| More Minutes, Higher Fee. No One Asked Me. |
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PX EliezerPremium
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River
kudos:12 Reviews:
 ·voip.ms
·callwithus
·Callcentric
·Vitelity VOIP
·Optimum Voice
·Gizmo5
| I agree. And, you can do better elsewhere.
However, if you do want to stay with Vonage, they still do have a 300 minute plan.
»www.vonage.com/us-canada-calling···ada-300/
In a sense, it makes more sense for their offerings to be 300 or 750, rather than have them as 300 or 500. |
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garys_2kPremium
join:2004-05-07
Farmington, MI Reviews:
·Callcentric
·Future Nine Corp..
| reply to DukeNukem
Reminds me of when my car insurance company told me they had good news, they were reducing my deductible at no extra cost. Great, I said, how about keeping the deductible where it was and cutting my bill? They did, but seem puzzled that I wasn't thrilled with the initial offer. Uh, yeah, sure. |
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| reply to DukeNukem
How much did that plan cost before the increase in minutes? |
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 Lp2
@comcast.net | said by cork1958:How much did that plan cost before the increase in minutes?
$17.99 -- 500 minutes
$9.99 -- 200 minutes |
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PX EliezerPremium
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River
kudos:12 | And LOTS of taxes and fees, pretty much the same as a traditional (POTS) phone company.
Of course, even a POTS company does not add on an "Intellectual Property Fee" like Vonage does. |
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Reviews:
 ·T-Mobile US
·Vonage
 ·Comcast
| said by PX Eliezer:And LOTS of taxes and fees, pretty much the same as a traditional (POTS) phone company.
Wha??? not any POTS phone company around here, bub...
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1/20/09 = The final day of our Retarded Cowboy President! |
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PX EliezerPremium
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River
kudos:12 Reviews:
·voip.ms
·callwithus
·Callcentric
·Vitelity VOIP
·Optimum Voice
·Gizmo5
| said by mahermusic:
Wha??? not any POTS phone company around here, bub...
Wrong.
Pretty much every geographic area has one designated POTS company, most of these companies are also deemed Incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) and are former RBOC's (Regional Bell Operating Companies)
For Chesterfield Township, NJ, that's going to be Verizon, whether you happen to use them or not.
Now, if you use Vonage, then Vonage has to use a CLEC (Competitive local exchange carrier) such as Level-3, Broadwing, XO, etc., to obtain your own phone number (DID).
CLECs and ILECs have to interconnect somewhere, or else many calls would not be completed. |
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| reply to PX Eliezer
said by PX Eliezer:And LOTS of taxes and fees, pretty much the same as a traditional (POTS) phone company.
Of course, even a POTS company does not add on an "Intellectual Property Fee" like Vonage does.
Vonage is still WAY cheaper than even just having a regular landline in my house. Even without a single long distance call, my bill was still $60+ a month!
Whether there are cheaper options available, I'll stick with the one that has been around for a little while anyway.
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The Firefox alternative.
»www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/ |
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| reply to PX Eliezer
said by PX Eliezer:I agree. And, you can do better elsewhere.
However, if you do want to stay with Vonage, they still do have a 300 minute plan.
»www.vonage.com/us-canada-calling···ada-300/
In a sense, it makes more sense for their offerings to be 300 or 750, rather than have them as 300 or 500.
I just tried to switch from the 750 plan to the 300 plan, but that did not appear in my list of options. Do I need to do something special to switch to that plan? |
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Reviews:
·Charter
| reply to DukeNukem
Yeah, how do I switch to the 300 minute plan??
I didn't need 500 minutes, let alone 750 minutes.
I signed up with Vonage when they were $14.99. Then they started piling on fees. Then it jumped to $17.99. Then more fees. Now it's jumping to $19.99.
The "$14.99" plan I signed up for totals $26 after all their stupid fake fees.
This increase to "$19.99" will certainly push my bill over the $30 mark again, and that is what AT&T was charging me. What is the point of Vonage then if it costs as much or more than local services??
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»xenomorph.net/ |
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| I'm in the exact same boat as you Xenomorph. I don't use much more than 250 minutes per month max on the $14.99 plan and this auto-increase is ridiculous.
I believe we'll have to call Vonage to request a change to the lower plan since they don't list it online. |
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 NetFixerFreedom is NOT freePremium
join:2004-06-24
The 'Boro
·Vonage
·Cingular Wireless
·Comcast
 ·AT&T Southeast
| reply to DukeNukem
No one asked me either, and when I got the plan price increase email today, I called and canceled my Vonage Lite line (just in time to avoid being billed for the next month of service).
