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Order was September 2004 and received the Motorola VT1005. Installation was a snap and we were up and running almost immediately when the box was delivered. I ordered the $34.99 package for unlimited province calling and $7.99 for a USA virtual number, quickly upgrading to the $39.99 unlimited Canada/USA calling. Services have worked great and aside from the occasional hiccup, I've had no complaints. Refer-a-friend is a great promotion and the configuration dashboard is a breeze to set up all of the needed features. I love being able to check my email and receive voicemail messages. Being able to check my email and see what I have for voicemail, then listen to it right there... I can't live without it now! Travelling with the adapter was never easier. On a trip to the midwest USA, the adapter was brought along and worked flawlessly. For the price and the services that are offered, best value bar none. Update - April 22, 2009: Moved to a new city and along came my Vonage adapter with me. Didn't change my phone number or plan. Simply updated my information in the dashboard and e911 info and was up and running in less than five minutes. No additional fees or charges. Vonage is still working great and is extremely convenient! It's hooked up to my home wiring and nobody can tell the difference!! Hiccups and choppiness are all gone and I have zero complaints now! Review price updated, including: $39.99 Unlimited Canada/USA calling +$7.99 Virtual Number +$3.84 PST +$2.40 GST ========= $54.22 Total member for 20.2 years, 1499 visits, last login: 3.5 years ago updated 14.9 years ago
04/19/09: Well, we no longer have Vonage. I enjoyed the features. It's just that in order to try and save money we switched to the 500 minute plan before they raised the price to $17.99 in order to get people to just go with the unlimited plan. Over the past couple of months we've gone over those 500 minutes by almost 200 minutes. When I called Comcast, I found out we could take advantage of their introductory plan of $20/month for unlimited. I decided to eat the $40 cancellation fee that Vonage so proudly charges. Over the time with Vonage, I did like their calling features. The best feature was the Network Availability feature that would roll the calls over to another number of your choosing if Vonage was unavailable due to an outage. One feature they did lack was Call Screening, which CDV has. For the most part, we had good call quality throughout our time with Vonage. It did get a little worse after I decided to put the Vonage router on the back side of the regular wireless router though. I didn't like all the equipment I had to manage. We had the cable modem, the Vonage router, then had to use another wireless router for our other wireless devices. Too much of a pain to manage all that equipment. I like to keep it simple. It was no problem at all porting our number to Comcast's service. Vonage happily charged us a $40 cancellation fee, and sent an e-mail the day after our number was ported stating that the account had been cancelled. I didn't even call their customer service. 02/24/08: We've now had a few months to experience Vonage. All in all, I'm glad we signed up for it. I enjoy not having to worry about how much the bill is because it's always a flat rate. However, I think Vonage tacks on too many additional charges. It's as bad as AT&T in that regard. I do enjoy all the custom calling features, including 'do not disturb' and 'Simulring'. There are just a couple of problems we've had with the service. Occasionally the person we're talking to will report that the call sounds 'broken up'. I thought that problem would be alleviated when I moved the 2.4 cordless away from the wireless router, but it still happens less often. I keep the bandwidth setting on the highest so I seldom notice any problems on my end. Just a couple of times I've had a call terminate on me for an unexplained reason. Also, at times call forwarding stays active even after I've deactivated it. This was attributed to the Vonage Talk IM software I installed. It took tech support quite a while to help diagnose this problem. Part of the reason was lack of communication because I couldn't understand their accent. I fear the day I want to cancel after hearing all the horror stories. If I did cancel, it would probably be because of the additional fees. Then I would probably select a VOIP solution that doesn't utilize the public internet like Comcast's Digital Voice. 