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Posted: 1/6/2006 8:17:52 AM EDT
[#1]
yep i have it and it works great for me i can call my brother in pa with no long distance charges i havent had any problems with mine.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 8:26:25 AM EDT
[#2]
Two of my friends have it. One has no problems at all. The other has static and popping on the line, and sometimes his outgoing calls don't go through. I think it largely depends on how you have it wired up in your house and how good your ISP is.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 8:26:52 AM EDT
[#3]
I have two main gripes.
One, the person on the other end of the line can't seem to hear us if they are talking. So if my wife calls her mom, and her mom starts rambling on and on and on and on...... My wife can't get a word in to tell her someone is ringing the doorbell. And two, if I am uploading anything to the internet on my PC, then the person on the other end of the line hears a very choppy conversation. Other than that, I love the fact that it is free unlimited long distance. You can program features online. For example, I have it set so if after 15 seconds of no answer, it forwards the call to my cell phone. Oh, and the lack of enhanced 911 kind of bothers me. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 8:45:55 AM EDT
[#4]
Try SunRocket and compare services, I've just signed up with them. E911 included, all in price, free phones etc, etc.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 8:53:04 AM EDT
[#5]
Yup. Had it for a few months. Generally, I've been pretty happy with it. For 14.99/mo it's hard to beat the set of features you get with it. However, sometimes the person I'm calling out to reports that I sound a bit choppy. But it just seems to happen now and then, so nothing bad enough that I would stop using it.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 8:54:56 AM EDT
[#6]
I have it and like it a lot. There can be a slight static on the line sometimes, but that could be due to bad lines that aren't Vonage's fault or even the phones being used themselves.
Every now and then I have gotten calls that just DROP without warning, but that's pretty rare and could be my glitchy phones (I have some Siemens 2200/2400 series phones that are known to be tempermental). |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 8:58:01 AM EDT
[#7]
My inlaws are in Florida. My brother is in Michigan. It would have to be pretty damn crappy for me to drop the savings I'm experiencing... I pay less for my total phone bill than I used to do for a basic land line.
I like it. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:01:42 AM EDT
[#8]
That is what I have and finally signed up for the yearly service. It been great. No statice or choppy as some have reported on here with Vonage. One problem I have with it, my internet slows down when using the phone. Its tolerable but it does slow down. Someone also suggested that you can back feed it. So I did and that works fine as well. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:05:35 AM EDT
[#9]
I have had Vonage for about 5 months with no problems. Calls have been clear and the only adjustment I had to make was to turn down the volume. Internet speed does not seem to be influenced when I am using the phone, but I have a reasonably fast connection speed.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:06:29 AM EDT
[#10]
I have had Vonage for about a year now, and I couldn't be happier with with it.
No issues at all. Every bit as good as regular phone service, and a HELL of alot cheaper. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:10:16 AM EDT
[#11]
I've been using Vonage for about 3 years now.
It's great. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:31:18 AM EDT
[#12]
I have been using SunRocket for about 6 months. It works great and is a better deal than Vonage. Check it out.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:33:00 AM EDT
[#13]
I'd like to see Congress, the FCC and the states change the rules so the Vonages of the world would have to pay the telephone and cable companies for the use their facilities into your homes and businesses. Then let's see how affordable they are!
What other business has to allow a competitor access to their networks into their customers homes and businesses for no cost so they can steal their revenue base? And then saddle the phone company with the high cost of maintaining those facilities. And then saddle the phone companies with carrier of last resort obligations that impose real costs on the phone companies that their competitors do not have to share. It's easy to blame the phone companies for the slow service and high costs without knowing the rest of the story. Of course, maybe I'm biased since I work for a major telephone company! Let the flaming begin! 
