Vontage, anyone using it??

[Racerbvd]

Anyone hear using Vonage, good, bad, anything?????

[tcar]

Vonage?????

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by tcar

Vonage?????

Yes.

[red-beard]

Yep, for a couple of years now. We'll be switching the business lines over soon, as well. The nice thing is the portability of the lines, you can take them and make them work, any where the internet works...

I'm in Northern Romania, and I have a "Houston" phone next to me.

[jeffgrant]

Was one of the first subscribers in Canada, and have travelled all over North and Central America using my 3 numbers, and they work very well. (2 business lines, 1 fax).

A really nice feature is "email me my voice mail messages", so they show up on my blackberry when I'm out of the office.

Their "soft lines" (the computer apps that let you use your laptop/computer with a headset as a phone) are nice, but are somewhat flaky on Mac, but you can use alternate 3rd party apps to do the job quite well.

The only problem I had was with my fax line, as tech support had to configure some settings on their end for it to work properly, but that took 2 minutes (just had to tell them what make/model of fax machine it was).

I'm quite happy with them.

Just be sure that you have a good Internet connection, as my new home-based DSL has some serious latency issues, and that sometimes shows up as choppy connections.


$0.02 (CDN)

[red-beard]

I ditched the soft modem and programmed a Wifi phone. Virtually any open hotspot will work. My only complaint, the Wifi phone does not have bluetooth for a bluetooth headset.

You can get a "free" Wifi phone from Vonage. The color is pretty ugly. I bought one for work and we use it in Romania to reduce the international calls.

Something else you might consider: T-mobile is now offering similar service, tied in with the cell phone plans. They sell one model of Blackberry which doubles as a Wifi phone. It seemless switches from LAN calls to Cell calls. 2 of these phone cut our phone bills on AT&T from over $6K per month to about $1400. And the guys using the phone have Blackberrys with e-mail etc. And it made them happy to be given the lates gadget by the company!

Of course one of our guys makes Ron White's sarcasm seem tame. He is really beginning to annoy me, and I've only been here 4 days!

The worst part: He thinks he knows everything. BS! I'm the one who knows EVRYTHING!

[Racerbvd]

I have 3 pnone lines coming into the house from 2 different locations & an
addition where new power was used & my cable comes in. I hooked up the box, as instructions stated, got a dial tone, one line worked, then it completely
stopped working, plus, not all my phones were on line, only in two rooms???

The vonage guys from india haven't been much help & when I plug in my fax line, both lines go dead

[cashflyer]

I'm switching over next week.
Half the price I'm paying to AT&T, plus LD is free.

[Danny_Ocean]

Gotta have the bandwidth. I just installed 3 lines at a company (replacing all their land-lines) and told them "it ain't gonna work". The owner's girlfriend thought she was doing the right thing by dumping BellSouth. "Our bill is only going to be $80/month!" . They called me the next day in a panic "It ain't workin'!". There was substantial latency (a delay, kinda like when you talk to someone overseas on a bad connection). I told them to call their Internet provider and bump-up their bandwidth (they're on a T-1 for their data). Looking forward to how much they're going to spend on more speed vs. the cost of keeping their landline. Also, if the power or Internet goes down, you have no phones.

I think it's great for a residence, but I wouldn't rely on it 100% for my business service.

[cashflyer]

I'm on a 5M cable line. Only 1 V-phone.
Should work fine, yeah??

[Danny_Ocean]

Originally Posted by cashflyer

I'm on a 5M cable line. Only 1 V-phone.
Should work fine, yeah??

Yep. Until the cable goes out...

[cashflyer]

Few people are so important that I can't skip a few of their calls while the cable is off. And the really important ones also have my cell number.

I just wish G-Dub would quit calling me on poker night. He keeps printing up new money to cover his losses.

[jeffgrant]

One thing I did that was a life-saver was implement proper traffic-shaping in my firewall/router, so that I have a guaranteed amount of bandwidth for my VOIP (Vonage) calls when they're there. That way, anyone surfing the net, etc., will have no impact on my calls.

Also, you can bump up (or down) the line's quality, which increases or decreases the amount of bandwidth it uses. That can help a TON in some situations.

[jyl]

I wanted to bump this thread up to ask about any recent experience with Vonage.

I'm thinking of dropping the voice part of my Comcast bundle and replacing w/ a Vonage phone at $15/mo.

[masraum]

Did they ever get the "911" call thing worked out. I know that because of the portability, and callerID addressing issues, sometimes VoIP service can be an issue for 911 calls.

I think there was a company that got sued by a bunch of folks in Texas several years back.

I would assume that because of the prevalence of that kind of service these days, they do have the issue fixed. Still, it may be something to consider.

[myamoto1]

Hi John - think I may have mentioned this in one of your other threads, but we've been using Vonage for at least 6+ years w/ no issues. The only concern, as mentioned above, is when the cable goes out, but we have cell phones when that happens. I've been very happy with them and their service since day one. Although they just raised the rates by a few bucks, they're still cheaper than Comcast. I'm not sure why folks choose CC over Vonage, unless it's just for the simplicity of a single bill.

EDIT: RE 911 - you have to register your address for the 911 to work properly. A few years ago, I had a neighbor's house catch on fire behind mine. I called 911 and they knew exactly where I was and already had a truck on the way. I think this issue is present w/ any VOIP phone.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by jyl

I wanted to bump this thread up to ask about any recent experience with Vonage.

I'm thinking of dropping the voice part of my Comcast bundle and replacing w/ a Vonage phone at $15/mo.

I'm still using Vonage after several years...

[matthew-s]

Originally Posted by masraum

Did they ever get the "911" call thing worked out. .

It seems to have been, but you need to make sure your address is correct in their systems. I can confirm that the police knew where I lived when I called once.

That said, I am thinking about dumping them and getting Verzizon FIOS. I think my overall cable, data, and phone bill will go down a bit with FIOS, and I have not been thrilled with Vonage call quality - but I blame Comcast for that.

[matthew-s]

Originally Posted by jeffgrant

One thing I did that was a life-saver was implement proper traffic-shaping in my firewall/router, so that I have a guaranteed amount of bandwidth for my VOIP (Vonage) calls when they're there.

Could this be done with a simple linksys wireless gateway / router? I have this problem, and it is horrible when I do a Web conference. It's so bad, I need to use my mobile phone, which has it's own set of issues . . .

[SeanPizzle]

Check out Ooma. We just went with it and have been very happy with the quality. $200 Ooma appliance and now monthly recurring charges (with the basic service). $39 to port your home number to the ooma service. We were going to just kill the home phone line in lieu of our cell phones, but wanted something in case of emergencies, for the baby sitter, etc. Plus, I do conference calls that can kill a cell battery pretty quickly.