 
Transmaster
Onward Through The Fog
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY
edit:
March 5th, @10:39AM
| Ashes To Ashes, Dust to Dust.........
Chapter 7 lawyers looking over the pickings of Vonage. |
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Send a prayer to Allah, eat Beans. | |
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 | ronny_b
join:2004-10-10
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: Ashes To Ashes, Dust to Dust......... said by Transmaster  :The only real value this company has is it's subscriber base, and I wonder who is going to end up with it. Teleblend???
Ron | |
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| dualsub2006
join:2007-07-18
Newport, KY | There would be no Chapter 7. They would do an 11 in the hopes of making it through to the other side and emerge intact. | |
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DMS1
join:2005-04-06
Carrollton, TX | Why pick on Vonage? It must be open season on Vonage again.
Many companies rely on bonds to finance them and re-negotiating the terms of them isn't exactly uncommon.
This story first surfaced last year and was rightfully dismissed as non-news at the time. | |
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| JohnA
Premium
join:2003-09-16
Pittsburgh, PA
| Re: Why pick on Vonage? said by DMS1 :This story first surfaced last year and was rightfully dismissed as non-news at the time. But that wouldn't provide an opportunity to say the word bankruptcy.
It's always open season on Vonage, upgraded by Bear Stearns or not. | |
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bgraham
join:2001-03-15
Smithtown, NY | Why such a high churn rate? Why do they have such a high churn rate? I don't use them for my VOIP but most of the reports that I read here are fairly favorable. | |
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Jeffrey
Bye George, 1937-2008
Premium
join:2002-12-24
Long Island
clubs:
 ·magicjack.com
 ·Verizon FIOS
·Vonage
| Re: Why such a high churn rate? said by bgraham :Why do they have such a high churn rate? I don't use them for my VOIP but most of the reports that I read here are fairly favorable. I'm not 100% sure. I've had 3 Vonage lines for about 4 years now, with very, very little to complain about.
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And so castles made of sand, slip into the sea, eventually.
I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing. | |
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| battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000 | Because they market as CHEAP! CHEAP! CHEAP! The kind of customer you attract is the kind that jumps ship over a buck. I don't think it's so much the service as it is the type of customer they market to. | |
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| | kiddo1985
join:2008-02-21
Beverly Hills, CA | Re: Why such a high churn rate? Not really coz' Vonage customer's are not the kind of customer that jumps ship over a buck. These are customers that are smart enought to think about their money | |
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tglea
join:2007-08-13
Mexico
| Because they took their service to mainstream. Not only did they waste a lot of money on advertising, they got people to sign up that should have just stuck with pots. I think it is still their problem to this day. I've rarely had problems in 2 plus years that were the fault of Vonage. But when when captain no brain, who doesn't know a modem from monitor, has no dial tone, he automatically gets pissed at Vonage. I think the people that don't have problems are the ones with a little computer/networking knowledge. I actively answer posts in a Vonage support forum and it is absolutely amazing the questions and comments that come about. It amazes me that these people can even turn on their computer, connect to the internet and post a question. It is those people who account for the high churn. I know it's the objective of every company to acquire customers but I think Vonage makes their service look a bit to easy to use. | |
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| 
Supervisor
Premium
join:2006-03-26
Lebanon, PA | 30% annual churn is the same as 2.75% monthly churn. Perfectly normal for an ISP, probably normal for a VoIP provider too. | |
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| rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
 ·Charter Pipeline
·Vonage
| I think the real challenge with VOIP is the fact that consumer broadband is a best effort service. I don't think Vonage requires an extraordinary connection, but let's face it. Some broadband connections aren't very good. If you're trying to use a connection that has capacity problems or packet loss, ANY VOIP experience will be poor.
I also believe that it's very difficult to diagnose VOIP problems because consumer broadband is a best-effort service. This means there are no guarantees from moment to moment whether or not that stream of RDP packets making up your VOIP audio will continue.
I recently almost transferred my number from Vonage to the local cable company because we kept having random 1 second audio dropouts. This went on for months despite getting a new cable modem and trying several new wireless routers (took them all back because they didn't solve the problem and they weren't as good as the one I had). As a last ditch effort I went downstairs to the patch panel and plugged a wired handset directly into the Vonage telephone adapter. I made a call to my work voice mail system and recorded a song on the radio as a message. Then I kept repeatedly playing the voice mail to detect sound dropouts. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that my switch uplink light went out when one of the audio dropouts occurred so I started watching it more closely. Then I noticed that every audio dropout was tied to the switch uplink light going out. I plugged the Vonage telephone adapter directly into the router and the problem vanished.
