Vonage Telephone Service, 25.99 a month instead of $60+, save lots of $$$! Edit: people reporting their experiences

[MazdaMP]

vonage Digital Voice (http://www.vonage.com)is basically a telephone line for your broadband connection. They give you a device, the CISCO ATA 186, which you use to connect to your broadband connection, and you plug a regular phone in the ATA 186, and you're pretty much good to go.

You get to choose the area code of your phone line (The highly coveted NY 212 area code is available, as is the Chicago downtown 312 areacode), and all your incoming calls are free.

As for your outgoing calls, they currently offer three rate plans. They offer 2 different plans, one for $39.99 with UNLIMITED long distance and local calls and one for $25.99 with unlimited local calls and 500 Long distance minutes. There are no fixed term contracts, you can quit at anytime. (and I heard from people that they kept the Cisco :-D)

They offer all the standard features you expect from a regular phone line including caller id, call forwarding, call waiting, voice mail, caller id blocking and three way calling.

The current promotion that they are running is that if a current vonage users refers you to sign up for the service, you will get a $40 credit to be applied to subsequent bills, as does the friend who referred you.

So, if you sign-up for the vonage 500 long distance minutes plan, for the first month you are charged $25.99 (monthly fee), $29.99 activation fee and $9.95 shipping. You get the CISCO ATA 186 (worth $160 US) for free. The next two months fee of $25.99 are nearly covered by the $40 referral credit, a pretty good deal..

For me, the call quality has been excellent, better than a cell phone, and pretty close to landline quality.

Feel free to PM or e-mail me at vonage@mazdamp.com if you have any questions about the service or if you want me to refer you (once again, the referral is NOT a requirement to join the service, but you will save $40 with it, i see this like the Amazon Share the love program, saves both parties money...and that one is OK)

 

[orion7144]

I'd be interested to see if there is any lag in the conversation.

 

[MazdaMP]

no, never...i admit it sounds "futuristic" but it is really not.no lag at all, sometimes the other voice sounds a little bit too loud, but when i had RCN, this happened, too (might be my FAR phone :-D)


try it out for 30 days FOR FREE, if you dont like it give it back to them and dont pay a penny (or i think you might have to pay shipping).
send me an email if you want more info...thanks!

 

[c627627]

Are you available in only 14 states?
Don't see Missouri or Kansas on the area code list:
California
Connecticut
Washington DC
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
Texas
Virginia

 

[MazdaMP]

Originally posted by: c627627
Are you available in only 15 states?
Don't see Missouri or Kansas on the area code list.

yeah, not YET but soon
also "I" dont offer it, i am just a very satisfied customer spreadingthe word
what you can do, and i heard many people doing it, getting a area code from a big city
e.g. the NY one, and using this until they get to your state, then they'll switch you for free...
that's it for tonight, i am off to bed...


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Area code list:


Available Area Codes
California 213 310 323 408 415
510 562 619 626 650
661 707 760 805 818
831 858 909 925 949
Connecticut 203 860
Washington DC 202 703
Delaware 302
Florida 305 561 786 321 772
Georgia 404 678 706
Illinois 312 630 708 773 815
847
Indiana 219
Maryland 301 443 240
Massachusetts 508 617 781 978
New Jersey 201 609 732 856 908
973
New York 347 516 631 646 718
845 914 917 716 518
315 607 585
Pennsylvania 215 267 412 484 610
Texas 409 832 936 979 254
469 817 903 940
Virginia 703

 

[vladgur]

Hmm. very enticing proposition....
One question though, if your DSL goes down, how do you call support? :Q

 

[c627627]

Yeah I know, uh? ah? aah. I wouldn't get this thing without cell phone backup. It's not for everyone.
But if anyone who lives in those 14 states ever gets this thing, let us know what's up.

 

[android]

Why is this considered a good deal? If you used Onesuite.com to place all of your ld calls, you could talk for 26.66 hours before vonage started to save you money. Does anyone other than a salesman or woman spend that much time on the phone? And I would imagine that if you use the phoneline 150 hours a month running a business they would shut you down.

I guess it would be a good deal if you plan on spending an hour a day on the phone, or maybe if you had a gf in New York, you were in CA, and she could call you on your Vonage 212 number as a local call.

I gotta say though, this sounds a bit like a referral to me.....

 

[craigg]

Android,

Your handy dandy one suite account won't do you any good without local dial tone. With most regional bells you will pay ~$20 for a basic line only with all long distance being extra. Vonage gives you dial tone. I was going to subscribe to their $19.99 plan on one of my lines so I find this a bit cold since they raised the minimum rate. I wonder if they will still do the $19.99 plan? It is a referral deal where both the referral and referee get $40 upon signup. Mazda didn't post any links so it's up to the individual if they want to pm him.:frown:

 

[nealr]

Originally posted by: c627627
Yeah I know, uh? ah? aah. I wouldn't get this thing without cell phone backup. It's not for everyone.
But if anyone who lives in those 14 states ever gets this thing, let us know what's up.

anyone, anywhere can get it, the only thing is you have to pick one of those #'s for your incomming calls. If you mainly are just looking for the unlimited outgoing usage, it seems like a good deal.

