
Vonage Review
Read my review of Vonage Digital Voice
Learn More About Vonage's Money Saving Broadband Phone Service
I
have been a Vonage
customer for 7 years now. My experience
has been very good overall. Below is my review of the service.
I update it frequently to keep up with the new features and developments
with the service. I have found it to be an excellent
value and
a very good alternative to traditional phone sevice.
Vonage is a broadband phone service which can
save you quite a bit of money. When you get Vonage, you use
your high-speed internet connection to make telephone calls
with your regular telephone. Vonage sends you a little box
that you attach to your cable modem or
dsl connection, and
in turn you plug your telephone (or telephones) into that box.
At my house, with a little bit of wizardry, Vonage's dialtone
is connected to all of the phone jacks in my home.
Among its competitors offering Broadband telephone service,
Vonage is one of the most advanced and has the most subscibers
(now over two million people have Vonage phone service and
they have completed billions of phone calls!). Having said
that, if you are thinking of getting Vonage, there
are a few things you should know first:
1) Call quality will vary depending on your internet bandwidth,
which can fluxate. If you have a good broadband internet connection,
you won't have problems, but if you have a borderline connection,
possible problems can occur. Most cable and dsl connections
will work fine though.
2) You must have a cable modem or DSL to use this service.
Dial-up connections won't be able to provide the necessary
bandwidth. The service makes the most sense for people with
Cable modems or a DSL connection. If you have a cable modem
or DSL, odds are very good that you will have the speed (bandwidth)
to use this service. People with satelite or other kinds of
broadband connections seem to have varying degrees of luck
with this. Vonage has a money back guarantee, so if it doesn't
work properly for you, you only risk your time spent, just
be sure to save the original boxes.
3) Outgoing caller ID only has your telephone number,
not your name. On the other hand, you see the usual CallerID
details when someone calls you. Incoming CallerID is included
free with Vonage.
4) Most people can keep their existing telephone number. When
you sign up for the service, you can type in a telephone number
to transfer to Vonage. Their system will tell you if it is
possible for you to keep your number or not.
The great things are the flexibility and low costs involved
with this service. You'll enjoy great features such as being
able to pick a telephone number from almost anywhere in the
USA or Canada--you can even have numbers in multiple markets.
There is always a current list of available area codes on
the vonage website.
Other features included free are: an unlisted
telephone number, call waiting, callerID, call forwarding,
anonymous call blocking, do not disturb, 7-digit dialing (rather
than area code +number used in many markets), voicemail--including
the ability to recieve messages via email, repeat dial‡,
* 69, *67 (block callerID), call transfer† (very
cool), real-time billing and more.
Vonage recently added anoter
great new free feature called "simul ring". This allows you
to set it up so that when someone calls your Vonage telephone
number, a second number or even third number will ring at the
same time. This is great if you want to take calls from home,
at the office too. I like that they tend to add features every
few months...all for free. The coolest
part is that you can take your telephone number with you wherever
you are--you just need a broadband connection.
For $25/month you get all of the features above, UNLIMITED
national long distance (including unlimited calls to Puerto
Rico and Canada, France, UK, Ireland, Italy and Spain) and
unlimited regional long distance and local calls. There are
also international calling plans available. If you opt to pay
for an entire year in advance you get a discount plus unlimited
calling to 60 countries.
Recently, Vonage
added a "basic" plan for $17.99. All calls that you make, regional,
local or long distance, all count towards your 500 alloted
minues. So with that calling plan you'd pay about 3 cents per
minute after you used your 500 minutes of domestic calls. This
is a pretty good deal if you don't make that many calls. It
is very important to note that INCOMING calls do not count
toward your 500 minutes. Only outgoing calls (however calls
to voice mail, other Vonage customers and toll free numbers
are free too). Vonage is also offering a yearly plan..
Vonage has excellent International
Rates so if you're calling abroad you're covered. For instance, you
can call London, Germany and other parts of Europe for 2 cents
per minute, Hong Kong and Japan for 3 cents per minute, Moscow
for 9 cents/minute, parts of India for 12 cents/minute, and
South Korea for 6 cents/minute. They have also recently added
upgrades for calling internationally. For instance you can
pay an additional $6/month and have unlimited calling to most
phones in Europe. They have similar calling plans for the rest
of the world. In addition, as I stated earlier, with a pre-paid
plan you also get free international calls to over 60 countries.
