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 Review by CUBS_FAN 
member for 8 years, 881 visits, last login: 4 days ago
updated 31 days ago
 Chicago,Cook,IL
 Contract price not specified.  about 5 days "The Website is so easy to navigate with plenty of help info. Automatic bill pay is convenient too.Incoming/outgoing call logs." "If there is a power outage(rarely) your phone don't work. Once in a while I get an echo" "As long as your Internet provider is steady, Vonage will be too."
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Called on the phone and within a week the 4 port Ethernet Motorola voice gateway router arrived. Within another week I had my existing phone number transferred. I was given a "virtual number" on a temporary basis. You must disconnect the telephone line from utility pole going inside the telephone interface box, so the voltage coming from the Telephone Company does not interfere with the VOIP.
The first thing I noticed was when making a call it takes about 5 seconds for the call to connect and start to ring. I also noticed the call volume much louder.
I have E911 service. When making a call to 911 their operator sees my name and address immediately.
All the features from AT&T, (Caller ID, Call waiting, 3-way call, call forwarding etc.) are available and a few that are available only with Vonage. A nice feature, automatic call forwarding if the Internet is experiencing an outage. When logged into the web site or what they call *Dashboard* you can configure the audio quality of your phone line by adjusting how much upload bandwidth is utilized. Set at maximum quality uses about 90k of your upload. They have a convenient Download/Upload measurement page. Also, while logging in at work or anywhere there is internet access, the incoming and out-going calls are logged complete with caller ID. Good for those parents who have teenagers at home while you are at work. Your phone bill automatically increments when *non-free* calls are made.
*Local and long distance calls to all 50 states and Canada are free just like many cell-phone Companies. Calls to the UK, Spain and Dublin and other European countries are free too.
I have the Premium Unlimited Plan @ $24.99 per month plus about $17 in fee's. If all your calls are free your monthly bill would be under $50 for the unlimited calls.
I can go on and on about my experience with Vonage, but I've been typing for over 30 minutes.
5/12/2007
I've had Vonage for a while now and noticed the same good quality making calls to the U.S. But, making international calls to Asia has poor quality with breaking up. Sometimes I simply call the person back, or, actually have to power on reset. I know the problem is within Vonage because I've used a calling card and I get GREAT sound quality without break-ups..
The phone support from Mumbai India is a bit frustrating. They sound like friggin robots. Once you get to level 2 support from New Jersey it gets a little better.
During the Christmas holiday there was an earthquake in Taiwan. I don't know if it is related, but to place a call to Asia, it would take about 45 seconds of dead silence just for the call to go thru. Sometimes I would get a "Line is busy" message. When I finally got connected, the person I was trying to call said "I wasn't on the phone all day". Once apon receiving the busy line message it was over 1 minute. Vonage would proceed to charge me for a call over the 1 minute mark.
1/25/2008
Since my last update until about 2 weeks ago I had nothing but problems with my internet. Since the problems have been fixed I can now experience "beautiful crisp and clear" phone calls. Ever since I joined Vonage the call quality was noticeably "choppy" at times but not to the point of getting aggravated. I'm guessing the "Choppy" quality was due to my internet getting close to a overload with the amount of subscribers that my Download/Upload channel at the CMTS can handle. Since last May I'm guessing Comcast signed up one too many people and never made the accommodations via their network.
Vonage's rates for international calls are reasonable and you can use a prepaid calling card and simply dial the local access number which is unlimited.
9/20/2008
Still going smooth since my internet connection was fixed earlier this year. I'm still dialing a local number and using a prepaid telecom to place my international calls. I might stay with Vonage as long as they can stay alive. 
7/10/2010
Almost 2 years later and I'm just happy they are still in business! The cost per month is hovering around $40 per month and no problems..
4/18/2013
Back in November of 2012 I cancelled Vonage. After 2 months I had enough with MJ's blocking calling card access numbers and went back to Vonage. They have a 30 day money back guarantee and I noticed I was finally able to get my number ported after the 30 day period passed.
