Category: Let's talk
Hi, all!!
I know this has been discussed before, at least I think it has, but I don't know where. Anyway, my family's considering ditching our local phone company and going with Vonage. Anyone use it? Positive feedback? Negative feedback?
I've looked at the website, and it looks rather nice. I'd like feedback from people who use it, though.
John I use vonage here in the UK, I love it. Yes I have some occasional problems but they are mostly fixed by a reboot of the router, it does apparently make odd beeps and squeaks at people sometime, but it's a lot cheaper than what alternatives I have. I do have a back up line, but that's my choice. the only time I've had a problem really is when the internet goes down and I don't have it set to divert, but i've found ways to get around that when it's serious. I also love the fact that I have a vertual number over there in the US so that my friends there can call me free if they have long distance, as you could have here if you found it worthwhile. So on the whole I can only say posative things. any specific questions then be sure to shout.
I'm using optimum voice through cablevision right now, it's not vonage per say but it's the same thing. I've had very good luck with this. it's cheap and the sound quality is very good. Beats a landline no doubt and sounds much better than a cell phone. Now, if they could design it to where you could have the router in a cell phone of some sort that you could use on citywide broadband networks etc, that would be neat.
not sure about in the US, though I'm pretty certain, you can get a vonage phone that you can take anywhere and use so that you don't have to take th router with you. I've not got one but am thinking about it.
They have phones that can do that for vonage, skype, and other internet phone providers.
They can connect to any wi-fi connection in the world.
Don't know how good they are but it sounds interesting.
I have a friend who has used vonage in the US and they weren't happy with them, they were having problems with dropped calls and stuff.
And this was only a couple of months ago.
They also weren't happy with there customer service.
A slightly cheaper company you can look into is voip.com
They provide the same service as vonage but at a slightly lower cost.
I've used them for about six months and have not had any problems.
I don't think you can get international numbers with them though so it depends on what you want.
Another service you can look into is voice eclipse
They have lower sound quality, but it uses less bandwith, and they give you two lines for the price of one, which is 19 dollars.
That's also the price of the other service I mentioned.
Other than the slight lower sound quality which is still way bertter than a cell phone, they are a good service too.
The only reason I switched is because voip.com has a number in my area.
Aren't the vonage phones you can take anywhere called soft phones or something? I wish I'd had one while I was traveling in france and Spain last May.
sure you can take the soft phone anywhere, provided you have a laptop.
The soft phone is software that you can download to your pc.
The wi-fi phone is a phone that connects to any connection in the world.
the only time i get dropped calls is when my internet drops briefly, you're going to get that with any voip system. I also managed to change my tarrif tonight so i will have free calls to north america at no extra cost to what i was previously paying.
Are there any advantages to using vonage over skype?
better sound plus you can use a regular phone instead of being tied to the computer, though with all the stuff skype has now I think the only advantage might be the better quality.
I used Lingo for two years here in Hawaii and never had an issue, there was one down period I experienced, but overall it was great, not to mention at the time it was only 7.95 a month (14.00) after taxes, but I was able to call Europe, Mexico, Canada all
Pretty easy once they send you a box you can take it to a friends house and plug it into the internet there and no setup needed other than plugging in your phone and walla.
Here is a review I wrote for lingo back in the day. . .
http://www.dslreports.com/comment/2475/50862
Right now they have a pretty good deal - Simplify your life by paying your entire year of home phone service up front for only $195. That's just over $16 per month! Call the US and Canada, and get over 20 calling features. more>
http://lingo.com/
Shit, is he an agent for the company? lol
On the other hand, I used Comcast as a cable/phone provider here, and had horible horible luck with them. This was in Febuary 2006. They had dropped calls, times when the calls wouldn't go through, times when though the internet worked fine you'd have to reboot the modom to get the phone to work... In fact I had to reboot the modom at least once a day. That was soo annoying that I switched back to Verizon. Now I use my cell for most calls, have the cheapest plann for the house with Verizon, and have Skype and OneSuite.com in case I run out of minutes on my cell which I hardly ever do.
John