VOIP etc > Voice Over IP - VOIP > Vonage > Would Vonage Be a mistake?

Would Vonage Be a mistake?

For that money, ATT Call Vantage or Verizon Voice Wing is a better choice. Same cost, no issues of company not being around in a year or two

reply to sbk212
I wouldn't have any qualms with Vonage - I was a customer of theirs for a year back when they were new. I ended up chosing someone else I trusted just as much who didn't charge quite as much though.

reply to sbk212
I dunno but the lawsuit prevented me from going with Vonage, ended up trying onesuite.com suiteadvantage and so far i am satisfied.

Check them out, they are offering 1 month free trial till 08/20 so in case you didn't like it won't cost you a thing.

»www.onesuite.com/sunrocket.asp

reply to sbk212
I was with them and came back. From my experience they provide top notch service, their customer support can be terrible. I'm not terribly concerned with the lawsuit. Callvantage is highly rated, but retains alot of the old wireline way of thinking with some of their extra charges.

reply to sbk212
I'll put in my 2 cents worth on this:

I signed up with Vonage 2 days after my phones went dead from Sunrocket. They were offering Free Activation, Free Equipment, Free Overnight Shipping,& 2 Mo. Free Service. Wow, what a deal!! After placing my order, I logged into my new account and soon noticed that shipping was indicated as 2nd Day DHL???? I called them back & they assured my it was just a system glitch. Well, 2 days later, no device and I called them several times with the assurance that it was coming. Out of irritation, I canceled my account (which was only open for 2 days). They then slapped me with a disconnection fee of $39.99, which mind you I never even used the service & the box never shipped!!! I asked them to cancel the shipment, but they said it couldn't be stopped (and it never even left Vonage yet). Finally the device shipped, so I called & asked if I could refuse it when DHL delivered. The CSR from Vonage told me NO, I must accept it, call to get an RA# & ship it back -- They will provide a label via email. So, the device arrives -- 1 week later than promised. Guess what??, the CSR rep gives me the RA# & tells me I have to pay to ship it back, it's in their TOS. By this time I am all fired up!!! I then call again & demand to talk to a supervisor. I explain everything to him & convey how irritated I am about this whole thing, and that I am now out $7 shipping for service I never used!! He proceeded to tell me that I could have just refused the shipment --- My head hit the roof!!!! I then told him what one of his CSR's told me, with a bit of coaxing, he said he would refund my $7 for shipping. Well, as of today, I have gotten my $39.99 Disconnect fee refunded, but still no $7 for shipping -- they told me that their accounting dept. refused it because of the TOS!! Now, just out of principal, I am going to harass them every day till they give me a refund.

So to sum up, I wouldn't believe much of what their CSR's tell you, seems they can make up about anything. I am glad I decided to go elsewhere!!! Good Luck if you do take the plunge.

reply to guppy_fish

reply to sbk212
I haven't had a whit of trouble with Vonage for years and have had excellent call quality at a cost savings of $40+/month over my previous POTS line. Mistake? Not that I can see.

Well at least Vonage aint run outta someones Garage with terrible customer service and terrible service. I dont see Vonage pulling a Sunrocket. The others I think are all gonna steal you money once they get enough customers. And pull a sunrocket. I doubt with Vonage in the stock market and millions of customer, they would pull the plug.

Vonage here for over 4+ years. Best voice quality, and a TON in savings over POTS in that 4-year span. All my friends and family are on it... I couldn't say anything about the "onesuite" voip company mentioned above, or their reliability... I've never even heard of them until the above post. I'm good with my trusty Vonage.
--
Don't blame me... I voted for KERRY.

reply to sbk212
I'll chime in as a 3-year Vonage customer currently with 5 lines (previously 6 lines).

Avoid them.

Originally they were this great little maverick company bringing this cool new product for mass consumption. Then they got "too corporate" for their own good. Most of their support is outsourced to foreign call centers that barely speak English and do nothing more than read from canned scripts. If the answer isn't in the script, they basically turf the call. It's a rarety to actually get an English speaking American on the phone.

Don't try to cancel your account with them. They'll repeatedly put you on hold, many report for as much as 10-20 minutes at a time. My guess (and that of others) is they hope you will just give up. IT DOES NOT-- repeat NOT-- take an hour and several times on hold to click a few buttons to close an account. It is just a stall tactic.

I had 6 lines and needed to cancel 1-- just 1-- of them because it was no longer needed. Holy crap, it was like I was closing a million-dollar account or something. The guy WOULD NOT do it, instead giving me excuse, afer excuse, after excuse, why I shouldn't be doing it. I had to get nasty and threaten to cancel all 6 lines, before he gave up and did what I wanted.