11/17/07: We've now had Vonage for two months. Originally we were using the service with DSL, but now we have a cable modem. Vonage works much better with the cable modem. We have very few complaints about the sound quality now. We are able to set to the highest bandwidth setting and the voice quality is superb. We do occasionally have a complaint about calls cutting out, but I believe it's interference between the wireless g router and the cordless 2.4 ghz phone. This should be alleviated now that I've hooked the Vonage up to entire home phone wiring and moved the cordless. Our account was inaccessible via the web for over a week. This meant we couldn't view call details or change features via the web. The problem was solved in three business days after I called a trouble ticket in. Now that our 2 month free trial has ended, I notice that they've added nearly $9 in additional taxes and junk fees on top of the $25/month charge. Overall, I think the service is worth what we're paying for it. We'll see what our calling patterns are and consider switching to the 500 min./month plan. 9/18/07: I signed up with Vonage after they offered me a deal too good to refuse. I got a 2-month free trial, and a free Motorola VT2442 router, with no activation charge. I know people that are using, or have used Vonage with great success. I considered going with cable phone through Insight. With them, calling to towns 15 miles from here is considered long distance. They want an extra $10 for unlimited long distance. AT&T forces bundling of POTS with DSL to support their antiquated business model. With the telco (AT&T/SBC) always adding additional charges, I was pushed over the edge when they added a fee of $5 just to have long distance on the line. The only reason we ever need long distance is for occasional use of the fax machine. I have not ported our old number to Vonage yet. The Vonage equipment, a Motorola VT2442 router, arrived just 4 days after placing the order over the phone. I could have placed the order online, yet I wanted to talk them into giving me a better deal. Just a heads-up that the call center seems to be in India. They were very driven, and weren't going to let me off the phone until I signed up. I caught the sales person talking out both sides of her mouth. Since I still have DSL, I wanted to wait to port the number of course. She at first told me that I could delay in submitting the paperwork, then said it had to be done no later than 10 days after ordering Vonage. Then, she said it would not cost to port the number at a later date, and later she said there would be a $9.95 charge to do this later as opposed to now. It appears as though they will tell you anything to get you signed up. Of course they did inform me of the $40 cancellation fee, and the equipment charge if I cancel within 2 years. The equipment installation was seamless!! I simply moved all my CAT-5 cables from the old router to the Vonage router, plugged in the power and a phone, and VOILA!! I received a dial tone right away and was making and receiving calls. They must enter the MAC address of the router in their system before they ship it so that it's plug-n-play. The first thing I noticed compared to a traditional land line was that I had to turn the volume of the phone down after connecting to Vonage. The dial tone seems much louder. I notice that while making calls, there is a clicking sound every few seconds when the other line is ringing and that the ringing sometimes has a funny sound to it. It really reminds me of the old pulse dial lines of the good ol' days. Otherwise, the voice quality of the receiving end of the calls is good. On the other hand, people have complained about my voice breaking up once or twice. This problem could have been the other person since they were on a cell phone. Also, one person I talked to said my voice sounded hollow. I've played with different settings of bandwidth saver, but haven't noticed much of a difference in call quality. However, I haven't yet tried uploading much while I'm on a call. I really appreciate having custom calling features which I don't pay extra for. I especially like having call waiting with caller-id again, not to mention busy line callback. The flashing orange voice mail indicator on the router is nice to have as well. Although it has only been a few days since we started using Vonage, we are happy even with some of the minor problems. I realize the technology is still somewhat new, and we can put up with a few problems because of the value. I wouldn't recommend Vonage as someone's only method for communication. Our family has cell phones as a backup. The incumbent telcos have better take notice of who their competition really is. They're already going the way of AOL by bleeding subscribers in droves. member for 22.3 years, 2208 visits, last login: 7.2 years ago updated 15 years ago
I have had Vonage going on 4 yrs, and have been very happy with the service. The only time it was down, was because my ISP was down, or the electric went out. I never had a problem hearing anyone, or getting a good connection. I hope they will be in business for a long time; as I don't want to go back to paying the high cost of Verizon. I will just use my cell phone, if for some reason they go out of business. Highly recommend! member for 19.3 years, 2079 visits, last login: 10.8 years ago updated 15 years ago
