jrallan26

Does anyone have it? I just signed up for it because our monthly "landline" bill is over 70$ a month. I thought I would give this a try.

arjan

I've been using since may and a friend of mine (he suggested it) has been using it since feb or march. It works well, and I am pleased with it. If you download heavy you can hear it a bit, but I just keep it in mind. I like the features like virtual phone number, and the fact that you can take your number along to any place in the world with broadband internet access. They don't really care where you connect.
I also get all my voicemail messages by email, and delete them through their website.

I would say give it a try!

jrallan26

Is it "unlimited" long distance?

arjan

My package is not, but my friend pays $45 CAD per month with unlimited calling the States & Canada. I pay $20 CAD and get 500min in the States & Canada. I got trough www.vonage.ca. I haven't checked the www.vonage.com (us version).

tulsa_97SR5

We have it mostly so the kids in dallas & my mother in law in NY cal call us for free. It's unlimited inbound, and $5 extra for the new york number. We've been really pleased with it.

midiwall

What kind of 'net service are you guys running on it? DSL or Cable? If you're using DSL, then how did your local phone company handle you cancelling your analog phone service, yet allowing you to keep the DSL service? i.e., what did your DSL bill become after cancelling the voice line (and what was your bill before)?

Can you use your current analog phones with it? Any issues with cordless phones? It looks like you get one "phone adapter" with the system, can you use any number of adapters? (looks there's quite the rebate going on these! LinkSys RT31P2 Phone Adapter)

tulsa_97SR5

Good question, we're on cable so I don't know what DSL would do.

No problems with the phones, we've got a single wireless plugged in now, and my wife has it set to auto-forward to her cell, so both phones ring at once.

midiwall

Thanks Brian!


Okay... I just got off the phone with Verizon...

Right now I pay $38.64/month for my analog line, $37.35/month for DSL and my long distance bill was $4 last month.

Verizon will not let you cancel the analog line without losing the DSL line. But, you can downgrade the analog line to their basic home service for $19.50/month. Now, my guess is thart some marketing geek at Verizon is jumping up and down wih glee, 'cause $19.50 from $38.64 is a savings of only $19.14, which doesn't cover the $24.99/month for Vonage. ARGH!

But, it _does_ cover the Vonage 500 minute plan ($14.99) for a whopping savings of $4.15...

sigh... I wonder if I could fit into 500 minutes?

Moving to cable for 'net service isn't a real option since I have DirecTV and to run cable JUST for 'net access would be VERY expensive.

hmmmm...

tulsa_97SR5

Problem with 19.96 for basic phone is they'll still stick another 8-12 on for taxes tarrifs and fees.

We have directv (can't do without it for tivo) and cable for inet. it's about 50 for cable inet, with 10 of that being for basic cable, which is how we get our local channels. Just cable inet might be cheaper than DSL + basic phone. The cable is faster down, about the same upload, but more outages than we had with DSL (the outage factor is totally location based)

I haven't tested the directv & tivo phone connection over vonage yet, what i read says it's not supported. That might be a problem too.

tulsa_97SR5

You have verizon in seattle? If you're still in seattle you might check on the cost of qwest 'naked' DSL, my wife thinks it's about 19.95. My wife's the MGR of the DSL install group for a CLEC that offers some service in seattle, but she's not sure how cheap they're giving it away this week, and there's a reasonble chance we'll be out of business in 6 months. I'll give you the number of your local sales office if you're interested

arjan

I used to have DSL up here, but they wouldn't allow DSL with phone service. That's when I cancelled my DSL, Telephone, & Satellite. I took basic cable with cable internet and vonage for phone. I disconnected the phone wire from the road and tied my vonage box into my house phone system. All my phone jacks work like before. I saved a lot of money by going this route.

midiwall

arjan - thank you! that helps me get an idea of the transparency of the system... Pretty cool. No phoen service with DSL huh? That seems really sideways!


brian - for the line speed I have now, Qwest wants $28/month for their "no isp included" package. And they still want you to have an analog number.

I live for TiVo as well, but I've done a bit of hacking on mine and it's using the 'net for it's daily calls. The only reason I'd have to give it a phone line would be for pay-per-view which I never use.

