[RobOnTheCape]

After reading all the input about Vonage it seems to be worthwhile. However, I called Vonage and the kid on the other end didn't seem to know what's up. Just mentioned quite a few times "sign up now and I can give you a free month, equipment, and no taxes".

What I need is a single line for the house, but also fax capability. Also, we have four places we'd like to have phones, and a cable runs to each. What do I need at each cable/room to install a phone and does radio shack sells these?

On the fax issue - How does it work? A second number or auto-detect or what? I have to be able to know a fax comes through without my being here.

Thanks in advance

[Mastrap]

Check the faqs on vonage.com.

Both your questions are answered there in detail.
In a nutshell:

Multiple phones are no problem, they all go into the Vonage router.
You'll get a separate fax line.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by RobOnTheCape:
On the fax issue - How does it work? A second number or auto-detect or what? I have to be able to know a fax comes through without my being here.

To use a fax and/or modem, you need a dedicated fax number at extra cost. You CAN NOT use a voice line for faxes, even outgoing.

-t

[Scifience]

You can connect the Vonage device to any phone jack in your house and all the other jacks will be able to use the Vonage line just fine (make sure your regular phone service/electricity to the jacks is disconnect first).

Vonage offers a dedicated fax line with 500 minutes of service for $9.95 a month. Their regular voice lines have not been known to work well with faxing, though some have experienced luck with the *99 prefix on the Motorola ATAs.

If you're interested in signing up, PM me for a referral please.

[the_glassman]

Check out Lingo as well.
www.lingo.com/
They offer a larger calling area at a cheaper price. I haven't had a single problem in the 6 months or so I've been using them.

[Mastrap]

PS: Vonage has, in my personal experience, the worst customer service I have ever encountered. I swear one support mail to me was written by somebody who either didn't speak any English at all or was just plain illiterate. I had to complain twice before I got an answer to my question that made actual sense.

This is what I got from Vonage, asking if I could get service in Canada billed to a UK company credit card:

we have website for different parts of the world and you can only use
that card on those specified site
--
Thank you for continuing to choose Vonage as your digital phone
service.


Please do not hesitate to contact us with any further questions you
may
have.

[RobOnTheCape]

That plugging into any phone jack, then all will be usable is key. So bottom line is that for about $35 a month I get the unlimited service (and bad customer service) and a dedicated fax line. Not a bad deal since the alternative is our current provider, Verizon, at about $100 a month.

Thanks.

[CMYKid]

from my reply to the other thread:

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?

[RobOnTheCape]

The service didn't work for you, that's quite obvious. So why does it work great for so many? Usually people tend to complain more than give kudos, but it seems that the general consensus is that Vonage (customer service aside) works pretty well, and that it does save quite a bit of money.

So why the difference. Is it because they can't deliver on the "business" package? Is it by area? ISP provider? I'm wondering if anyone out there is from Cape Cod/southeastern Mass who uses Vonage could tell their opinion of the overall package. I use Comcast and they claim to have upped the speed the other day considerably so that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks again

[CMYKid]

yeah, I of course wondered the same. Speed wasn't a problem, we were on a 6 megabit line that was pretty solid. Truthfully tho, the basics of telephony worked just fine. Sometimes had to hook flash to finally get a dial tone, but as far as talking, dialing, etc there was no problem. Of course there was the softphone issue, but who knows, lots of factors could have contributed to that.

The biggest problems were infrastructure related, i.e. hours on hold, voicemail access or lack of, that sort of thing.

Also, if I'd really gotten the impression that they were concerned and genuinely interested in figuring out the REASONS for the various problems in addition to fixing each occurrence then I might've been more open to keeping the service.

[Link]

We've got a 3/512 here, no bandwidth problems whatsoever.. our only qualms have been with some 800 numbers and service lines cutting off, and the RT31P2 being a shoddily programmed box.

Hopefully the problem with the router has been fixed as tonight after waiting an hour on the phone they sent down a firmware update and it went down pretty well, the 800 number stuff we discussed as well, I must add the rep on the phone was VERY nice.. anyway, that he said he'd be looking into + hopefully getting fixed (sounded like a network relation fluke).. some 800 numbers would ring and ring and ring..

The last issue was also probably a firmware on the box thing -- every now and then incoming calls (I'd try this from my cellphone) -- would ring once for the person calling (even if ringing constantly from the vonage line, and when I (or my mother picked up) -- you'd hear them, but they couldn't hear you.. that sorta thing..

The other irritating thing about the rt31p2 was with the 1.26 firmware it kept dropping out almost daily.. a real pain in the butt if you run stuff!