I found out that they now have free calls to Globe Telecom subscribers in the Philippines. So now I'm enjoying unlimited international calls and monthly phone bill around $36.83.
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Review by Mr_A1
member for 9.1 years, 3216 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 48 days ago
- Dickson,Dickson,TN
- $16 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 5 days
- "BasicTalk price is very good."
- "Make sure you do some research to open correct firewall ports so you can receive best quality possible."
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Due to AT&T CallVantage service being discontinued, I decided to try Vonage as a value replacement. The changeover was easy and the equipment came fairly fast, but the call quality and features are not the same as AT&T for the same amount of money being paid per month. I will definitely be changing over the AT&T U-Verse Voice when I order their tv and internet services. Vonage still has a long way to go to provide better services like outgoing caller id along with other features now found on other carriers like a phone book, etc and really need to do something about improving their call quality.
Update: After about 5 years after this review was written, I have returned back to Vonage using their BasicTalk Plan; they have definitely improved. The BasicTalk adapter although easy is not that great, but at least my old VPortal adapter still works and was able to be changed back to it with the correct ports opened in my router. The call quality is a lot better than years ago, and for the price it just works since I need to have some sort of home phone line at my home.
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 | | uverse sucks No comparison to Direct TV! U-VERSE is BAD technology! | |
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 Review by Jeffrey
member for 10.4 years, 4241 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 76 days ago
- Huntington Station,Suffolk,NY
- $35 per month
- about 3 days
- "Call Quality, Price, Features"
- "Tech Support"
- "Great Service, Good value for the $"
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3/3/2013 Update:
No complaints about services. Still missing a feature or two and the price is increasing a bit, but still a great value and service I'm happy to pay for.
1/12/2011 Update:
Service continues to be excellent once again. No issues, and features, price and reliability, are one of the best buys in the business. Only wish they would get that app for CDMA smart phones.
3/4/2010 Update:
Vonage service continues to be excellent. No issues or problems to report, the service still works quite well. Currently, two Vonage voice lines and 1 fax line all working with no problems. Family members enjoy the features and calling plans [to other countries] so everyone loves it. A+.
The price above ($33) is for one line.
1/14/2009 Update:
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Still fantastic service and call quality. There are no issues to report, no changes in service or expectations. Price remains at a great point, and Vonage, for me, is an excellent VoIP service that works well for me with no problems. Only thing is that I would like to change my outgoing name for the caller ID from "unknown name" to my name, and I'm sure there is a way to do that, but I just haven't even researched it. That would be my only "complaint", but it's not really a fair one since I haven't even researched how to fix it yet.  Anyway, continued great service from Vonage. Would recommend them highly.
5/11/2008 Update:
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Still fantastic service. No issues, call clarity still fantastic. Features still amazing. No way I'd give up Vonage. I had to call my parents in several cities in Australia in March of 2008, and it cost less than $1 extra to talk to them for 45 minutes. You can't beat that! A+++ Service.
10/15/2007 Update:
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It's been a little over 6 months since my last review, and nothing much to say other than that quality is as good or better as before. In addition, new features were rolled out this summer as well as world-calling plans. Service and price remain outstanding, and I love what Vonage provides. We still have 3 lines (2 voice, 1 fax) here and all working fine.
Vonage and Sprint recently settled, which is good news. Litagtion with Verizon is still on-going, and no one really knows how that will pan out.
The only negative that I can find is that tech support is not the best---I often find an answer to my technical question at third-party websites, and not Vonage's. Little tricks here and there if a hiccup occurs in the service, for example.
I plan on keeping Vonage - the service and is just too good, and the price is too perfect for me to go anywhere else.
--- April 7th, 2007 update ---
Vonage continues to be great for our phone system. We have 3 Vonage lines, 2 regular and 1 fax that work perfectly. Call quality remains excellent, as do the features. Since my last update, they have offered free International calling to select European countries the customer subscribes to their highest unlimited package, which we do.
The recent court trouble with Vonage will hopefully turn out in Vonage's favor in the end, as we'd hate to lose our Vonage access given the unparralleled quality, features, and price.
