how-to block ads
|
»next review in page
Review by rkhands 
UPDATED: 4 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 2403 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Wheaton,Dupage,IL
 $29 per month
 about 5 days
 "Good value for money, easy installation, nice features"
 "Tech support, number porting difficult"
 "Vonage is doing better, voice quality has stablized and is very good."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Ordered service from Vonage on July 16th, 2004. Equipment was delivered on July 21st and setup was a breeze. There have been a couple of outages that have been noted in the press, but for the most part the weakest link has been my cable company (Comcast). If you are thinking of completely replacing your current POTS line, then you must be sure that you have a backup such as cell phone. Be prepared, the quality is ok, but not as good as POTS. Your own download/upload activity can affect your Vonage quality, even after trying all of the router/firmware options in order to get a decent Quality of Service (QOS) solution.
Biggest problem with Vonage so far has been in trying to get my phone number ported to my Vonage service and get SBC completely out of the picture. I faxed in my request back on July 16th. The web site says that the request was sent to carrier on July 21st. I waited until August 24th and called Vonage and had to open a trouble ticket to get any attention to this. I then called again on August 25th because I still had no word as to what was going on. They said that they had re-submitted the request on August 25th. I called again on September 15th and was finally told that I had a transfer date of September 21st, yet the web site still had not changed since July 21st and I had not received any email notification of the pending transfer. Well tomorrow is the date, and I checked the web site again today and to my surprise it was updated to show the transfer is expected to happen tomorrow on the 21st. Keep my fingers crossed that it happens and without problems.
In the mean time my brother faxed his request in on August 11th and was transfer on August 21st. This shows that it can be done quickly and smoothly, just Vonage needs to stay on top of it, not the customer.
Vonage really needs to be MUCH more pro-active on these number ports. They simply cannot just send off the request to the third party company and sit back and wait. They should be getting status updates at least every 7 - 10 business days and keep their customer informed, if they want to keep the customer as a customer.
Well it is now May 2005, I still have Vonage and am very pleased with it. Call quality and reliability have really improved and it is had to distinguish it from a regular POTS line. Once they get an real E911 service available, there should be very little reason for others not to switch.
Switched to AT&T CallVantage when Vonage's legal issues seemed to be threatening the service. Vonage is better than CallVantage, but since I am planning on dropping my home line entirely, it would be a waste of time to change back.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
 | »next review in page (previous review)
Review by mizpahking
Posted: 7 days ago
member for 6.6 years, 41 visits, last login: 7 days ago
Mays Landing,Atlantic,NJ
Contract price not specified.
"easy set up and account review on line"
"had no isssues"
"loved it was reliable and easy to manage acount affordable"
| |
I loved this service had no issues had it for about 2-3 years two lines got setup from best buy but never did get my rebate from vonage for cost of modem other than rebate had great exp and two lines no proublem only resean i cancelled was i got triple play from comcast
Thanks vonage saved me $ with 2 lines and kids
Followup comments:  
dontakevonage
@optonline.net
| vonage sucks Man, I am so lucky that I canceled the vonage within trial period. They sent me their router but it's lost already. I called them to file a trace with UPS. The lady told me, ok trace has been filed and call back within 1 week. After 15 days I called, they said trace has not been filed yet. I told them cancel the service right now. They offered me 14.99 for whole year, I said no. When I signed up, they didn't tell me anything about cancellation fee within 1 year. Even if you cancel within trial period, they charge refundable 39 dollars. One of my friend has vonage, I met him couple of days ago and he told me some serious issues with their customer service. He also canceled the service. I just disputed the charge with my credit card company. When I told the cancellation department that I am going to dispute the charge because all these 15 days nothing has been done. He said he doesn't recommend it. So, before signing up with vonage, think more than twice. If you are from NY, then take optimum voice. Vonage has 25 dollars unlimited but with taxes and fees, it will be around 33 dollars and change. Optimum online gives it for 34.95 flat. Even for 2 dollar extra, I am going with optimum. I don't want to go through the hassle with indian customer service. One more thing, their cancellation dept. is not 24 hours. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by lordpuffer
UPDATED: 8 days ago
member for 3.8 years, 222 visits, last login: 1 days ago
West Hollywood,Los Angeles,CA
$24 per month
about 8 days
"Works Well....Great price over AT&T....Easy To Install....Good Tech Support"
"Sales Dept Misleads You....Hard To Connect To More Than One Phone.....They Disconnect Your Old Line Before You Receive Harwdware"
"Good Service For the Price......Don't Trust Sales Dept"
| |
I ordered Vonage on May 27th of 2008 and gave them permission to disconnect my old service. However, they disconnected my old service on June 2nd and I did not receive their hardware to connect Vonage until June 4th, so I had 2 days without home phone service. When I called the Sales Dept to order Vonage, I told them that I had 3 phones in 3 different rooms and asked them if it would work with all 3 phones. They said that if it didn't, they would send out a technician free of charge to correct any problem so that all 3 phones would work. I received the hardware late in the day on June 4th and immediately hooked it up using their easy to follow setup guide. My Internet stopped working and the phone that I hard-wired to the Vonage hardware did not work either.
