Vonage - Any experiences?

[SnakeCharmer]

25 bucks a month for unlimited calling/long distance seems like an absolute steal to me.  Granted, most of our LD calls are made from cellular anyway, the land line is nothing more than a convenience.  But hell, it would drop our phone bill a 100 bucks a month.

So, any experience with it good or bad?  Hows the call quality?  How big of a drain is it of your broadband?  I have 8.0 MB cable, FWIW.

[WayAbvPar]

How the hell do you spend $100 on long distance a month? I talk to everyone I know on my cell phone any time I feel the urge and I pay about $50 after taxes- my plan is nationwide, so I can call to and from anywhere in the US for the most part. Do you call internationally a lot or something?

[Furiously]

25 bucks a month for unlimited calling/long distance seems like an absolute steal to me.  Granted, most of our LD calls are made from cellular anyway, the land line is nothing more than a convenience.  But hell, it would drop our phone bill a 100 bucks a month.

So, any experience with it good or bad?  Hows the call quality?  How big of a drain is it of your broadband?  I have 8.0 MB cable, FWIW.

Odd - I just signed up for Skype back when it was $15 a year for unlimited outgoing calls. Who needs a phone number.

[CmdrSlack]

I have Vonage and the service is fine, although I'm currently bitching at them for some sudden (after a few years of service) rate hike to $49.99/mo for my phone and fax lines.

[Chimpy]

I had a horrible experience with them as they refused to send me a VOIP adapter that was not packaged into a linksys router/firewall, which would not work if it was behind another router/firewall (which the guys I moved in already had setup as they worked from home). Plus their customer service was horrible, I would call and wade through the horrible menus, be on hold for 20 minutes on my cell phone, only to have it "ring" like it was going through to a desk and have a computer voice tell me "we are sorry, we cannot complete your call, please call our cutomer service line at 888-whateverthefucknumberIhadjustcalled." and then promptly hang up on me.

[schild]

I absolutely HATE people who call GoDaddy through Vonage. Motherfucking echo and static city.

Also, most of them sound like they work for Microsoft Tech Support.

International Calling has never been easier my ass.

Which is funny, when I called Shavnir on Skype, he said it sounded mostly fine.

[Strazos]

Someone get Bhodi in here. 

[SnakeCharmer]

How the hell do you spend $100 on long distance a month? I talk to everyone I know on my cell phone any time I feel the urge and I pay about $50 after taxes- my plan is nationwide, so I can call to and from anywhere in the US for the most part. Do you call internationally a lot or something?

My total phone bill (local, ld, caller id, etc) averages 125.00 or so a month, not my LD only.

Generally, I make my international calls on my cellular since they are business related and my signal is just about perfect from home.

[Logain]

I had vonage and it was complete shit. Always cutting out and calls wouldn't go through to the house. I called their customer service to try and get it fixed multiple times over a several month span; they never did anything. I cancelled the service and switched to Time Warner. My phones work now :)

Three months later, however, I realize that Vonage is still billing me. I call them up and they claim to have no record of me cancelling the account, and the only way to get a refund for the service I obviously have not used is to switch back to Vonage so they can give me a 2-month credit.

[MrHat]

I've had Vonage for nearly 2 years.  But I'm an exception.  I only pay like $6/mo to have the line and then pay per call since I only use it for international calling.  It works great in that respect, clearer than landlines/cellphones that's for sure.

[bhodi]

Vonage really seems to be a love it or hate it sort of thing. Because it's completely based on your internet connection, there can be some real issues (that ultimately get blamed on Vonage) that are completely out of their control.

I personally love it, but that is because I love my job and they do pay my bills :)

[Viin]

Vonage works fine for me, *and* the Linksys VOIP thingy works great behind my router.

I have had problems on random occasions (but I donno if it was Comcast acting up or Vonage), but usually with not getting a dial tone after hanging up from a call - fixes itself in a couple of seconds.

However, I do believe Vonage is not allowed to sign up any new customers right now due to some lawsuit - but maybe that's passed already?

[bhodi]

They can sign new customers, and they gave opening arguments in federal court today for the appeal.

[Hayduke]

I had it for awhile, and it worked great for me (sound quality, reliability).  Didn't notice anything like it slowing down my net access.  I was also using DSL at the time.  Ultimately though I got rid of it just to go purely cellular.

[OcellotJenkins]

The commercials make me want to stab myself in the face.

[UD_Delt]

We've been on Vonage for about 2 years now and i have no complaints. We do the 500 minutes a month plan for $14.99 which includes free minutes after 9:00 (7 days a week). Between that and cell phones we have no problem with minutes.

As far as service I have no complaints. Never had an issue specificaly with vonage that wasn't actually due to my ISP. I also can't remember anyone complaining about the call quality and had no setup issues and I also use a physical router/firewall. But I keep the vonage router outside the firewall.