I primarily used that line for fax, and since I signed up for a RingCentral fax service a couple of months back (when I was having problems with sending faxes over Vonage/Comcast to a couple of rural long distance fax numbers), I haven't even used it for faxes. The only usage it has had for the last two months is incoming telemarketers (and bill collectors looking for the previous owner of that number).
If Vonage had not seen fit to raise the price, I would have probably just kept it active, but since they reminded me that I really didn't need it, and the telemarketing calls were a PITA...
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We can never have enough of nature.
We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. |
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Reviews:
·T-Mobile US
·Vonage
·Comcast
| reply to PX Eliezer
Nope, you read my reply the wrong way. Of course there's a POTS provider out here, and, yup, it's Verizon.
What I meant was that, at least out here, even with taxes and fees... the monthly Vonage bill still comes in WAY less than what we were paying for Verizon. (I've kept some of the old Verizon bills for reference...)
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1/20/09 = The final day of our Retarded Cowboy President! |
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Reviews:
·Charter
| reply to DukeNukem
I'm already past my 2-year contract, so I should be able to cancel at any time.
My thoughts:
1) I don't use my home phone # that much. I ported it to Vonage because it was cheap and so I wouldn't lose it by cancelling my land-line. My wife and I use our cell phones mostly.
Obviously, Vonage isn't cheap any more.
2) It costs like $10 to port a number to Google Voice. I could keep my home phone and not worry about monthly fees any more. I already have an iPhone, so I can already easily make calls from a Google Voice number.
3) If I *do* need a home phone, I could just get that Magic Jack crap and leave it connected to one of the many computers I leave running 24/7 anyway.
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»xenomorph.net/ |
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PX EliezerPremium
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River
kudos:12 Reviews:
·voip.ms
·callwithus
·Callcentric
·Vitelity VOIP
·Optimum Voice
·Gizmo5
| reply to mahermusic
said by mahermusic:What I meant was that, at least out here, even with taxes and fees... the monthly Vonage bill still comes in WAY less than what we were paying for Verizon.
No argument there, Verizon is so high that anything else looks good in comparison.
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I *do* want Vonage to survive and prosper, because we need good counterweights to the huge cable company phone services like Comcast/Optimum/Cox/TW etc.
If Vonage prices creep up, people will tend even more to go to the cable company "triple plays" etc, and in the end that's not good.
Vonage does not have to worry about Verizon. Rather, Vonage needs to stay competitive with the cable triple plays, with free service like GoogleVoice, and perhaps most importantly, with the tendency of the younger folk to go with cellphones only.
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And at the other end, too, we have services like VOIPo that provide 5,000 minutes a month (hardware included) for about $ 8 a month including taxes and fees....
So again, Vonage needs to know it does not exist in a vacuum. |
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 aggiejyPremium
join:2002-07-10
Wimberley, TX | reply to DukeNukem
Yeah, that email pissed me off a bit the way they presented it. I'm canceling both of my lines today. I've been thinking about it anyway as I was only keeping them for the numbers.
On that note, before I do... are you guys aware of anywhere else I can port my home number to set up a simple forwarding type thing for less than $20 a month? No biggie if that doesn't exist... cell phones it is. |
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PX EliezerPremium
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River
kudos:12 Reviews:
·voip.ms
·callwithus
·Callcentric
·Vitelity VOIP
·Optimum Voice
·Gizmo5
| said by aggiejy:On that note, before I do... are you guys aware of anywhere else I can port my home number to set up a simple forwarding type thing for less than $20 a month? No biggie if that doesn't exist... cell phones it is.
1) Port your home # to a prepaid cell company like T-Mobile, then port from there to GoogleVoice. GV will forward calls for you for free.
2) Or, just get VOIPo which comes to about $ 8 per month including taxes (24 month plan). Free porting, free adapter. Or if you prefer they could forward your calls for you.
»www.voipo.com/features.shtml |
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| reply to DukeNukem
Yeah, I ported my Vonage number to Voipo last month for their local forwarding service. It is $4.95 a month with no additional fees and includes 300 minutes of forwarding a month. It is cheaper if you pay for a year up front. So far, so good for me with them. |
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Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| reply to DukeNukem
I received the same e-mail yesterday. Last night I sent Vonage an e-mail requesting a downgrade to the 300 minute plan (I have never gone over 200 minutes in a month). In less than 24 hrs I received an e-mail stating that my plan would change to 300 minutes at the start of my next billing cycle (which is less than a week away). They waived the $9.99 "downgrade" fee. For me it was a painless process -- all I had to do was ask. |
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