Good site or experiences with consumer VoIP providers?

Matt Stryker · 10-11-2004, 11:38 AM

I was just wondering if anyone here is a subscriber to Vonage or one of the other VoIP providers and could give good feedback on what is good/bad/ugly between companies...or if there is already a forum out there somewhere that does this, please post a link. I'm pretty much only interested in plans that use real phones or at least real VoIP phones, instead of PC/Mac based phones.

I'm considering Vonage right now, since they dropped their monthly unlimited service to 24.95/mo ...that includes unlimited long distance to the US & Canada. Since I'll be in mexico, I'll probably add a virtual number in Mexico so that we can use it as a local phone as well.

Any thoughts?

Jassen M. West · 10-11-2004, 12:56 PM

I signed up for vonage about 3 months ago. Service has always been great, even when I'm downloading big files. You internet connection plays a big part in quality. No one I talk to can tell its not a "normal" phone. The best part is one time I had to house sit for my parents and since they have broadband internet I was able to bring my phone to their house and use it normally. Also a plus if you visit a hotel that has broadband.

As far as what kind of broadband you have, I would make sure you at least have a 2 MB/sec download speed and also be sure your internet service doesn't have regular hiccups in signal. Also one other thing to consider, if there is a power outage your phone is nothing more than a dead piece of electronics, until the power comes back on.

The $24.95 a month rate is a great deal conisdering all you get. Caller ID, call waiting, 3 way calling, voice mail, unlimited long distance to name a few.

I would recommend it to anyone.

Quincy · 10-11-2004, 02:14 PM

You could always look at the reviews on DSLReports

Kenneth · 10-11-2004, 04:02 PM

I also am a Vonage user. I went with them because of the $0.12 rate to Asia (my significant other lives in Thailand so I make lots of overseas calls to her). I have found the service to be reliable also. The online billing is nice and allows you to monitor your usage realtime. Also, when used overseas it behaves as a US phone (that means unlimited calling to US with no charge); you'd get dinged for the local calls wherever you were at though.

Kenneth

Todd Hochard · 10-12-2004, 07:52 AM

If you're paying $24.95/mo for the service, what's the TOTAL bill out the door? When I was briefly looking at switching to IDT local service, the total bill was $54-56, depending on location, for their $39.95 "Unlimited" service, due to all the telecom fees.

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Kenneth · 10-12-2004, 08:37 AM

With Vonage I pay about $1.50 tax and $1.50 additional fees. My international long distance is equal to my monthly fee so I think that doubles the tax. So if you were only making domestic calls I would think the additional fees would be around $2.25 a month. I don't think that is out of line.

Kenneth

Todd Hochard · 10-12-2004, 09:38 AM

$3, heck even $5, over the quoted rate seems completely reasonable to me. The IDT gig did NOT.

Matt Stryker · 10-12-2004, 06:17 PM

Thanks guys, I ended up signing up for Vonage today after reading up on it on Broadband Reports. I don't know why I didn't look there first, I use them all the time to recommend DSL companies to friends from out of state.

I got the Linksys RT31P2 phone adapter, which seems to be decent. I'll probably wait and add the second number (virtual) once I get to Mexico and can see what the costs are for calling out of your area code. Right now the only area code they offer is Mexico City, hopefully they will add more soon.