Dear Friends,
I am leaving in the morning (Tuesday) on a trip and so I'm posting this
now. I won't be here to receive any further e-mail about Vonage. Thanks
to everyone who responded. Quite a mixed bag!!
Toni
PRO
We have used Vonage for the past two years and are happy with the
service. Our only problems have been related to the cable company - for
some reason the squirrels like to chew on the cable line and chew threw the
data side not the tv side of the cable. UGH - we have had the wire replaced
twice!
some advantages - you can check your voicemail online from anywhere
***
We subscribed to Vonage just about a week ago, so our experience is
limited, but the equipment came promptly, was easy to set up, (once I
followed the correct set-up directions) and the phones have been working
fine. I use a multi-phone wireless set, with the base plugged into the
Vonage adapter and all of the extensions work well. My broadband
connection is wireless--sort of like a satellite connection except that the
other end is not on a satellite, but on a tall building in downtown
Chicago. It comes wirelessly to my house, then is wired into their
router. I have a Netgear wireless router for my home computers and all
play together nicely. We did not drop our land line yet and will probably
not do so--I'm just old fashioned I guess and like one phone that does not
depend on house current to run, but my son keeps telling me that my cell
phone could be that backup and I should drop the land line if the Vonage
works as well as it seems. Don't know yet...
***
My friends who are newlyweds and first time home and phone owners love it.
It is internet based. My only hesitation is it doesn't work if the power
goes out.
I will probably switch in a month or two, though. AT&T is a mess.
***
I've used Vonage for the past 2 years. I have had no issues and have been
very pleased with the service. Every once in a while I may lose service
due to my internet being down, but I have a cell phone anyway so it hasn't
bothered me. I can put up with this type of disruption since the price is
so affordable.
***
LOVE IT--love getting voice mail thru email at work--- of coruse lvoe the price
one disadvantage -- cable cut by workmen -- no phone, no cable TV, no
computer-- I called it INSTANT AMISH -- like some Amish -- we did use cell
phones
NOT hard to set up it is just "another box" for wires to go thru
***
It has been great except when we have power outages that knock out our
service and the fact I have a Wilkes Barre PA number which is about 60
miles away. My wife likes the ability to call her mother in England for
free, and so far the sound quality is pretty decent.
CON
I tried Vonnage, but found the sound quality to be very poor.
I've since switched to my internet provider optimum on line and love them.
***
Please let me know if you have had any responses to this.
I ordered it and tried to set it up on my own...not as easy
As they said...haven't called in tech support yet...then my computer
Crashed...coincidence?
I would really like to hear from others to see what their experiences
Are...hoping mine are just freaks of nature
***
My parents had it but switched to phone service through their cable
provider. They live in a rural area of upstate NY so I'm not sure if that
affected their service but the cable provider said they had a strong signal
so that seems to rule out the cable lines. We joked that it cost half the
price of other digital phones because it only worked half the time. Most
times you had to dial a number 2 or 3 times before an outbound call would
start ringing and connect. They stuck with is for quite a while because
they couldn't change providers without changing their phone number until
recently. I'd make sure that you could switch providers and keep you phone
number (assuming that's important to you) before trying Vonage. That way
you could switch if need be.
***
I was also considering vonage. Then I read (somewhere) that there is a
$1,000,000 lawsuit filed against them for their service/lack of.
I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say....and how much the
service really costs after the initial trial period.
***
I contacted Vonage to ask some questions and was met with a quite snotty
person on the other end of the line. First of all they were not anxious to
just answer questions until they had my name, phone number, address,
etc. I only gave them my name and said that I only wanted to ask some
questions. I guess that might have thrown them off their script. Second,
they proceeded to tell me that it wasn't a Vonage problem that I couldn't
keep my own phone number. What I was able to find out was, that in spite
of their advertising that you can keep your own phone number, my number
"does not offer portability" (which I learned when I started the process of
filling in information on their website), so I would have to go with
another new number, which I just don't feel like doing right now.
