Anybody use Vonage or other Internet Phone?

**eedmond** · October 8th, 2004, 10:41 AM

My family is buying a new house and with the added payment per month we need to cut costs. We currently are paying $40 a month for a landline. I have a cable modem and am looking at possible getting Vonage as our phone carrier. It is only $15 a month.

Anybody here use Vonage personally or a friend has it and you called them or something? Perhaps another internet phone company experience?

Thanks,
Eric

**Stalemate** · October 8th, 2004, 10:57 AM

I tested a Bell Internet Phone system for a month and loved it.

It was missing 911 call handling at the time though.

The added advantage of having 2 secondary numbers in other cities, allowing people to place local calls to me from hundreds of miles miles away, was great.

The quality was superb and better than what I get on my cell phone. No delays, chirps, pops or screeches at all.

Managing voicemail through an email client (sound files attached) was the utmost in geekyness.

**+Daemon+** · October 8th, 2004, 11:38 AM

im still thinkin about getting VOIP soon and vonage was what I was going for

**eedmond** · October 8th, 2004, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by a d e p t

I tested a Bell Internet Phone system for a month and loved it.

It was missing 911 call handling at the time though.

The added advantage of having 2 secondary numbers in other cities, allowing people to place local calls to me from hundreds of miles miles away, was great.

The quality was superb and better than what I get on my cell phone. No delays, chirps, pops or screeches at all.

Managing voicemail through an email client (sound files attached) was the utmost in geekyness.

I heard that the 911 thing is changed now.

http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=911

**ilovetheusers** · October 8th, 2004, 12:36 PM

I have read that Skype (www.skype.com) is free but I think you can only use it to speak to other skype members...

I have found that the most simple and cost effective thing to do is to buy a cell phone with a decent plan and not even have a land line. My .02

**hudsonsmith** · October 8th, 2004, 12:54 PM

We have a private VOIP at my company which runs between our offices over our network. The big issue is that the quality degrades signifcantly as network traffic increases, to the point where some calls have broken up completely. Also, sending or receiving faxes over the system fails more than half the time.

I keep a land line at home in order to have working phone service in the event of a power failure. Granted, cell service stinks at my house, but we have pole mounted power lines and its not unusual for storms to knock the lines out.

**WebHead** · October 8th, 2004, 12:56 PM

Vonage? Hmm,.. sounds cool. I would think about getting it if their name wasn't so retarded.

**Stalemate** · October 8th, 2004, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by eedmond

I heard that the 911 thing is changed now.

http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=911

As the system has not yet been released to the public yet, I can't say if Bell Canada will be doing the same thing.

From what I know, they were having difficulty figuring out a way to get the 911 operators to track down a physical location when the "phone router" could be picked up and used from *any* broadband connection.

It would still make an excellent 2nd line and long-distance calling station though.

**Radical Dreamer** · October 9th, 2004, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

We have a private VOIP at my company which runs between our offices over our network. The big issue is that the quality degrades signifcantly as network traffic increases, to the point where some calls have broken up completely. Also, sending or receiving faxes over the system fails more than half the time.

I keep a land line at home in order to have working phone service in the event of a power failure. Granted, cell service stinks at my house, but we have pole mounted power lines and its not unusual for storms to knock the lines out.

Your company needs to buy more bandwidth then.

The ISP I used to work at used VOIP for their call center and it sounded perfect no matter what time of the day it was, the key is partitioning your bandwidth so that enough is DEDICATED to the voip system

**hudsonsmith** · October 10th, 2004, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by Radical Dreamer

Your company needs to buy more bandwidth then.

The ISP I used to work at used VOIP for their call center and it sounded perfect no matter what time of the day it was, the key is partitioning your bandwidth so that enough is DEDICATED to the voip system

Yup. You'd think with the number of tickets I've opened on this they would have figured it out.

**firemonkey** · October 11th, 2004, 08:17 AM

A another nice thing about it is you can bring it with you if you travel and your phone will follow, to a hotel, relevtive, <work not recomended> so anywhere you go you can have you home fone.

**PuterGeekGirl** · October 11th, 2004, 08:28 AM

The cable company my hubby works for is launching it soon. We will be going to it for a couple reasons..

1. We will most likely get a good discount (internet is 5 a month and top of line cable is 9) so I'm guessing it will be a good discount.

2. His family is long distance so not having to pay that bill will kick @ss!!!

**joelen** · October 28th, 2004, 11:19 AM

With the 911 service, you have to tell vonage (or whoever) the physical location that you are setup in. So if i live at 123 Mystreet, I tell that to Vonage, and when i dial 911- the 911 system can know where i am. however, if i take my voip adapter on vacation and dial 911- the cops will show up at my house, and probably break down the door cause no one is answering it.

So just dont dial 911 from your VOIP when you are on the road

**gtiseb** · October 28th, 2004, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by Radical Dreamer

Your company needs to buy more bandwidth then.

The ISP I used to work at used VOIP for their call center and it sounded perfect no matter what time of the day it was, the key is partitioning your bandwidth so that enough is DEDICATED to the voip system

gotta agree with you on that one. We have VOIP phones from cisco here at my office, we're 2000 people and I never notice a single degredation all day long. Then again we have massive amounts of bandwith (all we do is remote serviceing calls). I just ordered a VOIP services from primus, I'm here in toronto alone while the rest of my family is back in ottawa until december. after that we'll keep the voip phone with the ottawa area code to make calling ottawa and getting calls from ottawa free.

as for skype, it's only free if you call another skype user and you need your pc to do it. Vonage and others actually give you a gateway to plug into your broadband that allows a regulare phone to work with it.

**DiR[ëctory]** · October 28th, 2004, 04:46 PM

I have Vonage right now....Time Warner launched there digital phone which was 40.00 a month....Vonage is Unlimited also for 24.99/month.

They sent me a linksys router for 60.00 which included the first months payment along with "setup" fees. it was easy to hook up and it worked immedietely. the only small problem I had was I was downloading alot of junk and was eating up a ton of bandwidth, my wife made a call and it was breaking up a little. that was 1 time and no other problems.

I would recommend this service, it is a great alternative to an expensive landline....