Because my old review was removed by "accident" and cannot be retrieved I'm going to make this quick. See Good points See Bad points See Bottom line Enjoy. member for 15.6 years, 4023 visits, last login: 5 days ago updated 15 years ago
6/19-I purchased Vonage online via Circuit City's site and setup in store pickup for that same day. Later that morning, picked up equipment. I had already wired my phones/basement for Vonage. Unpacked equipment went to vonage.com/activate per the instructions. Activated product. While I was doing some last minute finishing work in the wiring, I connect to the box to my network per the instructions. It synced up almost instantly. My setup is Cable Modem (Adelphia)-->Motorola-->NetGear Router-->PC's. As soon as I noticed the MTA had sync, I placed a call and it worked perfectly. No need to configure anything. Just activate product, connect to your network, reboot and you're done. I have Adelphia's 3000/256 package. I set the call quality to the medium settings. I was downloading at 300+kbps while talking on the phone, no problems at all. Vonage also has 7 digit dialing now which works great. The Vonage web site is also very easy to use. Once the service is working, you will need to log onto the Vonage site and active some of the options. I don't use the voice mail feature of Vonage as we use the family answering machine. I did register for the 911 service. Monday I am faxing in my line porting information so Vonage will transfer over my existing land line. Currently, Vonage gives me a temp phone number. Verizon (land line) offers free call forwarding so I setup all calls coming into my land line to be forwarded to my temp Vonage #. That way, this enter transfer process is transparent to everyone. No need to inform people of my temp phone #. Update - 10/31/2007 I've had Vonage for a few years now. Everything is going great. Sure I have the occasional outage, but when that happens Vonage automatically forwards all my home calls to my cell, so it's not a huge deal. I recently changed from the unlimited plan to the 500 minute plan. I was looking at my usage minutes and noticed historically I never used 500 minutes a month, so it was an easy way to save some money. I moved into a new house, service still works fine. I updated the 911 profile to reflect my new address, although I haven't tested it yet. We are an e911 area now too. I have only 1 line, but I do occasionally connect a fax machine to it which works just fine as well. My new ISP (Time Warner) now offers an IP phone, but price-wise it can’t compete. They try to sweeten the deal by offering a higher speed internet tier for free, but my current speeds are fine for my needs, so I’ll stick with Vonage…at least until they get run out of business by all the pending law suits!  I still recommend the service to everyone who asks about it. Update - 02/18/08 Shortly after moving into new house, the LAN ports my Linksys RT31P2 died which forced me to change my network config a little. The service is great though. Cheap price, reliable. I'm very satisfied with it. I did find a user selling a Motorola VT2442 on my local craigslist site that I may purchase. Update - 08/22/08 Still working great. Wish it had a few more features such as call blocking. 911 works great, call quality and uptime are great. Price is great. I love it. Update - 03/26/09 Still satisfied with the server, but am looking for cheaper alternatives. Not too happy with my new adapter because I can't specifiy 3rd party DNS. Not a deal breaker, but annoying. Currently looking into switching to Ooma. Overall I'm still happy with the service. member for 22.2 years, 4329 visits, last login: 7.1 years ago updated 15 years ago
We are a military family who lived in Germany for three and a half years. We signed up for Vonage from Germany, and had our phone (Vtech 8-100) in about a week. Set up was easy, just plug and play. Our ISP wasn't up to par in Germany, so there were times when the internet was down or laggy. That was no fault of Vonage, however. We enjoyed having the ability to us a U.S. number to keep in touch with the folks back home and a local number for our friends and family to call us without worrying about international billing. We are back in the U.S. now. It took us almost two months to get moved in to our new home. The ability to keep our phone number and use the voicemail via internet was priceless during this time. As soon as the cable man came out and hooked us up, our phone was up and running. We are currently using Vonage as our landline. Service has been terrific here using Charter as our ISP. Call quality is great. We did upgrade to the Vportal as our Vtech had battery issues and I wanted to have the ability to use phones of my choice. The Vportal has performed