If you are a small business owner, you should definitely think
about switching to Vonage. For $39.95/month you get all the
features mentioned above, with 1500 minutes/month. Plus, you
get a second line meant for faxing for free. That line includes
500 more outgoing minutes. (Incoming minutes on both lines
are unlimited and "free"). They also have a $49.95 plan that
includes unlimited calling.
All in all the Vonage DigitalVoice service is very good. I
am very happy I got rid of Verizon, the Baby Bell in my area.
Before I switched from Verizon to Vonage, I was paying about
$39/month just to get a dialtone, unlisted number, caller ID
and call waiting. I was paying approximately another $50/month
on "regional" calls. Regional calls are usually calls that
are long distance within your state or surrounding state area.
Both of Vonage's residential calling plans allow for free regional
calls. As I mentioned above, the international long distance
rates are also very competitive. In fact, I would say that
the only way to get cheaper international rates is to buy telephone
cards, which are, well, a bit of a pain. As you can tell, using
DigialVoice makes a huge difference on my monthly bill.
Vonage works very well so its no wonder that its America's
fastest growing phone company--I definitely recommend it. For
most people the biggest sticking point will be whether or not
they have the bandwidth to make it work. You should have about
90k of bandwidth available for a normal sounding telephone
call (most cable and dsl connections provide ALOT more bandwidth
than this!). If you do, people usually won't notice you're
not on a normal land line. Vonage has a feature where you can
change the sound quality level to conserve bandwidth, but it
definitely lowers the quality of the sound. If you don't know
how much bandwidth you have, you can use the test page that
Vonage has setup...it will tell you if you have the bandwidth
to support their service. Just follow the link at the end of
this article.
Who is this service right for? Well, anyone with a broadband
internet connection who wants to save money on their telephone
bills. If you have broadband internet, you should give it a
try. This is an ideal telephone service for college students.
The savings and the fact you can take your home telephone number
home with you on summer break make it a no-brainer. It is also
a good deal for a second phone line--especially their $17.99/month
plan (great if you have teenagers who get lots of calls!).
As I mentioned before, they allow you to pick a second telephone
number in another area code (or a 1-800 number with 100 free
incoming minutes) that will also ring to your phone. If you
have alot of relatives in another city in the USA, Canada,
London, England or Mexico City, this would be a great way to
save them money. The second telephone number is about $5/month
extra. The service could also be used abroad...if you had relatives
in another country they could use Vonage to get a local telephone
number in the US. Finally, I am very glad to tell you that
since I switched to Vonage, I haven't gotten a SINGLE telemarketing
call. The baby bell phone companies are happy to help telemarketers
reach you, and then charge you for their ineffective call intercept
solutions. Vonage DigitalVoice apparently is doing much more
to protect your privacy.
I take advantage of a new feature they've just added--a
second line for $9.99 per month. This could be used with
a fax machine or for the teenager's in your home. You get a
seperate phone number, and it uses the second phone port on
the router that is included with Vonage**--in effect you have
two completely seperate lines. This is different from the $5/month
option for a second phone number I mention above. With the
$5 option, you get a second phone number that rings to the
same telephone. With the $9.99 option, you get a seperate phone
number that actually utilizes a different telephone (or fax
machine).
There are three other relatively new features which were just
added for free. One of them is part of the voice mail service,
which is the ability to have your voice mail messages emailed
to you as WAV files. This is just a terrific way to get your
messages. I like it because when I get an important message,
I can save it "forever" as I would any other email. If you
don't like that option you can also pick up your voicemail
via the web or by dialing a telephone number. For a fee, you
can also have Vonage transcribe your voicemail messages to
text messages and email them to you. For a professional on
the go with a blackberry, this can be a useful service.
The other new
features is the ability to have two phone numbers ring at the
same time. For example you can setup vonage so that whenever
your home phone number rings, your cell phone will ring at
the same time. This is excellent because it means you never
ever miss calls. The recently added a free 311 and 511 service.
311 service basically connects you with your local city government
services phone number if there is any such thing in your area.
511 is to get local traffic reports. Finally they have added
local "access" numbers all over the USA and in a few other
countries, so that people who do not have Vonage can still
call Vonage customers for free, without having to dial long
distance.
Vonage is now testing other new features, such as their contact
manager. Vonage's contact manager will allow for some VERY
innovative features. For instance, you can "blast" a
voice mail message to 20 of your contacts. You typically see
this in larger organizations where an important message needs
to be sent to lots of people. For instance a school might use
a feature like this to call the parents of the students in
the 4th grade to tell them of an upcoming event. With this
feature, you can just record a message, select the contacts
who are to receive it and then all of them will receive a call
and hear your message. The contact manager also lets you conference
call with up to 5 people. There is also a free online fax sender.