 

[MazdaMP]

Originally posted by: craigg
Android,

Your handy dandy one suite account won't do you any good without local dial tone. With most regional bells you will pay ~$20 for a basic line only with all long distance being extra. Vonage gives you dial tone. I was going to subscribe to their $19.99 plan on one of my lines so I find this a bit cold since they raised the minimum rate. I wonder if they will still do the $19.99 plan? It is a referral deal where both the referral and referee get $40 upon signup. Mazda didn't post any links so it's up to the individual if they want to pm him.:frown:

thanks for the backup.
i even said in my original post, it is NOT neded for signup,
but you will save $40. let me put it this way, i did not make it to a
senior member of this board by spamming companies that pay me
a little bit of $ for getting a few referrals :-D

 

[batorok]

I was curious about this service too, and contacted them about the area code thing. They said to check back in January and they'd have 919 (Raleigh/durham), so if you're interested email them, or check back if they don't have your area code. It sounds like a good deal if you have a cell phone to call 911, then you can cancel your overpriced landline, otherwise not to great (unless you have lots of friends and family in one of the area codes and can give them a local number to reach you). I haven't yet ordered the service, so this isn't an endorsement or anything.

 

[ETan]

this looks like a good deal. i read about this a while ago, but didn't have broadband so...

Now all I need is to find a cheap broadband solution for my area! (412)

 

[MazdaMP]

they DO have broadband, i am not sure about your area though.

think of it this way, all the money you will save with your phone bill,
might as well get cable/DSL :-D

 

[ringzero]

Time Warner Telecom offered a similar service for their Road Runner customers. They call(ed) it LineRunner, and it was only available to a select few in my area, mainly the city people, and certain suburbs. The benefit to it is that it was insanely cheap. $10/mo. I never owned a land line when i moved out, just a cell phone. When i lost my job I ditched my cell phone in favor of linerunner, and it was pretty neat. I didn't notice any lag or anything, but it had a horrible reputation for just not working. some times i couldnt call out, people couldnt call in. the line was dead, etc. I dealth with VoIP in a commercial setting and we never had any problems, but in the residential, it was pretty bad. However, this was a year ago so I am sure they probably improved it.

 

[IgoByte]

What happens when the broadband service goes down? This is a common occurrance with DSL. How can you connect more than one phone to one of these lines and if it's possible, would there be intereference?

 

[lalaw]

FYI 212 hasn't been available for months. Not sure where you are getting your information from.

 

[MazdaMP]

Originally posted by: IgoByte
What happens when the broadband service goes down? This is a common occurrance with DSL. How can you connect more than one phone to one of these lines and if it's possible, would there be intereference?

if it goes down, you will not have a phone.
sounds hard, but i am trying to be totally honest.
you also do NOT have 911 service, for those 2 reasons i recommend a cell phone
as backup (a prepaid phone if needed) or get a regular cell with all the $$$ you saved.

 

[flavio]

I would love to try this but I was told that i can't get my PacBell DSL without also getting phone service through them. Something about the way the DSL billing is regulated supposedly.

 

[c627627]

Originally posted by: nealr: anyone, anywhere can get it, the only thing is you have to pick one of those #'s for your incomming calls. If you mainly are just looking for the unlimited outgoing usage, it seems like a good deal.

Just like someone said above, we're actually trying to save on dial tone charges. But the difference isn't much if you consider there are now many Bell local service alternatives.

BTW, you say you can get it anywhere if you choose one of those area codes, but what if local people try to call you? Long distance for them? That's no good.

 

[nealr]

Originally posted by: c627627

BTW, you say you can get it anywhere if you choose one of those area codes, but what if local people try to call you? Long distance for them? That's no good.

yup long distance for them. Since I'll be keeping my regular phone, I was thinking of getting a # in an area where the rest of my family is, so they can call me anytime for free.

I'm still undecided, but I may do the 30day thing.

 

[MazdaMP]

try it out,
can't lose all that much.

it will be long distance for other people if you are not in their area code,
but you can make a lot of calls to this area code for free.
you can also call me for free (ok, you can call all Vonage users for free)

let me know of any other questions

Heiko

 

[MazdaMP]

Originally posted by: flavio
I would love to try this but I was told that i can't get my PacBell DSL without also getting phone service through them. Something about the way the DSL billing is regulated supposedly.

is it just me or does that sound like price discrimination / illegal?

 

[orion7144]

Nobody has answered the question about mutiple phones in the house. How can you have more than 1 phone throughout the house. Do I need to run more cables?

 

[vortix]

Originally posted by: orion7144
Nobody has answered the question about mutiple phones in the house. How can you have more than 1 phone throughout the house. Do I need to run more cables?

You can either hook up a line splitter to the Cisco, or possibly hook the Cisco up where your landline phone line comes into your house. Then every phone jack in your house would be hooked up to this. You may need a little experience w/ phone wiring to do this though.