That being said, BBR has been an invaluable source of help for me on the occasional time Vonage has gone down (3-4 times per year, totalling perhaps 24 hrs per year). Not "five nines" for reliability, but darn good, and well worth the price.
24 hrs / day = 8544 hrs/year.
24 hrs downtime per year (approx)
= 8520 hours uptime per year out of 8544.
=99.719% uptime. 
9/15/06 Update:
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I wanted to do a Q6 month update, but that didn't happen. So here I am. Vonage, aside from a small handful (greater-than-1-less-than-5) of issues that each of which lasted less than 24 hours since my last update, I continue to give Vonage high marks. In terms of a grading scale, I'll give them an A-. Price has gone up slightly (taxes?), and quality has remained constant--generally very, very good. All the perks - voice mail, call forwarding, etc. have been a great addition to our lives here. As mentioned above, we picked up a 2nd voice line and a fax line, and they too have been very good.
The only downside at this point (that I see) is technical support. I'm actually going to lower my rating on them to a 2 (from a 3) because of a recent issue. Apparently, in a recent firmware push to our ATA's (Motorolla V1005), one of them was successfull and one was not. For the life of me, I coudn't figure out why it was happening or how to fix it. Luckily, I wasn't the only person having the problem. In the Vonage forum here on BBR, user's described my exact situation, and collabratively, we were able to fix it. Apparently, one of the people in the discussion called Vonage Tech Support and they were unable to fix the problem. The user in question then came to the Vonage forum and after some experimentation, was able to get his ATA back working after a series of moderately difficult steps. I find it fortunate that I can continuously come to a place like BBR for help, but I find it troubling that Vonage can't help people in some instances. Granted, much of Vonage's complaints from customers are out of their control, but this was in their control, and I had to come to BBR to get it fixed, not Vonage.com.
For this, I'm lowering my rating of their tech support, but I continue to highly recommend Vonage as a low-cost alternative to high-cost POTS lines, where people also have a reliable, low-latency, high bandwith connection.
--12/09/05 Update ---
It's been a while since I made an update to this, so I figured now was a good time to do so. After 1.5 years of Vonage service with one Vonage line, and about a year with the second line, we have had hardly any problems.
The only "Vonage-specific" problems we have had are:
1) Occasionally, our VM indicator light stays on. A reboot of our Motorolla ATA usually solves that problem.
2) "All circuits are busy" happens a few times a month, but upon hanging up and redialing the # that generated that error, the call goes through.
We used to have Cablevision's Optimum Online as our ISP, but we now we have Verizon FiOS and have had Fios since May of 2005. Since Fios, there has been zero (I really mean zero) problems with voice or call quality -- when we had Optimum, occasionally there would be some echoing or stuttering, but again, that was relatively rare.
We just purchased a 3rd line from Vonage (dedicated fax line for $9.99 month), and that too has been great.
Three phone lines in the house now - all Vonage -- 2 voice, 1 fax. Total bill for all 3 comes to less than $70 per month, which was the cost of our old POTS line including all the taxes, fees, and the moderate long distance calls we made. Now, our bill is always the same, quality and features are better, and with Fios, no latency so voice quality is exceptional.
Big thumbs up for Vonage.
Note: Since the parents have become more accustomed to the "perks" with Vonage, they have said to me they don't know how they could live without the "free" features Vonage offers compared to our old POTS; Voicemail, call waiting, and especially, call forwarding.
After deciding that paying MCI $75/month for local and long distance was too much, we checked out Vonage in May of 2004.
Setup was a little confusing, and only because of the limitation of the Motorolla ATA. Apparently, this device can be used either in front of or behind the router. By default, the device is setup to work in front of the router. However, this device is a poor NAT device, and based upon the comments and suggestions found here at BBR, the decision was made to change the settings on my ATA so that it could just be plugged into a switch.
Before I did this, the ATA would lockup a lot. But, after putting the device after the router (and into a switch), the connections have been rock solid.