I called Tech support and told a Rep my problem. I have a Linksys WRT54GL Router, and the Rep told me that they have a problem hooking up Vonage with this type router, for it was not a usual router (that's strange, for this is a pretty common router). The Rep told me that I had to hook it up different from the instructions, and when I did, it worked. My Internet worked, however, only one of the phones worked, the one that was hard-wired to the router. When I complained about this to the Rep, he told me how to hook it up by bypassing that phone, and that would make the other 2 phones work. I did that, and my other 2 phones did work. However, the phone that was hard-wired to the Vonage hardware did not work, for I had to by-pass it. The Rep told me that I would have to have another wall jack to plug that phone in to for it to work. I then told him what the Sales Dept told me, that if all 3 phones did not work, they would send out a Technician free of charge to correct the problem. He said that the problem could not be corrected. When I pressed him, he talked to his Supervisor and came back and told me that it would work if I had a phone line splitter to hook it up to. I told him that I did not have one, and told him what the Sales Dept had promised me. He told me that I was misinformed (I believe that it was a deceptive sales technique to get you to sign up), and that there was not a technician who would come out and either install another phone jack or bring a splitter. We went back-and-forth with this issue for a while and I decided to make things easier by just going out and purchasing a splitter and 2 more phone lines so that the phone would work. That was yesterday, and I have not been able to purchase one yet. The concept is correct, so it should work when I get one.
I would just warn everyone that when talking with their sales department, you should press them very hard as to your existing phone equipment and how many phone jacks you have. If you feel it necessary, try to get something in writing from them to make sure that you do not have to go through what I did. If you have just one phone, or have more than one and have many phone jacks, you should be fine. The 2 phones that are working currently seem to work fine. I'll update this review once I purchase the splitter and additional phone lines.
One more thing....Vonage had my previous phone provider turn off my service 2 1/2 days before I received the Vonage hardware, so I had 2 1/2 days of no phone service. I just got off the phone with billing and complained of this. The first Rep hung up on me (nice of her), but I called again and the 2nd Rep was nice and reimbursed me my $9.95 for the shipping charge for the hardware. I am not racist at all, and love all people, but I feel that US companies should have all of their customer support located in the US. We have a different culture here, and it makes things a lot easier.
UPDATE--7/11/08 Vonage has been working so well that I got rid of AT&Trash altogether and put Vonage on my second line. This only took one phone call and a matter of minutes. It works great!
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Stixoffire
Posted: 12 days ago
member for 338 days, 6 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Orlando,Orange,FL
$31 per month
"Easy to use - easy to get calls - easy to setup."
"Internet Providers are delaying VoIP traffic - except their own."
"Best if you know how to hookup a phone line in your house, and know a bit about network configuration."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I have had Vonage for over 2 years now. I like the service although sometimes it is difficult to know the charges for an overseas number. (some are free). The biggest issue I have is with my ISP - and they use compression to claim their speeds, which should be illegal. They also delay VoIP traffic - and I would bet that their own VoIP packets get priority. I have comcast for an ISP - prior to comcast I had Adelphia.
With Adelphia - I had no issues using Vonage - it worked like a charm.
When Comcast switched me into their system - PROBLEMS with dropouts occurred regularly, and speeds for internet - and even the connection itself had problems. I thought Adelphia was bad - but Comcast has made even the worst people adelphia had look like network geniuses. So it really depends on how good your ISP is.. a good one - you are good to go. If you have Comcast - I feel your pain...Comcast is Horrendous!
