Review by qworster 
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 7.9 years, 2905 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Providence,Providence,RI
 $50 per month (12 month contract)
 about 5 days
 "It's been reliable for six years...."
 "Still some CSR glitches..."
 "Used to be great, now only above average."
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(ratings match consensus)
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It's been six years since I got Vonage and I still have them. Why? First off, the service always works. Second, their WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is 100%. Vonage IS the phone for her. Third, they have useful features such as simul ring and caller ID name. Finally, all the others have slowly raised their prices so they're about the same as Vonage, while Vonage has lowered their prices (if you buy their annual plan).
Their Customer Service reps. still need sensitivity training; I lost my 4 year old ATA during a cross country move and their CSR refused to give me another one-he told me to buy one at Staples. I went to cancel and the next CSR overnighted me one for free. They need to make the effort to keep their long term customers happier-this would reduce their 'churn' rate.
If Vonage keeps it up, I'll likely still be a customer in another six years!
I did try Packet 8 and found their voice quality lacking. After a year, I got rid of them and am now using their ATA with Gizmo Project.
I've had Vonage since March of 2002. At the time, I had moved from Tucson to Los Angeles, while my wife had remained in Tucson. We wanted a cheap way to stay in touch, and Vonage filled the bill quite nicely. I could call her by dialing a local call, and she could get me - well, most anywhere!
Back in Tucson we had 640/256 DSl service from Qwest. The Cisco ATA came there a few days after I signed up; my (non-technical) wife opened the box, and had it working in under 10 minutes! Vonage worked beautifully there. When she moved to Los Angeles in mid May, the ATA came with us. I had ordered Verizon DSL from Surfcity.net, and I plugged the ATA in and it just started working - well, sort of.... The Verizon DSL was 1500/128 and the 128 upload (actually mine was closer to 115) just didn't cut it. I was forced to make a choice - browse the web or talk on the telephone. Then, Vonage came out with the bandwith restricted option, which made VOIP work again for me albeit with slightly worse quality.
Since I was an early adopter of the service, I had an ancient ATA unit - one that would not support faxing. One call to Vonage and they sent me a Motorola MTA - free! When that unit failed, another was on its way overnight, again for free.
Whenever I've wanted to change rate centers, they've always waived the $10.00 fee. The few times I've needed them, I've found their customer service and tech people to be available, helpful and caring. Right now my main number is in Boston, and I have virtual ones in Taunton, MA, El Segundo, CA (actually I wish I had waited a few days for this one, as my number could have been 765-4321), and Manhattan, NY (212 no less!).
A few months ago I changed ISP's to Speakeasy, who gave me a better upload speed (330). Finally, I was able to change back to the higher quality codec, which makes Vonage sound as good as or better than a normal dialed call.
All in all, I've found my 2+ years with Vonage to be great and they've lowered their rates twice during that time as well.
I just signed up with Packet 8 for work (that J&R deal - five months for free) It'll be interesting to compare it with Vonage, though I already suspect that Vonage sets the bar for VOIP. We'll see, won't we?
Solidly recommended!!
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