Vonage phone

My family are in the UK so I call long distance alot. I have been using Skype for calls home when I am on the computer etc but also have a long distance plan on my phoneline. Last month my phone company put up the price of calling by 500% without telling me so I have a huge bill. I pay $10 for a low international rate and my rate went up to higher than if you don't subscribe to the plan. I called them and she said there was nothing she can do as you lock into the rate for 12 months. She agreed with me that the free plan shouldn't have cheaper calls than a paid plan but still wouldn't change my rate plan.

Its basically impossible to do all my calling on Skype as my BF needs the computer for his business and it works off a headset not a phone plugged into the modem/router etc so I was wondering if anyone has experiences with other voip especially vonage as I can get a UK phone # so my family can call me for cheap!

Its also cheaper than my current provider - $20 a month for 500 mins Canada and the US with voicemail etc included and then half my old price per min for calls - we can get a dedicated fax line and pay the $8 for an extra UK # and its still cheaper than our current provider!

we have used vonage but only for US based calls-- and are inthe process of unsubscribing it right now. Its a greatdeal and the reason we are dropping it is because we could not get a number local to us. We were in our normal area code but if my FIL and SILs who live about 10 miles from us wanted to call us on the new vonage number it would be long distance for them.We honestly couldnt see asking them to pay long distance fees to call us. If and when Vonage gets our local exchange code-- we WILL go back to them. Its way cheaper than regular phone and we would also get a Houston Tx number so my in laws living there could call us more often for free. Also-- calls to vonage users from vonage users are free too-- I love that you can forward your calls for free to another number and you get all the fee based perks that normal phone companys make you pay for for free with vonage. its a great deal-- As far as call quality goes, pretty good- there were a few times when we first started vonage that we had a couple of staticy calls but we just hung up and redialed and it worked perfect after that.


I love their product and their customer service. If it werent for that little hitch, we would stay with them and drop our regular land line.

I highly recommend it for people trying to save money or who just want more bang for their buck.

Thanks!

I should add that we can keep our number with them (which is why I am looking at them and not other voip companies) which is important with my BF running the business from home

We are going to sign up for Vonage. Everyone at my fiance's company uses them and are very pleased with the service.

I know I am really late on the ball with this but me and my boyfriend have had vonage for 2-3 years and have had no problems with it. At the time they didn't have our area code but one that was still a local call for our area so it worked out great for us. Also if you get refered by someone it gives you a free month and the person refering you as well!! It's a really nice service and have touted it to a lot of my family and neighbors!!!

Hmmmm. Maybe I should look into it!!!

It really is very cost effective... And great if you call long distance!!!

We just signed up for it last night. They had a free first month deal and the rate for turning it on and shipping everything was only $40. They are actually able to transfer our current phone number- which is nice. I'm hoping it will be a good service- I've heard great things about it.

We had a very, very bad experience with it at my office. I suppose if you really need the cheap service it'd be worth it, but they never hooked it up to my bosses number when he tried to transfer it, and then slammed it when he transfered it back to the phone companay, and then their customer service was less than helpful and refused to refund him contract fees for a service they never provided. All this when he was testing it out for a client!

Then again, it's been my observation that all phone companies are pretty evil.

I feel bad for your boss having such problems with it, I've never had a problem and really enjoy it. The real land line phone company here is a piece of crap!!! They have messed us over multiple times!!! Vonage has been great for us... but I know it's not for everyone!

Does anybody know how this would work if you don't have a home phone currently? I am looking into getting Vonage, but would like to make sure I can get a local number since we only have a cell phone right now.

They gave me a choice of numbers when I joined so it shouldn't be a problem. I didn't switch my number as it is my BF's work line and I wanted a 2nd line, but didn't want to pay a business rate for it.

If you go to thsi page you can search to see if they have your area code available

http://vonage.com/avail.php?lid=nav_avail

Originally Posted by icklemiss21

They gave me a choice of numbers when I joined so it shouldn't be a problem. I didn't switch my number as it is my BF's work line and I wanted a 2nd line, but didn't want to pay a business rate for it.

If you go to thsi page you can search to see if they have your area code available

http://vonage.com/avail.php?lid=nav_avail

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They do. Looks like we might get a house phone.

Originally Posted by DRIVEN

Does anybody know how this would work if you don't have a home phone currently? I am looking into getting Vonage, but would like to make sure I can get a local number since we only have a cell phone right now.

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All you need is high speed internet access (such as cable modem). You could use dial up, but its highly discouraged as it will cause delays in your conversation.

But just go to Staples or a Compusa, buy the Linksys (or other) adapter for vonage and hook it up to you router. Sign up on their web site and viola! You're done!

The good thing is we freaked last week because we lost internet connection. From work I was able to go online to vonage and forward our number to one of our cell phones until the internet came back up. We never missed a call!

Icklemiss - I would STRONGLY recommend getting a router. Then that way you can use your VoIP account while your BF uses the computer for business. You can usually get them for around $40-50 and they're really easy to set up.

Originally Posted by lunasmom

All you need is high speed internet access (such as cable modem). You could use dial up, but its highly discouraged as it will cause delays in your conversation.

But just go to Staples or a Compusa, buy the Linksys (or other) adapter for vonage and hook it up to you router. Sign up on their web site and viola! You're done!

The good thing is we freaked last week because we lost internet connection. From work I was able to go online to vonage and forward our number to one of our cell phones until the internet came back up. We never missed a call!

Icklemiss - I would STRONGLY recommend getting a router. Then that way you can use your VoIP account while your BF uses the computer for business. You can usually get them for around $40-50 and they're really easy to set up.

Click to expand...

So if you didn't have a router you could only use the phone OR the internet, but not both at the same time?