flawlessly, again, it was plug and play. I only had to contact customer service one time. My Vtech had a bad plug adapter, and one simple email to Vonage and I had a new adapter in the mail within days....to an APO address none the less. I have never tried to call customer support, so I can't say anything about that. I have upgraded my account online twice, once for a virtual number, and once to include the Basic World calling plan. Both times the process was simple and painless. My only complaint with Vonage is the lack of call blocking. They have a very basic form of call blocking that only allows unknown numbers to be blocked. I would love the ability to block specific numbers. I don't understand why Vonage hasn't done this by now as it seems every other VOIP provider has a better call blocking feature than Vonage. I really hope that the new Contact Center, now in Beta, will eventually offer this feature. After a year and a half, I am satisfied with Vonage. For only $45 a month, I have unlimited local and long distance calling (to include international calling) to anyone I want to call and a virtual number for my current location. The ability to keep my main phone number wherever we may move is priceless to me. Our parents are getting older and knowing they only have to remember one number for us is a blessing. Update 3/14/09 I've reached my two year anniversary with Vonage. I am still pleased with the service. I did have to call in to customer service with a billing issue and was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting the worst but got excellent service. My total time on the phone was under 5 minutes. My issue was solved way beyond what I was expecting. I was refunded a whole month instead of the $10.00 over charge. At this time, I am completely satisfied with Vonage and hope to continue with them for a long time. member for 15.6 years, 323 visits, last login: 13.7 years ago updated 15.1 years ago
When shopping for VOiP, I considered brands such as Primus and my internet provider, Cogeco. One of my friends had suggested that I looked into Vonage and I'm glad that I did. I'm on the $19.99 basic 500 plan, which gives me 500 minutes of outbound calls (extra outbound calls cost 4.6c a minute, and all incoming calls are not charged or counted towards your 500) to US and Canada. I live with my girlfriend, so I considered the possibilities of going over 500 minutes a month and I figured if I did, then it would be a minimal extra cost (maybe $5 or so). For our situation, the $19.99 plan works out perfectly because it has the features that you'd expect from VOiP and also a minmal price. $19.99 includes the 500 outgoing minutes, caller ID, voicemail, and also the great Web portal that allows you to manage your account for things such as call forwarding, auto e-mailing voice mails to the addresses that you specify, etc. . The installation process was very easy. My girlfriend actually was the one who hooked it up, because the adapter arrived while I was at work. She's not very confident or particularly proficient in hooking up electronics, and she said that it only took her a few minutes. The only negative part of my Vonage experience was that Canada Post had released my VOiP adapter to somebody else who lives in my condo complex, which was frustrating. However, Vonage did rectify this by simply sending out another VOiP adapter (free of charge) which arrived within the next couple of days. So definite kudos to Vonage for their customer service, who went above and beyond for a new subscriber. I've also had maybe a couple of dropped calls, but overall I'd say a 99% reliability rate, and from what people on the other end tell me, the voice quality is great. member for 15.6 years, 444 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago lodged 15.1 years ago
I've not used any other VOIP (nothing else to compare to) I've got a very fast and reliable broadband service (Verizon Fios) I've had Vonage service for 3 years. It's good, it's cheap, why switch. I just this minute had to call Vonage customer service. I've been getting a few dropped calls* (I can hear the other party - they can't hear me). I got tech support quickly, the guy (Indian) was sharp, patient and thorough. Everything we investigated checked out as being in tip top shape. At which point you have to start guessing what might be causing the problem - we opted to reduce the size of data packets. VOIP does have it's inherent problems - it's not only newer technology, but also the VOIP provider doesn't have the ability to control things as completely as would be the case with a traditional phone service. Under the circumstances, I'd say Vonage is doing a pretty good job. *Incidentally, I recently changed my home phone hardware - it seems good, but who knows - it might be causing a problem. member for 20.3 years, 79 visits, last login: 6.1 years ago lodged 15.1 years ago