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:38:13 AM EDT
[#14]
I am not following you. I pay Comcast for the high speed internet line into my house. THEY ARE GETTING PAID FOR THE USE OF THEIR FACILITIES, BY ME. What I do with the bandwidth that I buy is up to me. I choose to run a VOIP system on it. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:42:49 AM EDT
[#15]
That's all right. A fair number of ISPs are giving VOIP packets less preferational status. This means that VOIP packets are more likely to be held up while other traffic gets passed, or dropped all together, than any other packet. This leads to poor quality and people ditching the VOIP service. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 9:45:47 AM EDT
[#16]
Sorry, that makes no sense. I'm paying my cable ISP every month for Internet access. That involves allowing me to send and receive a certain amount of data over my cable line. What do they care what kind of data I'm sending/receiving?  My phone service doesn't even compete with them. They provide cable tv and Internet, not phone service.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:03:21 AM EDT
[#17]
Look at this from the old telephone standpoint:
Local Phone Company A buries the copper cable to your home and installs switching equipment to provide dialtone. You pay this company for use of this cable and equipment for local service. If Company A is also long-distance provider, they may get that business as well. Long Distance Phone Company B wants to get the long-distance revenue from the same customer. They pay Local Phone Company A a percentage of every long distance call made by the customer for access over Company A's facilities into their home. Local Phone Company A uses this additional revenue to offset the costs of maintaining these facilities, upgrading networks, providing new features and services that customers want, etc. Basically growing and maintaining the business. Why should Company B get use of Company A's equipment and facilities to grow their business and saddle the local phone company with all the costs into the home? It's true that the local phone company gets money from the customer for local service that will be used to offset these costs, but why should they allow a competitor to take a part of the business (long distance) for no cost? Vonage is no different than a long-distance phone company in the general service they provide. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:07:08 AM EDT
[#18]
Im referring to competitors that provide the same services as the local phone company and use the phone companies facilities into the home. By the way, many phone companies now provide telephone, data AND video.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:12:15 AM EDT
[#19]
Your arguement is pretty weak. Suppose that I lease a T-1 or T-3 line, does Vonage still owe some random telephone or cable company a percentage of the revenue? |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:14:35 AM EDT
[#20]
I'm not familiar with any situations like you're describing Wolfer, but Vonage doesn't work that way at all. Vonage has nothing to do with your local phone company. If you have Vonage, you don't use any of the local phone company's equipment.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:18:46 AM EDT
[#21]
His arguement is that you are using the local phone company's copper to get DSL or cable company's cable to get broadband and that they should get paid when you run a VOIP system over them. He is overlooking the fact that all you are doing is sending and receiving packets that you already paid to send and receive. The phone company or cable company ALREADY GOT PAID TO TRANSMIT THOSE PACKETS, by me, the consumer. Done deal. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:23:01 AM EDT
[#22]
WOLFER......Isn't Capitalism, free enterprise and competition GREAT!!!!
Its all about being inventive and profiting from it. Look at it this way. The phone companies laid a bet on people using their lines. Their bet is not paying off as much. Matter of fact phone companies have had a monopoly on this for decades. Now that they have competition, oh well. Can't be an undefeated champ forever. I will echo what everyone says. I PAY for Cable internet. What I do with that bandwidth once I get it is my own damn business. I CHOOSE TO PAY a VOIP company to provide me with a service to call and recv calls. The phone company laid those lines to make a profit. I CHOSE NOT to participate in that. Competition sucks don't it. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:35:09 AM EDT
[#23]
[Sorry, that makes no sense. I'm paying my cable ISP every month for Internet access. That involves allowing me to send and receive a certain amount of data over my cable line. What do they care what kind of data I'm sending/receiving?
My phone service doesn't even compete with them. They provide cable tv and Internet, not phone service. Today your cable ISPs services do not conflict with your phone service. Tomorrow your cable ISP may likely be offering phone service. Trust me, they already care even if the services don't conflict today. In the case of ADSL, many ISPs lease the ADSL service from the local phone company. In that case, the phone company gets compensated by the ISP for access into the home. Now along comes a company like Vonage that uses the ISPs network and leased-ADSL service into your home to get revenue from you at no cost to your ISP. Does your ISP care? Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on what services they provide. What if the ISP wants to grow their business by offering the same service as Vonage? Then they will care! If the Vonage call terminates to a phone on the public switched telephone network, Vonage will have to pay a long-distance phone company for terminating that call. If the Vonage call terminates on another computer, then only Vonage gets the revenue. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:37:39 AM EDT
[#24]
I know I HATE the damn song the use in their commercials.
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:48:36 AM EDT
[#25]
Here's more fuel for ya. I am actually contracting for large international financial services firm. I know for a fact that close to 40% of their phone business VOIP.
