My Vonage Story

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A few months ago we switched at home to Vonage VOIP, and we’re loving it. Even without dumping our phone line, we’re still saving money, over $250 a year before we even make a call!

Why We Switched
Our local phone service and DSL is provided by Verizon, and long distance was provided by AT&T. What got me initially looking at VOIP was AT&T telling me they were raising the monthly long distance fee by a dollar. Then I hear that Verizon were going to increase their charges too, so I took a closer look at the phone bills. Full details are later on, but before we even make any calls, we save $23.29 per month! Once we start calling the UK, we save 9c/min over the old way. If we use less than 500 minutes per month within the US/Canada, we don’t pay anything extra for other calls.

Unlike many VOIP customers, I did not cut our land line entirely. I needed to leave it because our DSL requires it, plus our alarm system and our HDTivo would require modifications. This also allowed us to try VOIP out without changing over our phone number to the new system, to reduce the risk.

Setup
Installation was hell: we ordered direct from Vonage and they sent a free Linksys RT31P2 box. The default IP address for this box was 192.168. 15.1, which meant it was invisible on our home network (which uses 192.168.1.x addressing). I’ll spare you the details, but it took many frustrating hours, and I do have a reasonable understanding of TCP/IP. If you don’t have a home network, but just plug your PC into your modem/cable box then I think everything will work out-of-the-box.

Anyway once it was installed, the box contacted Vonage and set itself up – I think it upgrades its own firmware as well at this point. I plugged a phone into the box and bam – I was in business. My original idea was to wire the Vonage phone line into the line 2 wiring in my house, but when I popped open a phone jack I discovered I didn’t have any line 2 wiring at all! Instead I connected the Vonage box as Line 1 to my cordless base-station, and the old phone line as Line 2. The house wiring was unchanged, so the alarm and the TiVo stay happy.

If you can dump your landline, then not only will you save more money ($20 in my case), but you can switch your old number onto your Vonage line. As I said, this wasn’t an option for me, instead I changed the outgoing message on the landline’s voicemail to tell everyone to use the new number: I left this going for a couple of months before canceling most of my landline features.

In Use
We can’t detect any difference in use with Vonage vs the landline. Our DSL is pretty slow (256k/1.5M, minimum is 90kbps up) but this hasn’t impacted the call quality that we can tell. When you call out on the Vonage line, callers with caller ID will see your number, but they won’t see your name, and there is nothing you can do about it: it’s a weird design feature I guess. Feature-wise you get everything your phone company has the cheek to charge you extra for: caller ID, voicemail, call waiting etc. You also get new features, like checking your voicemail via their web site, and have the option of additional numbers and lines for fax, for example. If you get another number you can get one in a different area code, or even a different county: I could get a UK number for example which would make it very cheap for my relatives to call me, as it wouldn’t be an international call for them. (I chose not to as the volume isn’t worth it for us).

Issues
Apart from the hellish install, we haven’t had any problems. We had one day when we couldn't retrieve our voicemail via the phone, so we listened to it via the web site instead. Billing is electronic and automatic (via a credit card) which is very convenient. If you search around, there are issues with TiVos that cannot use the internet (such as my HDTiVo) and alarms may need modification: by keeping the landline I avoided those. There is a lot of debate about 911 issues over VOIP: it doesn’t effect us because we still have the landline, plus two cellphones we can use to dial 911 if the Vonage one can’t handle it (or the power or DSL is down).

How We Save $23.29 Every Month
Before
Verizon: Local package $25.95 + Interstate subscriber line $6.50 + tax $4.97 + voicemail $6.95 = $44.37
AT&T: One Rate Off Peak II $4.95 + International plan $3.00 + taxes $7.47 = $15.42
Total before: $59.79
Includes unlimited local calls, UK for 13c/min, long distance for more than that!

After
Verizon: Line + basic plan $9.68 + Interstate subscribe line $6.50 + taxes $3.31 = $19.49
Vonage: $14.99 + $2.02 taxes = $17.01
Total after: $36.50
Includes 500 mins US/Canada calling per month, which is plenty for us (the $25 plan allows unlimited calling). We can call the UK for 2c/min. TiVo using the landline for local calls is 1.5c/min.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 04, 2005
    "We had one day when we retrieve "

    I think you want "couldn't" in there.