At my old apartment I had DSL from Verizon and later Earthlink. I got fed up of seeing my monstrous phone bills every month, which came up to almost $100 for DSL and a basic phone line with caller ID. Cable internet soon became available in my neighborhood (RCN), so I decided to get vonage at the same time. I kept the Verizon line for a month just to compare. I placed my order and the Cisco ATA pretty much arrived the next day via UPS. Vonage is in NJ, and I live in NYC so no surprise there. I made my first test call to my girlfriend (also in NYC) and she couldn't tell the difference between the regular phone and vonage. No echoes, no chopping, no metallic compression sounds. Full duplex crystal clear communication. I later called my dad in Trinidad and Tobago and spoke with him for a bit. I paid only 17 cents/minute and the call cost less than two dollars (10 minutes of talking). He sounded like he was right next door! I was really happy. However, a month later I was having problems dialing Trinidad. I had to call tech support. I waited FOREVER for a live person to answer the phone and finally gave up. Ironic that a phone company won't answer the phone! I emailed tech support instead and got a quick response. Within a week or so my international dialing was fixed. I had an unlimited local plan for $24.99, which was fine for me since I didn't do much long distance calling (except to mom in Florida). I ordered vonage for my girlfriend. They sent her a motorola telephone adapter. She hooked it up and we were talking. I dropped my plan down to 500 anytime because I mainly called her, and vonage to vonage calls are always free. Vonage charged me a fee ($10 I think) to change my plan. Now don't get me wrong, I paid the fee, but I hate when companies nickel and dime their customers. Vonage also has an activation fee and a termination fee. Plan changes incur a fee. So much for your "free" telephone adapter! Her motorola adapter died a few days ago. I called tech support and they're sending her a new one. I asked them if she could get the cisco box, but they said they can't guarantee it. The motorola boxes are a piece of JUNK. Everyone is complaining about them. They're the only thing that has gotten worse. Vonage is a pretty good value. I haven't tried the other providers (Packet8, broadvox etc) but I think I'll stick with Vonage. They were one of the pioneers after all. One drawback that any VoIP provider has is how it interacts with the other telephone users in your house. I'm not talking about your teenagers, I'm talking about the numerous consumer electronic devices that use the phone line. I have two DirecTV with TiVo PVR's. They simply will not work with Vonage. One of them, I was able to hack with a TurboNet card (so it connects directly to ethernet and doesn't have to dial in to TiVo) but the other one is a problem. DirecTV hasn't enabled the USB port on it to plug in an ethernet adapter yet, so my second TiVo (an HDVR2) isn't dialing in at all. UPDATE 02/10/09: I've cancelled my vonage service because they jacked up the price for the basic 500. Seems as though they want to sucker people into their "unlimited" plan which is basically overkill for my needs. Switched to callcentric (after not having success with VOIPo) and used BYOD with an ex-Sunrocket AC-211. member for 21.5 years, 2825 visits, last login: 8.6 years ago updated 15.1 years ago
I've replaced my traditional land line with Vonage 3 years ago mainly for the great savings it offered over traditional phone service. My main concern at the time was quality of the line (how well people on the other end of the line could hear me or I could hear them) and reliability especially during Hurricane season here in Florida. Well not only the service did not dissapoint me, but it actually exceded my expectations. Line quality is great to the point that you can't tell the difference, for 24.95 you get all the extra services that traditional phone Co. charge you for such as caller ID, voicemail, 3 way calling, etc. If the internet goes down for any reason vonage forwards the calls to a phoen of my choice (in my case my cellphone). Voicemail messages are available through the phone by dialing in (just like the phone Co), but in addition vonage e-mails me the message so i can listen to it from my blackberry, at work or when I travel without having to dial in. I get free calling to the US, Canada and Puerto Rico, in addition I call my family in Europe for free at no additional cost to the basic service... shall I say more? Well when you travel or if you move, the vonage box follows you... all you have to do is connect it to the internet and bam! your phone service is transfered without hassle. There is much more, this is really a great service and value! member for 15.1 years, 3 visits, last login: 13.6 years ago lodged 15.1 years ago
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