You are locked in for TWO YEARS, or they hit you with an early termination fee. The reputable players, including AT&T, don't have any such fees as long as you return the adapter.

A couple weeks ago I opened an AT&T CV account, and so far both the phone service and the people have been excellent (and they all speak English as a first language). My plan is to use it for a couple months to make sure there aren't any major issues, and if so, port my home number and 3 of the 5 business lines to AT&T CV. The remaining 2 biz lines will remain with Vonage, so we'll still have at least partial phone service in case AT&T has an outage.

Call quality-- I give Vonage a B+ or maybe an A-. Calls are reasonably clear even using their lowest quality setting to save bandwidth.

Reliability-- they've had several outages so far this year, but not dramatic enough that I would cancel just because of that. (2007 has been a rough year, 2006 had fewer outages) If you're going to use VoIP, expect it will happen once in a while-- price you pay for all the other benefits.

Pricing-- If you're going to spend money, you might as well go with a company that's financially solid. Vonage, AT&T CV, and Verizon VoiceWing are all priced at $24.95 for the "unlimited" plan. (unlimited meaning "5000 minutes per month" before they consider you an abuser) So why be a Vonage subscriber and wonder if they're going to be around tomorrow, when you can go with Verizon or AT&T who will be around forever.

My $0.02.
 

reply to sbk212
Folks talk so highly about Verizon and ATT support and call quality.

If you want great support, great call quality, don't care about the price or how they gouge you on inane fees, then stay with ATT or Verizon POTS.

ATT & Verizon are huge companies out to take advantage of consumers. If and when they put Vonage out of business, VOIP with them will be just as expensive as their POTS and we'll be back to where we started.

reply to sbk212
Well my trusty Onesuite and its VoIP service works very well for me. I'm on a tight budget and its $2.95 VoIP monthly maintenance fee (incoming calls are free) is perfect for my needs. Outgoing is pay as you go.

reply to sbk212
Personally had Vonage for a month or so .. former SunRocket survivor here .. no issues. Looked at ATT but they couldn't port my #. My biggest reason for signing with Vonage, they are publicly traded and much tougher for them to just shut down, much less without warning.

reply to sbk212
Love my Vonage (3+ years). At one point, I was calling the UK and talking for an average of 6-8 hours a day (sometimes more), every day. Never had one issue with being considered "an abuser".

The call quality is excellent, only a couple of short outages attributed to Vonage in the time I've had it. I would stay away from anything Verizon (horrible POTS service, wouldn't trust them with their VoIP), or anything that is so *cheap* that it sounds to good to be true....it probably is.

Any with any VoIP service, the quality of Vonage is directly related to the quality of your ISP service (which is often the problem when people have issues).
--
JIHAD WATCH~~9329 DEADLY TERROR ATTACKS SINCE 9/11

reply to sbk212
I was a Vonage customer for two years and switched to SunRocket last year for the $199 annual plan. After being orphaned with the masses, I first attempted to port my number to ViaTalk. After a month of waiting for service, I received nothing from ViaTalk, so I canceled my order. Three days after canceling VT, they billed me for $268, but that's another issue.

I called Vonage to see if they would welcome me back. I still had my Vonage device, so I thought the process would be smooth. The main customer service group for Vonage is in India and they are horrible, but they had some good techs in New Jersey that had me up and running quickly. Wait times for technical support averaged about five minutes and sometimes were instant, unlike the two hour waits I experienced at ViaTalk. The level two techs are very good and I would recommend Vonage. They have some nice features that other VOIP providers don't have. With the smart call forwarding to my cell phone, I never miss a call.

I'd avoid them. The poster mentioning the stall tactics is spot on. I've been trying to get my $100 rebate from them for 6 months. Today I waited 15+ minutes 4 times only to be answered, put on hold, and dropped. They've promised to call me back numerous times and usually they deny the rebate offer ever existed.

On top of that, the quality of the service is not prime time, at least for business calls. Too much delay, and when there are multiple people on a conference call with VOIP, everyone is stepping all over everyone else.

reply to sbk212
I used Vonage for 1.5 years and had great quality and only one outage during that time. I had one line for home use and another for home office use.

Very rarely had quality issues, for the price they were spot on.

reply to sbk212
Your best idea would be to read some of the reviews written up about Vonage.

reply to sbk212
Agree with rebus9.

Vonage is horrible when it comes to cancellation .. the cancellation fee is outrageous.

The second is the hidden thing, they will not refund your billed amount. I know of of NO service provider that has this policy.

It's a policy and not in T&C ..

If it was in T&C they will have to spell it out, so they keep T&C clean, however try getting them to give you partial refund on the service not used .. they won't do it.

Someone ought to sue them for this .. make it class action and put them out of their misery.