[Cadaver]

Does anyone have any experience with the Vonage VoIP service? How does it integrate with the Mac? Any issues using their services via Safari or Mail? Have you used the Vonage SoftPhone software for OS X?

I'm thinking about switching my phone service to Vonage's VoIP and dropping my POTS service. I have Verizon's unlimited package for $49.99/month. Same service via Vonage is $24.99, plus all the other cool Vonage services (secondary virtual phone #s, ring lists, forwarding, call blast, $9 fax line, etc). I've already got the cable broadband service, so it would save me $25 bucks a month.

Comments, good or bad, appreciated.

[Webscreamer]

I love it. Such amazing administrative tools. You can listen to your messages online, have it email you when you have a new message, and just works perfectly.

I hate SBC with a passion.

They give you a router that you just plug into your current one. So easy.

Do it!

[Link]

Yep, I have had a VERY good experience with vonage, though I don't have any of the extras, just usual phone service.. unfortunately the rt31p2 I have isn't reliable and crashes a lot, but that's due to a problem that hopefully by the end of the month the disattent forum tech on vonage-forum.com will take care of.

I like everything else though.

[hotani]

working out great for me. I think the client side software is PC only, but I do everything I need to with the webpage. Plus its nice to have a router now.

e-mail me if you want a referral - you'll get the 2nd month free.

[the_glassman]

I have Lingo and I love it. Pretty much the same thing I would imagine, but it's cheaper.

[screamingFit]

I had Vonage a couple of years ago and it was horrible! Disconnects, noisy, etc.

A couple of weeks ago, I desperately needed phone service on a late Sunday afternoon - my cell got shut off and I don't have POTS. What to do? Went to Best Buy and bought a Linksys wireless router with two built in phone jacks for use with Vonage. I am not kidding - I opened up the router, went to a web page, typed in the router's MAC, filled out some personal info, plugged in the new router and that's all it took. All in all, from taking the shrinkwrap off the box to getting VoIP - less than 5 minutes!

The service has been rock solid and I couldn't be happier with it. I don't know if my previous problem was from the company being new or that funky Motorola phone convertor they provided (which never worked right). The Vonage/Linksys hardware works really well - best of all, I got a new Wireless G router (which I needed anyway) with two phone line ports for $70!

[KeyLimePi]

I have Vonage and really like it, so when my girlfriend moved into a new appartment I convinced her to get it. It was so bad that she dropped it after a couple months. She's a pretty light web user so she never noticed how spotty her Internet connection was until she got VoIP. Vonage is great if you've got stong bandwidth.

[kikkoman]

I've had Vonage for a little more than a year. It has been reliable and cheaper than the local phone company.

[Webscreamer]

Sad part is, and most likely, it's not Vonage thats bad if you are having problems. Your ISP is having issues then.

[Josh Reid]

I've had Vonage for 7 months, and could not be happier with it. There were intermittent problems in the beginning where I had to reset the data box that you use, but it was never anything that was severe or didn't easily clear up.

These are the reasons why it's so great for me. I moved from Pittsburgh to NYC, switching my cell phone to a New York number. Anytime friends or family called me, it was a long distance call for them. However, with Vonage I was able to pick a Pittsburgh area code (412), so that it's a local call for anyone in the 412 area code. Also, I have it set up to forward to my cell phone at all times. However, it's not really a forwarding, as it is a dual-ringing. That means that whether I'm home or out, I can even be reached on my NYC cell phone thru a 412 number. I can answer all calls to the 412 # on either my home phone or cell phone, and all calls made to my 917 NY cell phone from NY people on the cell.

With the Vonage set-up, you pay no long distance, so I can call NY numbers from my 412 Vonage phone, and it's no different than calling a 412 number. I use the $14.99 plan, which includes 500 nationwide minutes. I find that I use it everday, but I've only gone over my minutes one month, and even then, my total was still less than if I had gone with the $24.99 unlimited plan.

I say give it a try. The solutions and extras the service provides are wonderful!

-Josh (And no, I am not related to or employed by Vonage.)

[dreilly1]

I have Vonage as a second line for when I work from home (I'm not ready to give up the POTS yet) and I have been generally happy with it. I only have one problem -- people on the other end of a call say that I don't come in loud enough sometimes. I don't think that's an ISP issue. I have a service call in to Vonage this week and if they resolve it in a timely fashion I might be inclined to dump the POTS....

Specifically, there are no platform issues because all their configuration is web-based. One feature that I love is that you can set up a "simultaneous ring" line -- so when people call your vonage number, that call can be directed at another phone number at the same time and whoever picks up first gets the call. Since I use the Vonage line mostly for work, I give co-workers the Vonage number, set it up to ring my work # at the same time, and it rings in both places. And if I'm not in either place, my work voice-mail picks up the call and all my work messages are in one place.

One other hint: for the best call quality, you should plug in the phone adaptor in between your cable/DSL modem and whatever router you use to share your internet connection. The phone adaptor will give priority to the phone packets whenever you are using the phone and the internet at the same time. I used to have occasional problems when my voice connection (especially outgoing) would get choppy, but putting my network in this configuration fixed it.

[bowwowman]

got it last week, luv it
no fuss, no muss!
5 mins from opening package to making online calls.......

luv saving $20/month over Ma Bell too
if thier softphone works even 1/2 as well, then it will be sweet also......