I live in a very rural area of California, so I don't know if it's my
particular land line phone service that doesn't allow this "portability"
(although it's a major phone company) or what.
My own feeling on this right now is that perhaps it's early enough in the
Internet phone services that they don't have all the bugs worked
out. Maybe in large urban areas it's all taken care of, but for us "hicks"
that's not the case, apparently.
***
Had it at home for two months.....stupid service. Gave us a telephone
number in Boca Raton, Fla...we live in Bradenton FLA....4-5 hours away.
No numbers avail for our area, but did not tell us this. My mother in
law had to call us long distance, even though she lives 8 blocks
away....which was the only benefit to the situation! Ha.
The help line is based in India, no operator understood our
request...hung up on dozen times in a 9 day period. Eventually got
someone in NJ to help us. Dropped the service within two months.
Caution, if you have a security alarm system, most likely will not
support digital phone service. Our ADT did not, thus wanted us to buy
their cellphone service.
What a fiasco
***
MIXED
We switched to Vonage about a year ago for two reasons. One was that
squirrels kept eating the phone wires outside and the phone company kept
trying to patch them rather than replace them (they are over 50 years old)
and so we were losing phone service every time it rained, which is a lot in
upstate NY. The other reason is three kids in different states or
countries and it was less expensive than any other phone system. My
daughter who is home from college this summer is thrilled that we can call
Spain now with no more charge than calling across the street. She has a
college friend in Spain this summer. Now if Brazil were added to that
calling list, she would be in heaven! In the meantime, she is stuck with
Instant messaging and e-mail. My how times have changed from paper and
pen of my college days.
Problems: If the power goes out, the computer is off, so we have not
phone service.
Sometimes the connection is a bit scratchy, but that has improved
greatly over the year. Most of the time it seems scratchy is when I am
talking to someone on their cell phone.
So, you might have guessed, we like Vonage and plan to keep using it.
***
We have used Vonage for a couple of years now. We started as just a test
and my husband got us a good price years ago through his employer. I must
say that we don't use it as our "primary" service. It is "line 2". We make
all of our long distance calls on it. Since we began my father and my
brother (another state) have signed up, too. My father (age 83) loves it.
He can now keep in touch with people he hasn't spoken with in decades
(literally!) Of course, he could have before, but didn't because he was
very conscious of the cost. I worry about his not having another line in
case of an emergency, but he isn't concerned. My brother is self-employed
and makes many long distance phone calls, so it saves him big bucks. He was
disappointed that he couldn't transfer his business phone number to
Vonage--he had the number for a long time and as it was connected with his
business he didn't feel he should change numbers. So, he kept his primary
number and uses Vonage for long distance out call, too. All of our families
live out of state and I love that I feel free to just pick up line 2 and
dial anyone anytime. It makes my family and friends seem closer. It
is kind of like email, but much much better.
Quality? Well, sometimes it sounds a little hollow or as though these is
an echo. Often if I just redial it gets better. I still am not sure that I
would vote to get rid of "line 1", but I really like having Vonage for
"line 2"!
***
If you don't expect to post a hit, I'd appreciate a copy of the responses
you get to this question. I've been thinking about switching to Vonage but
I'm a little concerned about what happens if the cable goes out or my
computer crashes. I'd like some input from others who are already using it.
***
I've had it for 5 months. The service ahs been great, just
had one problem with the router a couple of weeks ago and it
took reconfiguring the paths of all the equipment but it
took about 45 mins on the cell phone to get it straightened
out. The tech guy was great (was American). The downside is
that you only have one line for the phone. I bought one of
those phone systems with 2 extentions because my place is
small enough, you can get up to a 4 phone system. I'm really
pleased with it so far but we haven't had any hurricanes
yet! LOL I set it up to forward to my cell phone if the
cable goes out, too.
Toni Buzzeo, MA, MLIS <mailto:tonibuzzeo@tonibuzzeo.com>
Maine Library Media Specialist of the Year Emerita
Maine Association of School Libraries Board Member
Buxton, ME 04093
http://www.tonibuzzeo.com
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