 More and more small businesses are going to that as well due to the low cost of long distance charges and it continued reliability. The phone companies will eventually wise up. They are already trying to merge with satellite and cable companies. 1 cause of the added revenue, 2 cause technology is changing and rather than rebuild their systems, its cheaper to just buy one that already has a system in place. I really love the competition. It brings prices down. Customer service is much more pleasant. Take the TX market for instance. If you call an energy company here, you would like get through in less than 3mins. If you can an energy company in say LA. YOu are on hold for 10-30mins. Why? They don't f'ng care. There is no other energy company you can use. Same with cable compnaies and phone companies. You are basically stuck. I say open the market up. Let the people choose. Whatever company is behind the eight ball will have to just fall off the face of the earth. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:51:54 AM EDT
[#26]
Competition is a wonferful thing. No problem there. But only when the playing field is even. If your using your cable internet for phone service, as a phone company I can't complain because your choosing not to use my equipment and facilities. I'd like your business, but oh well. It's competition. If your using my equipment and facilities (ADSL, dial-up), then I care. And by the way, the phone companies have no choice but to provide service as a provider of last resort. They don't bet on it. In many cases, they will never recover the cost of placing the cable to reach a home in the middle of nowhere with the revenue from the basic monthly bill. There is a fund to help recover those costs (USF), but that fund is slowly going away. Oh yeah, and the Vonages of the world don't have to pay into this fund. All the other long-distance companies do. Once again, where is the fairness in that? I knew this would be a good flaming war! Most people have no understanding of the telecom industry and the challenges to provide service and return a profit. This is one of the reasons the USA is near the bottom of the list in worldwide broadband deployment. Sad but true. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:56:27 AM EDT
[#27]
I have had Vonage for over 2 years without any problems *qualifier* after it was set up properly.
When it was first installed I had a non Motorola adapter (I don't rmemeber the brand) and I had nothing but problems. It would appear that certain adapters have a priority algorythm that prioritize voice signal (like the motorola) and some others do not. Since I changed to the Moto model I have not had any problems at all with one way conversations or static or any dropped calls. The e911 service works just fine. My wifes uncle lived with us and had a heart attack, we called 911 just like anyone else would and because I had set it up correctly previously, they new all the info that they needed and sent an ambulance right away with no info needed from me. I would think that most of the ARFcomers would not have a problem going through the 911 setup and having the forethought to make sure that it was set up correctly long before it was needed. Since I have had the service the monthly fees have gone DOWN. How many other phone companies can you say that about? |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 10:57:10 AM EDT
[#28]
Well, they can either allow competition from Vonage, or they can ban Vonage from their system. If the customer wants Vonage, they can then drop their service with the ISP and give their money to a competitor who does allow Vonage. Actually, my cable company already partners with a local phone company who provide phone service to cable customers over a portion of the cable's bandwidth. But they don't do anything to discourage Vonage. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 11:01:05 AM EDT
[#29]
You have a point regarding the USF. That part is not fair. However, phone companies do get a tax write off on maintenance and depreciating equipment. And if one was using ADSL lines, they would need to pay the phone company for the ADSL service anyway. |
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Posted: 1/6/2006 11:01:06 AM EDT
[#30]
So, I'm gathering wolfer thinks Vonage (and other VoIP services) should have to pay your ISP to use your ISP to provide their service.
People have already said it Wolfer, I/We already PAY for our internet connection, regardless of what types of data we use it for. Done. Fini. End of discussion. Yes, this WILL have repurcussions on the old Ma Bell's as more people use their ISP connections for phone connections. As far as competing with your own ISP when they introduce a VoIP service, I'm already doing that. I'm paying for the bandwidth, and I can use it however I want. I can choose to pay them for my VoIP service, or go through someone else. I've already paid for the bandwidth I'm using. Point of fact, I'm on Time Warner Cable right now (Road Runner). I've had their service for over 5 years. They introduced a VoIP service last year, but it's more than I want to pay (they want $39 for it). I went with Vonage for $14.99. It works fine. So then, you'll probably think that all of this on my end is taken care of. Paid for ISP/bandwidth, and paid for VoIP service. Then there's the other end - the person I'm calling... who might still be on twisted pair from their local telco. Should my service have to pay them when I call them? That would be like Cingular Wireless paying Verizon wireless everytime I call a friend's cell from mine. 
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Posted: 1/6/2006 12:58:27 PM EDT
[#31]
wolfer, has your paycheck suffered? If not, shut up.
If so, maybe you should look at getting with the times and finding a job that doesn't deal with POTS lines as their main source of income. Did you cry like this whell cell phones came out and became affordable? |
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