The problem here is I'm in the IT profession and I was just about ready to give up but I finally found the problem. How can the average consumer be expected to diagnose such a problem? The other fact of the matter is that the periodic switch uplink doesn't bother any of the computers hooked up to it in terms of Internet access and file/print. But that random uplink drop was murder for a RDP audio stream.
I've had a couple other call-quality problems with Vonage that were related to my cable connection or Internet "weather". Once the technician told me to go to testyourvoip.com. I received a green 4.0 rating but he said there was some "jitter" and that this was likely the problem. What a load of B.S. The problem cleared on it's own the next day (usually does) and I have run that test many times since then and the "jitter" is always there.
VOIP is a great technology but until someone puts more intelligence in the devices to provide more troubleshooting help, it's a fringe technology. VOIP companies cannot expect the average consumer to know how to fix these problems and there's no way customer service can diagnose the problems without a lot more information coming from the telephone adapter.
But even if they can accurately diagnose the problem, if it's tied to a bad broadband connection and your provider isn't capable of fixing it, VOIP service will be bad. | |
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nribelin
join:2000-12-14
Fort Worth, TX
·Charter Pipeline
| Where would this leave me? I've been using their service for about a year now and have been very pleased with every aspect of it. No troubles with it whatsoever. If they go bankrupt am I going to wind up having to go with something like (God forbid) skype or worse back to Ma Bell?
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Nathan
"Life would be much simpler if we could just see the source code." | |
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| 
en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: Where would this leave me? I haven't had any issues with Skype
The issue will occur if you have an issue with your ISP and jitter.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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bentman78
Bentley
join:2004-04-16
Arlington, VA
·Comcast
| I hope they stay afloat They raised their rates since I had them. I've been using them three years now and couldn't be happier. I call the UK for free and the service is always up.
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"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. " - Thomas Jefferson | |
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| stewie316
join:2007-04-11
Jackson, MI | Re: I hope they stay afloat The Service has been rock solid for me since day 1. My internet service can't even provide the same uptime as vonage. Hope vonage can keep on battling and keep going! | |
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Vonage Fan
@charter.com
 from:
Gemologist
woody7
| Hope they make it. I for one REALLY hope that Vonage makes it through this tough patch. I believe that they were pioneers in the VOIP arena, and brought the concept of an all inclusive phone package at a really reasonable rate in to play to where the large phone companies HAD to take notice.
I for one have benefited GREATLY from Vonage's excellent pricing and quality of service. I have never had any technical issues with them at all, and any failure in my phone service was due to my Comcast service failing most of the time.
I really believe that the big players on the block file small and meaningless patents, and get them approved by the government officials they have in the large pockets, so that they can squash any competition from small startups like Vonage. See the large cooperate players don't want to change or make cheaper and better services available to consumers, and government are being paid by them to not force them to. So when a Vonage type company comes along with a real change of thinking, and customers start seeing the light, then they need to be squashed by the big players and their political connections.
So I am really hoping that Vonage can make it through, and that it will be able to weather this storm, and become the thorn in the side of these communication giants, that keeps trying to screw the consumer out of as much money as they can.
HANG IN THERE VONAGE!!! | |
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| Network Guy
join:2000-08-25
New York | Re: Bankruptcy Overpriced? How's $16 for 500 monthly minutes overpriced? How's even $25 for unlimited local and long distance overpriced?
I had my parents try them. It's going on three years without any complaints at all. | |
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oKubricko
join:2001-08-06
Miamisburg, OH
clubs:
 ·EarthLink
| Re: Bankruptcy I think it's all about perspective. In college I would pay one of the bells $50+ for local calling and then have to pay a long distance provider another flat $25 for service and then calling fees on top of that. The least I could get service for was $85 per month. Unlimited calling for $29 and change including fees it a bargain. I've been using Vonage for 4 years without one problem...
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If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live. - Lin Yutang | |
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Skeedatl
Ah, push it - push it real good
Premium
join:2007-12-26
The Cloud | Re: Bankruptcy And your Vonage uptime statistics come from? | |
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Supervisor
Premium
join:2006-03-26
Lebanon, PA | What's your problem, did you short a huge amount of Vonage stock or something? 33% annual churn is identical to 2.75% monthly churn. That's a normal level of churn for an ISP, no surprise it's the same for Vonage. | |
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supergirl
join:2007-03-20
Pensacola, FL
·Cox HSI
·magicjack.com
·Skype
·AT&T Southeast
| said by Skeedatl :Couldn't happen to a better company and the fact that they have 33% churn speaks volumes about how horrible and overpriced they are. Vonage sucks and I'll have a huge smile on my face if they go belly up. My service with them what an endless nightmare of horrid quality, endless outages, constant billing errors and when I finally called to cancel, a string of abuse from their lameass retention d!ickheads. F Vonage, may they rot in hell. Well, their stock started at $17 a share and has dropped to $1.95. That's nearly a 90% drop. Banks will probably extend their notes since if they go bankrupt they get maybe 5 cents on the dollar. Shareholders and customers get nothing after lawyers and bondholders take their cut, which will be most of it.