The advantage of putting the ATA behind the router is stability. The disadvantage is that the ATA's internal QoS is disabled. There is no way to use the QoS with the ATA behind the router. However, with my cable provider (Optimum Online), connection speeds are sufficient that no QoS is needed. (10Mb/1Mb). Additionally, my router has it's own QoS settings that can be used (if needed) to prioritize devices based upon their MAC address. So, the Motorolla's own QoS settings that are now disabled since it's plugged into my switch have no effect on me.
Other than that, call quality and value for the money are fantastic. No complaints at all. One time out of a hundred they'll be a dropped call, as well as the occasional voice mail issue. However, these are minor issues and in no way would they make me change.
We liked it so much, that we just picked up a 2nd ATA for our 2nd Vonage line.
Great value.
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 Review by jaa
member for 12.9 years, 6101 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 77 days ago
- New Canaan,Fairfield,CT
- $17 per month
- about 5 days
- "Perfect quality, good value"
- "Website reliability a little shakey"
- "Excellent value!"
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Ordered my line, got it in a few days. Plug-and-play - absolutely no problems. Took 4 weeks to get my number from at&t assigned - Vonage did everything after I sent in the paperwork, and sent an email with about 12 hours notice when the cutover was to occur.
The quality is excellent - better than my regular phone line. The value is incredible - 500 minutes anywhere in North America loaded with features (voice mail, callerid, etc) for 25% less than the cost of a stripped down POTS line from at&t!
The phone service has been 100% reliable since we got it. The website has had some issues.
We have a second phone line from at&t that we use for outgoing local calls and fax, as well as dialtone when the power is out. Vonage will forward our calls to the POTS line automatically when our internet is out. We also like POTS for 911 service - even though we setup Vonage for 911, I like having the true e911 through POTS.
One line, 500-minute plan. Total monthly bill: $19.50.
Been over 3 years now - working great!! Love the features (and the price!!).
Update: Over 4 years now, still working great!! Better quality and reliability than our POTS service from at&t.
Update May, 2009: 5 years now. Switched from the $20/mo 500 minute plan to the $300/yr unlimited plan. Now worry about minutes. No issues.
Update October, 2010: Over 6 years; service is still great. I REALLY like receiving my voicemail in my email - WITH a transcription of the message so I can read it instead of listening.
Update December, 2011: Another year of excellent service. $365 per year including all taxes and fees.
Update August, 2012: Still going strong. Thinking about dropping my POTS line now.
Update March, 2013: Finally did it - dropped my POTS line. Just cell and internet phones.
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 Review by DJRank1
member for 7.7 years, 189 visits, last login: 60 days ago
updated 107 days ago
- Pittsburg,Contra Costa,CA
- $24 per month
- "Very afforable"
- "Callers on other end have trouble hearing me"
- "Good"
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I have been on Vonage for a few months now and I would like to say that it's a very good service. I've never had any problems, it's very convienient with all of it's features that they provide. The sound quality sounds great but sometimes callers that i'm talking to complain that they have trouble hearing me. Other than that the service is great! I ditched my telco company so they are totally out of the picture! I have everything running through cable with Comcast for the TV and internet and Vonage utilizing the internet provided by Comcast. I would recommend Vonage to anyone willing to save some money and have a little more features than what AT&T provides. Good job Vonage! =)
2/1/13
UPDATE: This is an old review but wouldn't mind having Vonage again...
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 Review by mahermusic
member for 11.8 years, 3492 visits, last login: 8 days ago
updated 110 days ago
- U.S.A.
- $15 per month
- "Low $$$, Crystal Clear Sound Quality, Much better service than Verizon"
- "None"
- "Get it.... save the moolah!"
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We just had our 10-Year anniversary with Vonage on March 7, 2013. Service is reliable, and sound quality is crystal-clear. No problems ever in those 10 years.
Also got nine Vonage referrals within that time, some of those going on or past their 8-year anniversary.
I'm so happy I ditched POTS all those years ago.... I've saved SO MUCH $$$ from AT&T and Verizon over that time.... makes me smile just thinking about it!
