I’m a day or two away from waltzing into Best Buy or Circuit City to buy a Vonage starter kit.
I previewed the Vonage website, and the $14.99 for 500 minutes including long distance within the US and Canada sounds like the deal for me. It actually said something like $16.90 after fees, which is fine, considering I’m paying the local telco over $50/month for something I hardly use right now including the caller ID, call waiting, etc, which is included free of charge with Vonage.
If it matters my broadband is through Comcast Cable, and with very heavy usage, I’ve only noticed one outage since I’ve had the service (roughly 1 year).
I’ve been planning on going this route because they seem to be most in the public eye, and I’ve seen deals for the equipment at the above stores for $50, including free setup and a free month, with a $50 rebate. Not sure if I can still score that deal though…
So what’s the latest concensus? Is there a better option than Vonage?
Any links to the best deal out there?
TIA
I’ve had Vonage for a couple of months and it’s been great. Some of the things I like are:
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Phone quality is good. I have it set to medium, and most of the time it sounds just like a regular phone line.
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Caller ID. Before I had it, I didn’t see what the big deal was. Now that I have it, I love it.
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Call waiting/route to Voicemail. If I’m on the phone and get another call, I know it because of call waiting (and with caller id, I know who it is.) If I don’t feel like switching over, the new caller gets routed to the voicemail system and can leave a message.
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Email notification of messages. The emails can include the message as a .wav file. I have them forwarded to work so I listen to them right away.
The one bad thing about it is that it’s dependent on your broadband connection. Whereas a normal phone line hardly every goes out, broadband is not as reliable. That hasn’t been a problem for me since I also have a cellphone. One thing that Vonage also does is you can have your calls forwarded to another number (like your cellphone) if your connection is down, so the broadband interruptions don’t matter as much.
I’ve been very happy with Vonage. Some of the other services are not as robust (not as many features, no 911 support, etc), but they are cheaper too. You can see discussions about many VoIP companies on http://www.dslreports.com/faq/voip.
I’ve had Vonage for probably over six months now and I love it. I’m also on comcast and having vonage helps to offset the high cost of the broadband.
I’ve only had quality issues once and it was fix within hours.
Your internet connection makes or breaks the whole thing though. When that’s out, so is the phone. The nice thing is that it will automatically forward to a cell phone or whatever.
I’ve had no issues with using multiple computers plus the phone all at the same time.
You also have control through their website over every aspect of your service.
One more thing I like is that if you dial within your own area code you don’t have to include that area code when dialing a phone number. So you’re dialing 7 numbers instead of 10.
Another Vonage user checking in.
I’ve got DSL and I initially had it piggybacked to my landline. When I found out I could do DSL with no phone line I ditched the telco line and went with Vonage.
I’ve never looked back. I’ve got the $15.99 plan and my final bill ends up being $16.93/month. No startup fees, a free modem and a phone line that has (so far) escaped the exorbitant taxing that plagues landlines.
The quality is great - I’ve got it set to medium and on my cordless phone I can’t tell a difference between Vonage and a landline. Long distance is free and calls to my sister in London run me 3 cents/minute. Added bonus: the phone number you get is invisible to telemarketers. The only time my phone rings is when someone I know is calling (it’s like having an unlisted phone number already on the “Do not call” list wihtout doing anything).
Checking my voicemail while on a computer in some faraway city, having calls forwarded to whatever number I want…I’d never go back to a landline.
One other thing…when you start this Vonage service up, are you having someone refer you? They get a free month of service and so do you (or maybe two…I got two free months when my sister referred me). Someone should at least be getting a free month of service along with you!
Thanks everybody, that’s the final kick in the ass I was looking for.
Pilot141, I’d be glad to put you as a referrer. Email me at free_time (at) yahoo (dot) com.