

Every two weeks my ISP re-assigned my ISP addy and the network would start to collapse Sunday night
Power cycling the network fixed it
There was a permanent fix, but I never bothered
I didn't mind shutting down the network every other Sunday night and starting it up Monday AM (any calls were routed to my cell)

I'd recommend it highly, those "downsides" were minimal, and one had a fix I never bothered with

Oh, I'll post up some bandwidth tests later, you'll want to check that before committing
Especially if you are going over DSL

Oh, there's a cheaper business plan with a cap on the minutes
You can tell from your old bill if that might work for you




I moved and my cable company (same company) offers their own VoIP on my new area and I use that
It does not have either of those issues

MinConst

I will be using Vonage when we get to Florida. A Friend of mine here in NY has the service and it works excellent. I'm sure there are some small differences that we will have to adjust to but as of now it is all positive. Better services cheaper. The options are amazing. There is also a 14.95 plan for personal. 1 line, 500 minutes, and all the other perks are included. Only thing I don't like is there is no-one to talk to at Vonage unless your signing up or already a customer. But the phone companies aren't much better.

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Melissa

And seems they send their calls over seas. Person I spoke with had a very strong accent. It was almost impossible to understand.

slickshift

Huh...I only talked to people from Jersey...the accents not that bad

'Course I live on Cape Cod...weah when we git chiked wickit hahd playin' hawky, we staht whawkin funny ya?

Nathan

I used the service and would never use it again. I know a lot of people who like the service so listen to everyone but to me it was the worst product or service I have ever paid for in my life. That is a huge statement and I mean it.

I signed up for a regular phone line and a fax line. I got the router, plugged it in, and it didn't work. So, I called customer service. Every time I pressed the number to get tech support the system hung up. I tried over and over again for a number of days. Every time I pressed the number for tech support it hang up.

I emailed tech support, which is what they try to get everyone to do and got no response.

So, I tried every option and found that the only one that worked was sales. So I told sales about the problem and they told me there was nothing they could do except email tech support themselves. They stated that they had no phone numbers for them. I spoke with a supervisor and then manager who all said the same thing. they could not help me at all and didn't really care their tech support line just hung up on people.

Two weeks later someone finally picked up the phone at tech support. They sent me a new router which they charged me for and said they would refund my money once they got the old one back.

Anyways, to make a very very long story short the second router didn't work and they charged me for another router and sent that to me. The third router finally worked for the land line (with echoes that everyone complained about) but the fax never worked the whole time I had the service.

Skip ahead and I found out they charged me for both routers that I sent back and I had to go over the phone messages again to get that money back.
Also, 5 MONTHS later I got a response to my first email that I sent asking for tech support. It was a canned response telling me to visit their website for answers to "all" my problems.

Over all I think Vonage took about 10 hours of my life on the phone, overcharged me $200, made me go without a phone for 3 weeks, never could make a fax line work, and even once it was set up the phone echoed on every call.
Oh, and they charged me $50 for early cancellation.

I know a lot of people who have the service and say they like it, but I'm not sure they have ever had to deal with tech support. Maybe it's better now but that is not a mistake I'll make again.

Right now I pay Verizon $39/month for everything that vonage was giving me. Unlimited everything and all the same options. My phone works when the power goes out and everything is clear. I'll pay the extra $14/month any day.

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Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

Rich Turley

My current customer has Vonage and I've had all kinds of problems reaching her, most often the message "all circuts are busy". Funny thing is that when this happens, her phone rings but no one there when she answers.

Rich

A+Carpenter

And this is why I strongly urge to BUY AMERICAN.

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Melissa

Wow Nathan, that is an awful! I've had to deal with some bad customer service, but nothing tops that story! Yikes! I agree it's worth it to pay $15 bucks a month extra for good service you can count on.

wackman

I was going to sign up about a month ago but all I really wanted was a fax line. The local phone company charges about $13 a month for a dedicated fax line. I don't use any land lines and didn't really want to start just for a fax line. I figured vonage could maybe beat that price or offer more than the dedicated fax for the same money but they really couldn't. The guy (who was in India, I asked) hardly listened to a work I said about what I needed and just tried like crazy to get me to sign up. He started with the expensive plan and as I said "no" to all of them he worked his way down in price plans. Finally I got the bottom line that they couldn't offer much more (for what I wanted) than the phone company so I said no.