Attaboy, Vonage!!!
Comments:
| | They screwed up my phone number switch I just lost my number because of the incapacity of these people to do anything right .
I am realy upset with Vonage. Their quality service is zero. | |
| | | reply march 7 2013???? you sure about that | |
| | | | Re: reply Yup, of course! | |
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Review by scokill5
member for 11.4 years, 7 visits, last login: 138 days ago
lodged 138 days ago
- Rowlett,Dallas,TX
- $35 per month
- about 5 days
- "Call quality great, no outages"
- "No forward thinking features"
- "Great service, not as big of savings as it used to be with more competitive pricing"
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I've had vonage pretty much since the service started years ago. I did switch to Verizon's Voip service briefly before they discontinued and they were completely horrible, so I switched back to vonage.
I have Verizon FIOS service and have never had one issue with Vonage whatsoever. Call quality is great, website is average but I don't use it that much, have never had to call customer service, but I'm sure they would be average at best as are most telcos.
When I first subscribed if you were on a $25/month deal, you were charged $25/month, and then along the way they started adding taxes and fees like all the other telcos. So now $25 is more like $35. Can't blame them for it, but now they are more in line with everyone else. You could probably get a bundle of internet/TV/phone with the phone portion cheaper than vonage. I have FIOS but don't like FIOS TV, so I have internet and a business line for my wife bundled. I pay a little more for the business line in the Verizon bundle than our home line with Vonage by the time you add features, unlimited long distance, etc., I guess if you just want a home phone to backup you cell phones, you could go to a minute based plan and save some money though.
I do have to make international calls for work sometimes and it is nice to have dirt cheap to free rates for these calls.
My biggest complaint is that selective call screening has been a feature that has been requested by throngs of users over the years and they still won't offer. My work around is a google voice account which I use simul ring to send to both my home phone and google voice. I setup call block to intercept sales calls and use the spam control on google voice. When someone on the blocked or spam list calls me, google voice sends to disconnected recording and my home phone gets 1/2 a ring and the call goes away. Over time, this has cut my unwanted calls almost down to zero. Before I did this I was getting 5 calls per day and now maybe 2/month get through and I just mark them as spam and they never get through.
All in all Vonage is a great choice if you want to save some depending on your situation, but you have to do some research and analyze the alternatives. I wouldn't consider unless you have rock solid broadband internet.
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 Review by NetFixer
member for 8.9 years, 5041 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 138 days ago
- Murfreesboro,Rutherford,TN
- $30 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 1 days
- "The service works well, and it is not AT&T."
- "Actually, at this time, I can't think of any bad points."
- "The service works well, and it is not AT&T."
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I have edited this review thread to remove ancient entries that are currently irrelevant. I will now only maintain relatively current information in this thread.
Ancient history summary:
I have been an on and off Vonage customer since 2004. I migrated to AT&T CallVantage for a while, but returned to Vonage when AT&T shutdown their CallVantage service.
Update: 01/01/2012:
Nothing much new to report, but the DSLR update bot is bugging me for a new review:
I currently only have my business line with Vonage (which now gets very light usage because I am retired), and it is on their $9.95 (plus bogus fees) plan. Most of the calls on that line are incoming, and the $9.95 plan still has unlimited inbound calls, so all is good.
I did recently drop my Vonage fax line because of problems that developed after changing my ISP from AT&T to Comcast (I previously reported this on my Comcast review). A recent Comcast SMC router firmware upgrade seems to have fixed that problem, but I don't trust it enough yet to cancel my RingCentral fax service and replace it with a Vonage fax line (which would be more expensive anyway with Vonage's added bogus fees).
Update: 08/11/2012:
The DSLR update bot is bugging me for a new review, so here it is:
Not really much new to report. The service still works well, and I still use it. I did have to recently replace my ancient Motorola VT2442 with my even more ancient Cisco/Linksys RTP300 because the VT2442 had started to intermittently lock up. I really hated to do that because the VT2442 had remote reboot capability and functioned quite well as a backup DNS forwarder; the RTP300 does not have remote reboot and it is a miserable DNS forwarder (timeouts are more common than successful DNS query responses).