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by jpelectron
Posted: 12 days ago
member for 6.2 years, 91 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Lake Zurich,Lake,IL
$16 per month
"Great price, great service"
"None for me"
"I like it!"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I have the 500min/mo plan, forwarding most calls to my cell (which does count against your plan minutes, bummer) but still great for me. Call quality/availability has always been super! (the one exception being the notorious Comcast vs. Vonage saga years ago)
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by robharrisva
UPDATED: 13 days ago
member for 1.4 years, 14 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Portsmouth,Portsmouth City,VA
Contract price not specified.
"Rather consistently good call quality"
"Caller-ID does not function as advertised"
"Good value despite shortcomings"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I've been a Vonage customer for about 6 weeks. The call quality and functionality is quite close to what I previously experienced with traditional wireline carriers such as Verizon and AT&T. Number portability went without a hitch. When you combine the many standard features, it represents one heck of a value.
However, while Vonage consistently advertises that the only difference between the way its Caller-ID functions is found during OUTBOUND calls whereby the caller's name is not given out, this has not been the case at my home here in southeastern Virginia. Frequently, during IN-BOUND calls, a generic identifier in place of the caller's name is sent to my caller-id displays. A call placed from the same caller's phone to my AT&T wireline displays the caller's name, when available, while Vonage typically displays only a generic name such as "Sprint PCS Caller" or "Wireless Caller" or even "Norfolk" when the call comes from a traditional wireline phone in the city of Norfolk, VA.
I first spoke with both tech support and corporate about the problem two weeks ago. How difficult can it be to pull the ANI data from a database?
Update: 7-2008
Still waiting for industry standard consistent inbound and optional outbound caller-id service. What's it gonna take? A buck or two more per month? I'd gladly pay it.
Followup comments: 
Trinijoy
Premium
join:2005-09-12
Brick, NJ
 ·Vonage
| Yes but... Considering people take too much into "what is advertised." Caller ID is a free feature among the 14 others you get with Vonage. Unfortunately whatever the inbound carrier sends to the caller ID, in my experience is what you see. Vonage has no control over that. Complain to the local carrier if your caller ID is not what you want. I doubt they will listen. | |
| | CromeDome05
join:2004-04-18
Laurel, MD
·magicjack.com
·Vonage
| Re: Yes but... Inbound calls usually displayed the same way for me, even with Verizon POTS. Incoming out-of-state calls would display as "Oregon", or "California". I haven't seen any generic identifiers from out-of-state calls yet, but I have been getting seldom "Line Errors" displayed on my caller ID. More frequently than when I had POTS. No biggie though. | |
| robharrisva
join:2007-02-05
Portsmouth, VA
 ·Cox HSI
·Vonage
 ·Qwest.net
| These ARE Vonage issues These are Vonage issues. 1) Vonage provides NO outbound name service to go with the number 2) Comparing call for call, my ATT POTS always displays the name information for inbound calls, if available. Vonage IS inconsistent in this regard. While the ANI info is provided by each service provider, it is Vonage's responsibility to pay for each database name query and possibly cache the name info for future short term use. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by vtec30cl
Posted: 16 days ago
member for 4.5 years, 28 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Washington,District Of Columbia,DC
Contract price not specified.
"With a good isp the call quality is great. Will never go back to others"
"Call quality really depends on your ISP"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
When i moved into my condo i had initially signed up for verizon phone service. After having so many problems dealing with the install (including 2 no shows, countless phone calls and rude customer service) i called up and canceled my order with verizon. At this time in my life I was a manager at best buy so I decided to give vonage a try. As a employee of best buy I would also receive discounted phone service since we sold the product (only 19.99 instead of 24.99 per month).
Took the unit home and set up my account online and had phone service within I think 10-20 min.
At the time of install I had Comcast for my tv and internet and they offer a slower upload speed. I also happed to do a lil peer to peer file sharing and while files are being uploaded it takes up bandwidth and can kill your phone service unless you know how to control your upload speed (I set up a quality of service using my linksys router to guarantee bandwidth to the phone line)
When I switched to verizon fios I was forced to use the anotech router. Now as a result of my upload speed being increased 10 fold I did not need to worry about the upload speed affecting call quality.
The web site is very easy to use and can help you out in a jam. I was waiting for a call from someone and had to make a trip out of the house so I went online and had calls routed to my cell phone, got home and switched it back.
I have never had service go out as a result of a problem with vonage, only because the isp went down or the power went out. I bought battery backup equipment and everything connected to vonage (router, phone adapter, and cordless phones) is powered on when the power goes out.