    I've thought about doing this, but I have already canceled my long-distance, so the $15.42 that you list I don't have. I hardly make any long distance calls, and when I need to, I use the cell.
  • Anonymous
    August 24, 2005
    Turns out in order to cancel long-distance, you have to tell your Local company as well as your LD company. Verizon charged me $8 to remove my LD, but its a one-off charge, and AT&T should stop billing me for "not-LD" service now.
  • Anonymous
    August 29, 2005
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  • Anonymous
    August 29, 2005
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  • Anonymous
    March 31, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    April 30, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2006
    Well its been nine months, and we are still very happy Vonage customers. The only issue we ever have is sometimes the New Message light comes on when there are no new messeages.

    I have never had to reboot the router. It is probably the only piece of network hardware I have that I can say that about.

    Maybe at least some of these issues are due to the quality of others' DSL/cable lines? Verizon may charge too much for their phone service, but their data service has been very good to us.
  • Anonymous
    May 04, 2006
    I just got vonage and I do not like the sound quality I called from CA to VA and am not happy with how it sounded. ATT has unlimited long distance calling for 15 bucks. I need to call and cancell vonage.
  • Anonymous
    June 15, 2006
    Why would anyone ever pay for voicemail?  Get an answering machine!  :)
  • Anonymous
    June 19, 2006
    My experience with Vonage has been horrible and their customer service is lousy! I was on the phone with 2 different tech reps for nearly an hour each time trying to get the system installed and working. Both knew it was not working.  A third rep called and promised she'd call back, but never did.  I contacted Vonage repeatedly asking for help, with no response.  Then they send an email saying they successfully charged my credit card!  I promptly responded requesting they reverse the charges and troubleshoot the system and get it working.  No response from Vonage.  I contact them 3 more times, asking how to return the unit. They tell me to call their Customer Care phone number, which I tried on two different occasions.  Finally, after being on hold for 55 minutes and transferred to 4 different departments, I'm told I cannot return the unit because it is past the 30 days and they are CHARGING ME nearly $119 to cancel the service - which I never had in the first place!!!  The account management rep admitted that she hears from "many upset customers every day" - duh . . . big red flag!!!! I called their corporate office and had to leave yet another message and someone will supposedly call me back within 4 business hours!  Ha!  We'll see!  Vonage is the biggest rip off currently out there!
  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2006
    People need to read the term of agreement, before they make their decision, to go Voip.. The ones that don't, are the ones that scream the loudest..
  • Anonymous
    July 13, 2006
    ...it's the perfect time to take an advantage of a company in trouble. Just look at the discounts they are making to attract more customers http://bulgle.com/L/L/1vng.php
    It's insane...
  • Anonymous
    July 19, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    July 26, 2006
    I also have Vonage and am sorry I ever tried it. I have nothing but disconnected calls and large gaps in transmission. I can't imagine how they intend to stay in business with that level of service. Mine too, started out OK, but soon changed to just terrible service. I would not recommend them to my worst enemy.
  • Anonymous
    July 28, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2006
    I have been in business for 47 years. Of all the people and companies we've dealt with Vonage is the worst!  I have been trying to cancel their service for 8 months and all they do is keep charging my credit card. sofar $550. !!!!  10 days into this experience they sent me a confirmation my service was canceled. It has been a nitemere since.
  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    November 21, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    December 10, 2006
    Vontage has work  3 week out of the past four months.The thing that got me was they blamed my internet provider COMCAST.  I paid to have Comcast come to my home and run tests. I purchased a new modem and a new router at the suggestion of Vontage. People calling can not hear me till after 30 seconds call connects. When I place a call it never rings on the other end.I have placed about 30 calles into vontage in 4 months and many hours of my time.I have done everything they asked me to do.As of right now I still have the above problems.The last call I made to Vontage the Sr. Service told me they could not do anything more and it was Comcasts fault.  I am switching back to my old carrier. It is going to take me about more 2 weeks of Vontage till my phone number gets ported back.I still think the idea of VOIP is good, but there are still too many problems.  
  • Anonymous
    December 27, 2006
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