I am toying with the idea of perhaps activating a dedicated Vonage fax line again; but I will probably wait until after Comcast releases their IPv6 firmware for my SMCD3G-CCR gateway so that I can verify that Vonage faxing will still work with that new firmware.
Update: 09/06/2012:
Well, once again I am no longer a Vonage customer. I ported my last Vonage line to AT&T yesterday, and today (after I gently reminded Vonage with an email because the line still showed as active and I could still make outgoing calls), Vonage deactivated the line and closed my account. I wasn't having any problems, but it seemed to be more efficient to just have that line as another phone number in my AT&T family plan. I can still use it as a desk phone via a bluetooth link to my GE DECT phone system, and I can also use it as a bluetooth tethered backup Internet connection when needed.
Update: 10/15/2012:
My ping-pong relationship with Vonage is alive and well.
After experiencing frequent compatibility problems between my dual band zBoost repeater and the AT&T Samsung Solstice II phone to which I had ported my old business number, I ported that number back to Vonage (their $9.99 per month "Basic Talk" plan). The only "problem", I had with porting it back to Vonage was that the expedited number port only took two business days (instead of the 1-2 weeks that I was expecting), and the number port process completed before I received the new VDV23 adapter that Vonage insisted on shipping. Fortunately I still had my old Linksys RTP300, and I re-activated it so that I could use the line. If these two business day ports are now the normal time frame, Vonage needs to start shipping their adapters using an overnight method instead of their current default of 2-7 business days.
Update: 12/18/2012:
Today I cancelled my RingCentral fax service and setup a fax line with Vonage (again). The combination of swapping my old Comcast SMCD3G gateway for a Motorola SB6121 cable modem, and installing a ZyXEL switch with advanced priority based QoS has made faxing with Vonage doable again.* The only downside so far is that I initially had to use the VDV23 ATA in order to setup the fax line (I don't like the VDV23 for multiple reasons), but I may try using my old reliable RTP300 again in a few days now that the fax service is operational (I think that the Vonage server was just having a provisioning problem that coincidentally was resolved by the time I moved both of the lines to the VDV23). I will however probably keep using the »[Equipment] !#$%&! VDV23 for long enough to see if it still has the problem of dropping the connection every time the WAN DHCP lease renews, or if the new firmware that it seemed to download has fixed that problem.
The triggers for dumping RingCentral and activating a Vonage fax line were:
1. My RingCentral bill was getting ready to increase to make it the same price as the Vonage fax line (previously it was $5 per month cheaper).
2. RingCentral had started using PDF files for received faxes, and their conversion process produced horrible results (low resolution, smudging, drop out, etc).
3. The Vonage faxes are (at least currently) sharp and detailed (the way that the RingCentral faxes used to be when they used the native TIFF file format).
* Details on how my Comcast connection is configured to allow successful faxing using Vonage can be seen at: »Update on solution for using Vonage for VoIP faxing
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| | Disconnect service impossible I've been with them for 5 years or so, but VOIPO is 1/4 the price for the same service. So I flipped to VOIPO and ported my number from Vonage to VOIPO with a week remaining in my 1 year deal with Vonage, with the accompanying emails and calls to Vonage directing them to discontinue billing. But they won't stop with the emails telling me my account is past due and this morning, they've threatened me with collection action even though I haven't had a contract or placed a call with them in over a month and a half. They're doing the same reprehensible crap they used to complain other carriers did to THEM when they started. It's revenge on a customer that leaves the store. Creepy. The hoops they make you jump through to stop the billing on their website also leads to dead web pages at the account portal. Their harassment is deliberate and infuriating. The endgame with these people should give anyone sufficient pause not to sign up in the first place. They ruined a 5 year relationship over the same thing that brought me to them in the first place, a cheaper rate than my last carrier. Now, it's war. BBB, FCC, FTC, here I come. | |
| | | | Re: Disconnect service impossible dumped them five yrs ago for voip.ms and have not looked back | |
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Review by DanTou
member for 6.6 years, 1816 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 210 days ago
- Quebec,QC
- $20 per month
- about 3 days
- "Easy installation; low cost; lots of included options"
- "Sound quality"
- "Recommended for anybody with no technical knowledge"
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Very easy to install. Unplug your router or computer from the MODEM; plug Vonage box into MODEM, plug computer or router in Vonage box. Unplug your actual phone supplier (Bell or other) from your phone lines. Plug Vonage box into a phone outlet. That's it; all your home phones at home are on Vonage.