Incoming Line -> Cable Modem -> Vonage Router -> Router/Firewall -> PC's.

If someone wants to find a way to hack into my Vonage hardware then more power to them as they listen to my wife talk to my mother-in-law about god knows what...

[Lantyssa]

I had a horrible experience with them as they refused to send me a VOIP adapter that was not packaged into a linksys router/firewall, which would not work if it was behind another router/firewall (which the guys I moved in already had setup as they worked from home).

I had no problem putting their router behind my own. (Incoming Line -> Cable Modem -> Router/Firewall -> Vonage Router + PC's)  I can put PCs behind the Vonage router, but don't want the extra latency or network hassles and have sufficent ports on the main one.

The quality is fine as long as my cable is up.  When I have network trouble I have Vonage trouble, which is rare and no big deal since I hate phones anyways, but then incoming calls just forward to my cell.  Bit Torrent also makes it flake.  My old roommate couldn't grasp how much traffic an unregulated client generates even if it isn't downloading exceptionally fast.

Like UD_Delt I've been on the 500 minute plan for two or three years and am happy.  We also use a few Vonage lines at my non-profits' office and we've been happy with them there.

[Chimpy]

Mine would not work, but it may have actually been a bad VOIP thing too, as I could never get it to work at all.

Plus when they told me after the fact that I could not take my old numbe because I had not left it connected at my old apartment for 4 weeks after my vonage order (I ordered it a week before I moved and no one told me anything about that) they could not grab the number because it was "no longer active" I was pissed at them already.

Their lack of decent customer service, and the fact that they would not send me the VOIP adapter they told me they were sending when I ordered (specifically asked for a stand alone one, was told that would be no problem) I was done with bothering with them as I don't really talk on the phone that much, and my cell phone got good reception in that apartment.

[vex]

I've had Vonage for about a year and am completely happy with them as well.   This is on Verizon FIOS.  I didn't get the router but instead got the VTech base and two phones.  Features like SimulRing and web configuration are really nice.

I agree with Bhodi on it being dependent on your internet connection and unfortunately it's one of those things that you won't know until you try.  Finding someone in your area using your same ISP on Vonage would probably give you a good idea though.

V

[Phildo]

My fat, obnoxious, Star Trek loving computer teacher let slip that he uses Vonage the other day.  He's very much Comic Book Guy.  Take it how you will.

[schild]

My fat, obnoxious, Star Trek loving computer teacher let slip that he uses Vonage the other day.  He's very much Comic Book Guy.  Take it how you will.

Worst. Teacher. Ever.

[SnakeCharmer]

So...

50 percent = HATE THEM DIE MOTHERFUCKERS DIE IN A VAT OF FIREY PISS AND ROT IN ELEVATOR MUSIC HELL!!!!
50 percent = No problem.  They do right by me.

Then there's the lawsuit thing...

What was that about?

[bhodi]

If you want details, you can hit this, which has a well-known liberal Vonage bias

[Pococurante]

Odd - I just signed up for Skype back when it was $15 a year for unlimited outgoing calls. Who needs a phone number.

Power goes out.  Local cell tower is overwhelmed.

911 what?

VOIP is a supplement at this time.  Probably always will be. Landlines can power the handset as long as one has a non-cordless around.  Here in the coastal US there is no other intelligent option.  Europe should be taking this into consideration since it seems to think Putin is a reliable energy czar, they apparently never having read his doctoral thesis... :P

[Trippy]

Odd - I just signed up for Skype back when it was $15 a year for unlimited outgoing calls. Who needs a phone number.

Power goes out.  Local cell tower is overwhelmed.

911 what?

POTs can get overwhelmed as well as people discovered during the last two major earthquakes in California.

[UD_Delt]

Odd - I just signed up for Skype back when it was $15 a year for unlimited outgoing calls. Who needs a phone number.

Power goes out.  Local cell tower is overwhelmed.

911 what?

VOIP is a supplement at this time.  Probably always will be. Landlines can power the handset as long as one has a non-cordless around.  Here in the coastal US there is no other intelligent option.  Europe should be taking this into consideration since it seems to think Putin is a reliable energy czar, they apparently never having read his doctoral thesis... :P

Don't landlines work for 911 regardless of whether or not you have service? I could totally be making it up but I thought it was true for some type of phone that 911 would always work.

[Trippy]

Don't landlines work for 911 regardless of whether or not you have service? I could totally be making it up but I thought it was true for some type of phone that 911 would always work.

Assuming you can get a dial tone. For cell phones 911 always works as long as you can connect even if you don't have service anymore.

[JWIV]

The only problem I ever had with Vonage was the occasional issue in which I'd get a false voice mail notifier on my phone.  Otherwise, it worked great.    T

[bhodi]

During 9/11, the only communications device that was working here was the internet.