Then I discoved Efax and so far I'm happy.

Now every couple of days I get one of Vonages sales guys calling me trying to get me to sign. I had to program them into my cell so I'll know not to answer.

This doesn't mean I won't use Vonage in the future but it's not a very good first impression.

Wack

slickshift

Jeez that's horrible Nathan
Yeah, that would kind of turn me off

Lol...it's a new Jersey company lol

I didn't realize they may have farmed out their service calls
That's too bad
A friend of mine just left his finance company
They sent him down to a Central American country to set up his companies new call center
He came back and said it was a horrible idea
They said we're doing it anyway, and it's your baby
He said not anymore-seeya

But I'm digressing

Here's some bandwidth tests if you are considering VoIP

http://www.testyourvoip.com/

http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/BandwidthUp.asp

And a VoIP troubleshooter

http://www.voiptroubleshooter.com/

A+Carpenter

Yea well same as this and illegal immigration. We opened up the door for out-sourcing to cheap labor.

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jbfan

I have had it about 3 months and so far so good.I got a vitural number for MIL to call and it cost her nothing, cost me 4.99, and 14.99 for all calls. Beat Bell South by $20 month.

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dougchips

I have vonage and actually have pretty good luck.. Most problems occur when your cable service is poor. I quess tv's are not picky about quality whereas the phone is very picky. You will find out if you have good cable right away. My voice connection is great but the connection caused issues with my fax machine. They do not check to see if you are a business so you can save some dough and get the regular service. THe transfer of numbers took me about 3 months, not sure if they improved on that yet.

Overall they get thumbs up, saves me $600+ a year

Downeast

Slick are you using vonage or comcast? I just ordered up the comcast.

slickshift

Comcast VoIP ("Clear Voice") now

It's even better than the Vonage as for quality of signals and (lack of) drops and echos, and I don't have to do the the power-cycle deal like I did before with Vonage
Because it's all one company (internet and phone) It's all in one modem now, so my network is simpler...and it's got it's own battery pack
I have not been w/o phone service in 6 months
(for our off-cape friends, that's pretty good out here...real good for out here)

However, Comcast's voicemail and internet user controls isn't nearly as good as Vonage
And it does cost a little more

The ease of use and more consistent quality are worth it now that we use VoIP for the family phone (as a teen-age drama queen doesn't consider having to re-dial an echo-y call once a month minor)


I think you'll be happy with the Comcast
I can absolutely recommend it
I don't know how/what your service was before, but my in-laws can go days w/o service, and rarely go months w/o interruptions with the (the local landline company) Verizon

Downeast

Thats good to hear.They mentioned a modem that must be had through them.Having tv and internet with them already ,getting a package deal.

So I will be getting a modem that all three go through.?

I had verizon for the land line,and I have verizon cell. What cell company you using and how are the connections? Looking to maybe dump them for the cell service to.

slickshift

No
The phone/internet has the modem(s)
Well, maybe I should back up a bit

The cable TV is separate
The cable is split before that happens

The Internet/Phone cable comes in another area (the office in my case)
The cable comes in and goes to the Comcast Giant Modem Thingie
It's a cable modem, VoIP phone adapter, and UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) all in one
One cable goes from that into my (own) router and on to the 'puters
Another cable goes into the closest phone jack and...well, that makes any hooked-up phone jacks operational for phones

For Vonage it was more complex, as it was a separate phone adapter, modem, and UPS

Sprint
Great
Only one basement in Dennis I couldn't get service
But that's not unusual for a basement

Everywhere else no problem
...ever, that I can think of

Tom J

I have Vonage and am satisfied with the service. I did experience dropped calls and found out the problem was the cable line I was using. I replaced it (compliments of Time Warner Cable in Raleigh) and have had no issues since. One of the coolest things by far is that you can take your router with you and use your phone wherever there is a high speed internet connection. This came in useful when my wife and I went to the beach for a week. Of course it threw everyone off when their caller ID identified our number and we were not at our house. I always try to convince people to sign up for it. Just don't buy the stock, their IPO did not go good at all!!!!!!