There are two plans (500 minutes or Unlimited). All incoming calls are free but in the 500 minutes plan, all outgoing calls are counted, even the local calls. Same costs no matter where you are calling: local, Canada, USA, and Puerto Rico. Unlimited plan includes free calls to 60 countries.
It is very reliable but, unlike Bell, if your Internet is down or there is a power failure, you won't have a phone. Think of 911...
Never used tech support, so I cannot say if it is above or blow average; thus the "3" rating.
Voice quality: incomig calls: excellent, always. Outgoing calls: about once a week, had to call back. When two persons talking at the same time (interrupting the other; I know, it's not polite), sounds are dropped. Thus, the "Below average rating". It definitely has better sound quality than a cell phone. Most of the time, you are able to tell if the other person is on a line or cordless phone.
I have been with them for 5 years and have been very satisfied of the product. Just switched to VoIP.ms which has more options, better sound quality and costs less but is more difficult to install. So if you don't want to spend time understanding; Vonage is a great option; much better than Bell. If you need Bell reliability, it would be a much lower cost to get Vonage and a prepaid cell phone (with no SIM) for emergencies.
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 Review by lolcake
member for 2.9 years, 45 visits, last login: 201 days ago
updated 214 days ago
- Trois-Rivieres,QC
- $31 per month
- about 90 days
- "Good sound quality, extremely reliable."
- "Bad equipment, features don't work at all times."
- "Excellent value for international calls, good alternative over traditional phone service."
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Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Reliability
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The sound quality of my Vonage line is quite similar to a landline phone line. People don't notice a sound deterioration of any kind, except when my Internet connection becomes saturated. Vonage works quite well behind my Cisco firewall, despite the severity of my ZBF rules. Vonage shipped me a bloated VDV22, which is essentially a router with phone functions enabled. I had to buy a D-Link VTA-CV on ebay because it's just what I was expecting for at the beginning : a phone adapter device without any kind of routing functions.
Features
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I like how people can call me via the V-Access services without paying a dime. Even better, I like how easy you can get a virtual phone access. I have a virtual phone number in Santiago, CL so my relatives won't need to pay long distance fees. The price is fine, but I've seen cheaper. It seems that if you're a Canadian customer, you won't get all the functions that Americans customers do. Some features don't seem to work as it should, like the Call Waiting.
Tech support
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I never had to the tech support but they answer e-mails quite fast. I'm skilled enough to fix problems by myself.
Billing
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I've got the Canada World plan. They charged me 26.98 (14.99 + a virtual phone number) CAD for the first three months. I'm waiting for the next bill. Too bad if they only accept credit cards....
Bottom line
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I'm happy with this service. I'm subscribed to them for 3 months and I didn't have big issues so far.
Update: Oct 12 2012
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* I realized that people using Google Voice are unable to reach me. My Vonage phone doesn't even ring and they hear a ringback tone.
* Some coworkers who are using the Koodo mobility service can't hear the ringback tone when they call me. Telus mobility doesn't have this problem.
* I can't make some international calls so I opened a support ticket yesterday. This morning, a lady from Vonage called me saying that my issue is going to be escalated to the network engineers.
Update: Oct 16 2012
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* Now. I got an e-mail from the 'ARAdmin' saying that techs are working on my issue and everything should be fine within 48 hours. I don't have such problems when I use calling cards. I'm crossing my fingers as I'm beginning to doubt about Vonage's reliability since the issues with Koodo and Google Voice.
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