I would recommend this service to anyone. verizon and their crappy customer service. If picture and internet quality were not so good I would be rid of them all together
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Phatty
UPDATED: 17 days ago
member for 8.1 years, 3963 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Valley Park,Saint Louis,MO
$18 per month
about 5 days
"Cheap, Great Call Quality, Reliable as long as your ISP is"
"Only as good as your ISP"
"I will never own a POTS line from my phone company again"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Well when I moved to a new place I contemplated what I should do as far as having a home phone line. I seriously considered just using my cell phone, but then I figured I really didn't need all the utility companies, or credit companies or whoever else needs something from me bugging me on my cell phone. That is why I decided to try out VOIP service with Vonage. I went with the cheapest plan they offered since I really do not talk much, and just wanted a number to give out when needed to non-personal contacts. The setup was a breeze and all I did was plug it into my network and it was up and working without doing a thing 5 or so minutes later. I love all the features that are included with the service, especially being able to send it to another number but then sending it to voicemail if nobody answers at the other specified number.
The only complaint I have is not even Vonage's fault and that is the service is only as reliable as your internet connection. I do not think I know of anyone who has an ISP that provides perfect rock solid performance like a regular POTS phone line would. So your VOIP reliability and performance will depend on how good of an ISP you have. I figured that my ISP is reliable enough, and if something is wrong that is where my cell phone comes into play as a back up.
The few times I have emailed support with Misc. questions and such the turnaround time was within a day or so. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a budget phone line, or if you use a lot of long distance VOIP service can't be beat. If you are thinking of giving vonage a try send me a message and I can send out a referral so that we each would get 1 month free when you sign up.
Update: 7/21/04
Well I think I have had one outage that was Vonage's fault now. Nothing to big of a deal for me. I also tend to forward my vonage number to my cell phone, and it seems like my forwarded calls are often garbled up and sound like a bad digital cell phone breaking out or something. This happens maybe 20-30% of the time on forwarded calls only. I have only noticed this once or twice when using my home phone connected to the Vonage ATA. And both those times were during heavy internet downloads. Other than that one outage, and my complaint on some problems with forwarded calls all else seems well and I would still recommend the service for others to use.
Update: 9/9/04
No additional service problems to report. I would say I am liking this service more and more now. They also added the feature of 7 digit dialing. This is nice, although my area has multiple area codes so only comes in handy on about half my calls. I haven't had any recent outages, and call quality has been great.
Update:4/29/05
Had a couple vonage related outages since my last review update.But I do not talk enough on the phone that I never even noticed that I was having a problem. I love having my voice mail messages emailed to my phone so I know when to call in and check them. I have had some phone quality issues that were not directly related to my current downloads, or my specific ISP. But it still could have easily been related to some routing somewhere along the line when going over the internet. Overall I still would recommend this to anyone who wants to save some money, but can put up with a few bugs that for the most part are not directly Vonage's fault. For the money I save the service is just outstanding. But nothing will compare the reliability of a POTS lines. My main complaint is how about some new features Vonage!!! E911 would be top of my list, along with maybe anonymous call rejection or something like that.
Update: 7/2/08
Still going strong with Vonage with nothing bad to say. I will admit I am not a heavy phone user but none the less I can't recall the last time my Vonage line gave me any problems that were not the fault of my ISP.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by UFO BOGIE 1
UPDATED: 17 days ago
member for 79 days, 5 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Wichita,Sedgwick,KS
$25 per month
"Good Service, Fast support, Pretty Good so Far."
"None so Far"
"I'm Very Pleased with the service so far"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I had ATT. for about 6 years , got tired of them, always took to long to talk to a PERSON.. Time for a change . So I went with Vonage, Just have had the service about 60 days so far, & Very Happy I made the move so far,.. I like the cost, and the extras you get, a lot more for free, that you have to pay for with a land line , so far I really like the service, Tech support has been a lot better too. & there cheaper too.. Will let ya know how it goes in a few months. Update...7/2/08... Vonage..Rocks.. Very Happy with the service.... Glad I made the move to Voip.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
| »next page (previous review)
Review by cbths1
Posted: 23 days ago
member for 1.8 years, 447 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Okmulgee,Okmulgee,OK
$42 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
"Great price, reliable"
"Terrible Customer service"
"Great Value and rock solid service"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Great value and rock solid service. I have only had to contact support twice in 2 years but they are completely unhelpful to say the least.
Fortunately, I don't have a need to contact support often.
I also have a fax line with Vonage and it is the only fax line I have ever had with a VoIP provider that actually worked!
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
|
|
(61)
(56)
·