And there is both Mac OS X and Windblows versions available, so no worries there

[quote]One other hint: for the best call quality, you should plug in the phone adaptor in between your cable/DSL modem and whatever router you use to share your internet connection.[/qoute]

Huh ?.......

the adapter I got last week was a Lynksys combo 4-port broadband Router w/ 2 phone ports (model #RT31P2)

[dreilly1]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bowwowman:
got it last week, luv it
no fuss, no muss!
5 mins from opening package to making online calls.......

luv saving $20/month over Ma Bell too
if thier softphone works even 1/2 as well, then it will be sweet also......

And there is both Mac OS X and Windblows versions available, so no worries there

One other hint: for the best call quality, you should plug in the phone adaptor in between your cable/DSL modem and whatever router you use to share your internet connection.[/qoute]

Huh ?.......

the adapter I got last week was a Lynksys combo 4-port broadband Router w/ 2 phone ports (model #RT31P2)

Then, you're OK. You've got both boxes in one.

The reason you want to do this if you have separate boxes is that the Vonage adaptor will prioritize phone packets so that your connection doesn't drop out if someone starts to upload a big file through your broadband connection.

[dcmacdaddy]

My Mom is looking into this and I have been discouragin her but I might reconsider now. I have one question, though.

What so you guys do for life safety purposes (calling 911 in case of emergency) if Vonage goes down? Do you consider your mobile as backup or do some of you have land-lines for other reasons (home office/fax)?

Thanks!

[the_glassman]

Does Vonage charge for taxes? Lingo just recently started doing this and while it's not a whole lot, I went from paying a flat $19.95 a month for unlimited calling to North America and Western Europe to $23 a month. As far as I know taxes don't (yet) exist for VOIP providers.

[Josh Reid]

Yes, at least since August of last year, Vonage has charged a monthly FET Tax and Regulatory Recovery Fee. I have the $14.99 plan, and my charge has always been a minimum of $16.94.

[CMYKid]

hereya go--> http://vonage-forum.com/

If you're buying that "service" then odds are you'll need the site since they don't offer much in the way of assistance.

I just cancelled our Business-Class service after 6ish months because it was honestly the worst thing I've ever experienced. I should say that when it worked it was actually pretty great, but when it doesn't work you'd better have at least an hour+. In 15 calls to them I've not ever been on the phone for less than an hour, often an hour and a half, with three-fourths of that time simply waiting to talk to someone.

For the first 5 months of service it was impossible to log-in and listen to voicemail during the day. Their site simply timed out for hours. We could only get on at 2am. The techs answer was "yeah, it's because you have a lot of voicemails backed up." Aside from having nothing to do with the problem I thought OF COURSE we had a lot of voicemail you tard, we're using it for business (and paying accordingly).

We got two lines, one for the Softphone. The default voicemail access codes are suppposed to be 1234, they weren't. Can't reset em online, have to do it by phone. According to the rep it takes 24 hours to happen AND they email them to you only. They didn't. So, call again. This happened twice. First week of service was utterly useless since we couldnt check VM.

Even after having the codes changed (three calls later) we couldn't log in and listen to messages so I had to resort to having them emailed to me. Now, while other services we've used solely for VM have nice file sizes the Vonage attachments were multiple Megs. Thats a damn big mp3 for what should be no more than a mono, 8 bit, low sample rate recording.

Even then you still have to go in and delete the voicemails manually online, which of course you can't log in and do during the day.

Could never get the Softphone to work on my Powerbook or on the PCs here either. I've heard good things about it, just wasn't able to use it for anything other than listening, quality was great for that but nobody could ever hear me.

Then our v/m greeting got hacked. Of course we never call our own toll-free customer service # so for a weekish there was a recording saying we'd been shut down because we were a scam and that all customers should immediately cancel their bank accounts and credit cards. That cost us thousands (hundreds of, actually) and even better they don't keep any sort of logs so they couldnt even tell us when the most recent recording had been made let alone what number it came from. Since it was a toll-free number ringing in we would have been able to see the callers number even if they had dialed *67 and easily taken care of the culprit in person. Instead they weren't even interested in helping.

Oh, and they couldnt even tell us the code the VM access had been changed to so we had to have them reset it. See above paragraph, begin multiple phone call routine again.

Then they suspended our account. By this point we were forwarding all incoming calls directly to an outsourced CS provider so we didn't even wonder why we didn't hear it ringing, etc, we just got an email (days later) that said they'd suspended the account with no explanation or direct contact #. An hour on hold leter I finally talked to a guy who said that the fraud department had done it because we'd had a large uptick in minutes usage (an entire $60 worth, yeah, that'd break them). No **** dumbass, business was doing well, it's a BUSINESS PHONE. You don't just shut it off because its used a lot without calling first.

There was more, and that wasn't even really the worst, just what springs to mind at the moment. VoIP has really come a long way from the early days, the problem really is that some companies such as Vonage have grown SO much and so quickly but they've not expanded their infrastructure to match. Things like over-taxed systems leading to the inability to accomplish basic tasks such as logging in and checking messages, not even remotely acceptable telephone wait times, being passed between multiple ill-trained reps...these are all hallmarks of a company gaining market share far ahead of their ability to support it. Those companies rarely do well long-term.

When my call to cancel service took exactly 58 minutes, with 40 of that being on hold, it only reassured me that I was making the right decision. Another reassurance, none of the guys I talked to made a remote effort to keep me. ANY company with a serious commitment to the customer realizes that it churn is it's worst enemy, with it costing far more to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. They didn't even bother to ask if they could do anything to retain me. I love their new major national media blitz...if I waited on hold for an hour before what do you think the call times will be up to if it works?