Vonage

[jamesong55]

Just wondering if anyone here uses them or someone like them and your experiences??

Tina

[Crunchy*VT*Mom]

We used SunRocket until they went out of business, now we are using Vonage.

The voice quality is okay -- not as good as a LAN line, but comparable to a cell phone.

And you do save a TON of money.

[jamesong55]

That's what I was hoping to save a lot of money. Does it sound like talking on a cell like voices sometimes cut out?

[um_hanna]

I think it depends on your internet connection, we have cable and have no difference .

[lalaland42]

We use Vonage and I like it pretty well. The best thing about it IMO, is my voicemail gets sent to my email as an attachment. The worst thing is my cable internet is pretty spotty so whenever it goes out so does my phone. Not really Vonage's fault though.

ETA: It really depends on your connection. It only cuts out when the internet service is cutting out.

[courtenay_e]

We save almost two thirds on our phone bill.

Their customer service is absolutely, utterly, ridiculously TERRIBLE. As long as you have no need to speak to a human being you'll be fine. Otherwise, expect to spend literally DAYS on the phone, on hold.

That said, we still carry their service...I couldn't afford a home phone otherwise.

[clynnr]

We have had Vonage since August. It didn't actually start working until at least October, because when we wanted to cancel in September, we were told that we would have to pay a $200 cancellation fee because we were past the 30 day trial period, and it didn't work for a full month after that. I second their horrible customer service. At one point when we were trying to get our line to work in the first couple months, DH finally told them, "You know, I have been on my cell phone with you for an hour and a half, away from my family, and I'm paying out the nose for overage charges for this call and every other one that is getting forwarded from our Vonage account because it's still not working. I'm hanging up."

They finally sent us a brand-new wireless Vonage device, and we haven't had too many problems since then, but those first months were enough to sour me. When our contract runs out, I'm not sure what we'll do. We also have cable internet, and when the signal goes out, so does the phone. That worries me a little, because we don't have cell phones.

On the plus side, it is very cheap, but you do have to consider the fact that you need high-speed internet, and it is a 2-year contract, so you'll need high-speed for two years.

[PrettyBird]

If you make a lot of long distance calls it saves a crapload of money. We used to have a Verizon land line and were paying $75+ for the same service. We have family all over the country and talking to them is something we just don't want to sacrifice for the budget. We have cable internet and I can't even tell the difference between this and a regular land line.

[DandeCobb]

we had it for a year, it cut out on occasion, but overall the voice qaulity was good. like a PP said the customer service is HORRIBLE. when we decided to cancel (we went to cell phones only) it literally took me 2 days to get the right number i had to call for cancelations. then it took 4 HOURS of talking with 2 different people to have the account closed. i was so frustrated at the end of that i kept saying "I WANT TO CANCEL THE PHONE' over and over and over

[C.Arden]

We have vonage and I love it so far. The voice quality for us is excellent and we really save a LOT of money.

[Sexybookworm]

We use MagicJack but I think you have to have some kind of high speed internet. But, I think it was $30 a year.

[KiansMomma]

Hijack, sorry!:
DandeCobb, sorry to call you out, but you don't happen to still have that number, do you? We got Vonage about a year ago and I cannot for the life of me get them to cancel it. We don't even live in the town that the area code is for anymore. My DH tried to cancel it 6 months ago, but they wanted to charge the $200 fee and we couldn't afford it, so we are on the $5+tax emergency only plan. I feel like I might as well set fire to that $9 every month. I'm *this close* to just going to the bank and paying for a stop payment on it and just dealing with the consequences from there. I don't really want to do that, but I also don't have two days and four hours to cancel it!

[PrettyBird]

Wait, why do they want to charge a $200 fee? Now I am worried if we need to cancel ours. I need to change the phone number too because we moved.

[DandeCobb]

no, i dont think i have the number anymore, it was a # i got from one of their reps. I can tell you that i ended up having to get a babysitter so i could sit on the phone all day with them. If i were you, i'd just plan a time when the kids won't be around and just plan on sitting on the phone with them all day (lol, i cleaned out my laundry room, the anger was good for it, i got rid of a ton of junk!) sorry i don't have that number anymore. good luck with them, i truly know how frustrating that is!

[jamesong55]

I've never heard of MagicJack I need to look into that.

Tina

[clynnr]

Originally Posted by PrettyBird

Wait, why do they want to charge a $200 fee? Now I am worried if we need to cancel ours. I need to change the phone number too because we moved.

It's like a cell phone--you signed a contract when you started service. If you choose to cancel the service before your contract is up, they will charge you a $200 cancellation fee. Non-waivable, at least from our experience.

As far as changing phone numbers, you can do that, or you can keep your phone number and add a virtual phone number for $5 a month. That's what we did, and now all of our family and friends can still call our old number, which is a local call for them, and it rings straight to our house. Plus people from our new area can call us on the virutal number, and it works just the same.

The only drawback with the virtual number is that when we call people, our old number still shows on the caller ID, so people here have no idea who is calling them.

[EFmom]

I tried to switch to a similar service from Earthlink and it was a complete disaster. The idiots at Earthlink disconnected my Verizon service before they'd even shipped the part I needed to use the service. The part wasn't scheduled to arrive for 10 business days.

Their "customer service" is a nightmare. I spoke to half the population of Bangalore for probably more than 30 hours, and still could not get satisfaction. You just get transferred from one person to another, and they all want you to repeat your life story, and they all respond reading from the same script and are completely unable to fix any problem.

I finally said forget it and went back to Verizon. But the jerks at Earthlink wouldn't release my phone number for another 10 days, so in total I was without a phone for three weeks with two small children in the house.

[jamesong55]

The more I've looked on the internet my head is spinning on the different companies out there. I'm afraid of them all at this point but I would like some home service.

Tina

[ShaggyDaddy]

we have used vonage since the begining... #1 piece of awesome is that we don't get telemarketers, ever.

I love the voicemail email.

The quality is just based on your internet access, and the support is non-existant. So as long as you go into it knowing that, you should be ok.

One cool thing about them is that when we started it was 39.99 per month, and their prices have gone down a little each year, and everytime they lower the price they also lower it for existing customers... that is like the opposite of a normal phone company. We pay $15 less per month than the day we signed up, and get free long distance to more places now.

[JennaW]

I didn't have it but my uncle does and it has been big problems for them. The voice quality is bad whenever I call him and apparently he has all sorts of issues with getting his VM.