These features raise the bar once again for what a consumer
can have access to without paying a fortune.
This month Vonage is also launching the Vonage Pro service,
which includes a softphone you can run on your computer. The
softphone is very advanced--it will even record telephone calls.
It contains all of your contacts and is chock full of useful
features. One thing I find very useful is the fact that you
can place a call on your home phone and using the Vonage Pro
softphone simulataneously. This means I can make phone calls
at work on my home phone number and don't have to worry if
another family member is on the phone at home. In other words,
its like having an extra line that you can use to make calls
from your computer.
Vonage also offers mobile phone software, that
lets you make international calls cheap! For instance they
now have a plan that offers unlimited international calls
for $24.99 a month. They give discounts if you have both the
mobile and home service. You simply install special software
on your windows mobile device or blackberry and you make your
calls over the internet from your phone (you need a data plan
to make this worthwhile!)
There is a 30 day, risk free trial
of Vonage (plus a free activation and 9.95/month for 3 months by using the offer below), so if you get it and don't like, you can get your money back.
If you have any questions about this review of Vonage, just
email me (I won't spam you, and I'll get back to you as soon
as I can): vonage@longmeadcrossing.com
If
you're going to try Vonage and would like a free activation
please put in your email address:
I will send you
a link to get a free month of Vonage.
** Vonage periodically changes the adaptor brand and version that they send out with their connection kit. The current adaptor
from Linksys is very nice and is a full broadband router with
3 ethernet ports. So if you were in need of a router, as a
sort of bonus, you get one when you sign up for Vonage. (If
you don't even know what a router is, don't worry, they make
it very easy to hook up and if you already have one, this one
will still behave just fine as an addition to your home or
office network.) They are now working on
"my vonage" a router with a troubleshooting LCD screen.
Review last updated on June 29, 2010 to
discuss the unlimited international calling on mobile phones
such as iphone and blackberry. Before that, I updated to discuss
Vonage Pro and the new contact management features. Prior to
that it was updated to reflect the new anonymous call block
feature. Before that this document was updated to reflect the
new V-Access numbers. Vonage Phone company's new LOWER priced
UNLIMITED CALL plan (dropped $5 to $24.99), that they now include
free calls to Puerto Rico and some European countries, and
that you no longer need to dial 1 before each phone call, plus
the addition of the 311 city information and 511 traffic information
service and the fact that they now have virtual numbers in
Mexico City and London. Vonage recently introduced a $6 upgrade
which gives unlimited calling throughout Europe. They also
now have other dial plans for calling Asia and South America.
Vonage now offers wiFi cordless phones. The wi-Fi cordless
phones will be a great offering for folks in offices, universities,
libraries etc, that offer free wiFi internet access. There
is also talk of Vonage Brand Cellular phones. Recently Vonage
announced that they now have over 2 million subscribers! Vonage
is now offering a USB Key to make it easier for business travelers
to login and make phone calls simply by plugging the key into
any computer.
‡ Repeat dial: When a number is busy,
the repeat dial feature, when activated, will continue to redial
until the call is completed. To activate repeat dial, dial 5
and hang up when you get a beep tone signal. Vonage will ring
you back when the number you are calling is available. You may
continue to make other calls in the interim.
† call transfer: Call transfer allows you to transfer calls seamlessly
to any other phone. If you are on an important call, just follow these simple
steps to transfer a call anywhere:
1) Press the flash button or switch hook on your telephone and dial #90
2) Dial the 11-digit telephone number
3) Then dial #
4) You will hear a dial tone
5) Hang up the phone let fonage take it from there! Check your vonage manual
for other great features like this.
Note: Vonage is pronounced "Vone-ej" not "fonage" with a french accent.
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Vonage Executive Summary
- Vonage uses your existing internet connection to let you
place telephone calls with a regular telephone.
- Telephone plans start at $17.99.
- For $24.99/month you get unlimited calls in the US and
Canada. Lots of terrific features (call waiting, caller ID,
voicemail, Do Not Disturb, call forwarding, call transfer,
call hunt, simulRing, ...)
-- plus get a free router.
- International calling plans available but the regular $24.99/month
Vonage phone plan includes free calls to some countries.
- No credit card required to get started.
- 30 Day money back guarantee.
- FREE MONTHS of phone service is available for new subscribers.
Save big on your small business phone with Vonage.


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