Good point on the extra's... sigh.

One thing that I find "interesting" is that Verizon is advertising $29.99/month DSL (1.5/768) with no comments on having to have a phone line. They're closed now, but I think I'm gonna call tomorrow as a "new subscriber just moving into the area" and see what they say for fresh DSL service for someone that lives off of his cell phone.

$20 DSL for 6 months? Tell your wife thank you, but I live on the 'net too much to wake up to it suddenly being gone. Finger's crossed for you guys in finding a 2nd income if it falls out.

midiwall

Update!

It pays to be a little sneaky and slightly deceptive.

I called Verizon back on the basis of being "new to the area", and "have no need for an analog line since I live on my cell phone".

I now find out that for people in this situation, Verizon will set you up with a dialtone-only service for $8/month (edit: plus a federal $6.50/m surcharge) & 1.5m/768k DSL for $29.95/month, figure $4/month for taxes and the like.

Now THAT's a lotta' bit better than what I heard yesterday. tee-hee.

What it may mean though is that I'll have to sign up for Vonage, let it activate, then cancel my analog and DSL service all-together and re-order them. We'll see what the next call into Verizon has to say when I try to unconfigure this line. eek.


I also confirmed that I _SHOULD_ be getting 1.5m service _now_, but I'm not. This line is throttled at 384k. huh... go figure. It also seems that Verizon is in the process of rolling out 3.0m DSL...



I know that I'm kinda' hijacking the thread here, and I apologize for that, but I think that the back info will prove to be worthwhile. I see myself ordering up Vonage tomorrow.

midiwall

argh... okay, three argh's.

1. This is what arjan was refering to above, it's a catch-22:
   Do you currently have DSL service on the telephone number you are transferring to Vonage? {yes, I do}
   
   Unfortunately, Vonage cannot transfer a number that is associated with DSL. {...} In order to transfer a number associated with a DSL line, you could have the DSL removed from that line and assigned to another phone line with the same carrier. Vonage can then transfer your number once this change is complete. Another option would be to replace your DSL line with cable Internet access. If you select this option, be sure that you don't cancel your DSL before transferring the number to Vonage!
2. And, that "$8 dialtone-only service" is for real, but there's a pesky $6.50 federal charge on top of it. Still better than $37/month.
   
   
3. And and, since I'm comparing my phone bill including taxes, it's only fair to include the Vonage taxes which are $1.50 + $0.45 bringing the Vonage 500 minute service to $16.94/m.

So... the two new gotcha's here are an extra $8.44/month, and not being able to keep my current phone number.

hmmm. My savings is down to $11/month.

tulsa_97SR5

can you add the new DSL line with a new number, then cancel the DSL off the current line, then have the ani ported to Vonage?

Did you get a price for cable? It really might be the way to go. We're paying about 40 for just the internet, getting 3mb + down.

midiwall

Yeah... I thought about that as well. The problem is that the first year savings will go up in smoke from the activation fees. Vonage itself is $57.78 for the first month once you add in the fees.


$39.99/month for the first 4 months, then $52.95/month after that.

weeeeeeee!


I'm back to sitting and thinking now.

tulsa_97SR5

That's insane. Try the 'I'm new to the area & am probably getting DSL but...' thing & see if they can't do better. if all else fails, maybe this will work for you, the net for chicken feed.

Or maybe 3 of those $9 phone lines & lots of AOL disks.

jrallan26

Just got the Vonage Internet Phone hooked up and it works awesome. Unfortunatly I cant get a 515 area code phone number yet (Vonage is not set up in our area) I am using a 310 area for now so my parents can call me locally.

It works awesome and it sounds just like my normal landline phone.

hillbilly

Check out Skype. Good product and free...

Related article, Can Skype live up to the Net phone hype??

midiwall

It's free if you're calling another Skype user. In order to call a normal landline or cell number, you need to sign up for Skypeout. Calls in the US are billed at just over $0.02/minute (the actual pricing is in Euro). Not bad though!



Brian... I'm working on implimenting that RFC now... I should have some test code ready next week(ish). Thanks!