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Saving the world keeps me busy. However, I find Earth very primitive from my home planet of Krypton.
-Supergirl | |
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| 
ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
clubs: | Vonage rarely has outages, look at. The forums. A for quantumvoice, thataks great. Also why I said MOST. My bubble is just fine, thanks. | |
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See 6 replies to this post |
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| kiddo1985
join:2008-02-21
Beverly Hills, CA
| Yeah right, i have Vonage for the past 3 years and I haven't got any problem not to mention that I have a large network of computers at home and still VONAGE rocks. Maybe the reason why these people are having a lot of problem is that they don't really understand the concept of an Internet Phone. Billing??? their billing people is so kind to credit my money if there is a billing error and they never abuse me. Now I'm wondering why there are people who's having a problem dealing with these call center people. Maybe its not because these call center peeps is not from America, its because people keeps on complaining before listening to their explanation, keeps on shouting and bragging that leads misunderstanding that will also lead to a non-solving of the issue.
I HOPE VONAGE CAN MAKE IT!!!!!!!! You ROCK! | |
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Skeedatl
Ah, push it - push it real good
Premium
join:2007-12-26
The Cloud
·Cox HSI
·Verizon FIOS
·MegaPath
·Verizon west (ex G..
·ViaTalk
·Time Warner VOIP
·Cox VOIP
·RoadRunner Cable
edit:
March 6th, @08:11AM
| Re: Bankruptcy Oh yeah. Vonage has great service, what must be why they have 30% churn and are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Vonage has constant outages, horrid call quality, calls not being received, calls not getting completed, E911 not going going to the PSAP (mine went to an off hours number at the police station that told me in a message that if it's an emergency, dial 9-1-1), horrible customer service, endless billing errors, tons of junk fees, and when you finally try and cancel their suckass service they get aggressive and abusive and charged me twice for the ATA that I had already returned per their cancellation policy.
I hope Vonage goes down in flames and their lame ass retention jerkoffs end up homeless. | |
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Phatty
join:2000-05-10
Valley Park, MO | I hope they live I have had their service for 4 or 5 years now with minimal complaints/issues that were actually Vonages fault. I dread the day I have to shop around for new service if/when they do go under. | |
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| felony44
join:2003-11-06
Eastlake, OH
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: I hope they live I have had vonage for about 4 yrs and never had any issues, my bill never changes everytime i pick up my phone theres a dial tone unless of course my crappy TWC is as usual running at full TWC speed which is very slow and laggy. I wonder if Vonage goes under if you can port your phone number? | |
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| | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
edit:
March 5th, @12:58PM
| Re: I hope they live said by felony44 :I wonder if Vonage goes under if you can port your phone number? Probably not. Your phone number is worth something at auction. Making it as hard as possible to port increases the value of you as a captive customer. Hey, FCC/you cant sue a bankrupt company. The company that buys Vonage's customers will make it impossible to port, and deny it to the media/FCC that there are any problems, or put something in your TOS/AUP about it not being "phone service" and therefore no porting out is allowed. | |
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| | | chemaupr
join:2005-06-06
Alexandria, VA | Re: I hope they live Not correct. I was caught in the SunRocket problems last year. I did not started my porting until they went officially out on their site. No problems porting in it to Vonage. | |
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Brutus1234
join:2002-01-26
Sterling Heights, MI
| Happy with Vonage Service I've had their service for 4 or 5 years now. I had some issues initially but upgraded to a Linksys device that they provided within the first 3 months and have never had a complaint since.
My wife spends between 1 and 1.5 hrs each Sunday talking to her family in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The only difference we've noticed in 5 years is that her parents claim the line and phone quality are better, and our bills have dropped from $150/month to $35/month.
I see this Vonage bashing all the time I and I just don't know why it is. I know half a dozen people who have the service and have never heard anybody complain. For those who make international calls, the price and line quality is unbeatable.
I guess you can't make everyone happy but it's amazing how a small number of people who've had a bad experience can make so much noise. | |
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| kiddo1985
join:2008-02-21
Beverly Hills, CA
| Re: Happy with Vonage Service I agree to that. I never had a problem with VONAGE, my bill dropped from $170 to $28.99 to be exact. Not to mention that I always call Canada and UK w/c is included in the plan.
It only amaze me that a tiny pathetic number of people keeps on complaining for very little problem. There is no such thing as perfect telephone provider. Even your local provider can't please you a %100. | |
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Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL
·Comcast
| Stamping out competition one lawsuit at a time Yes the Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers are succeeding in wiping out competition. The recent patent lawsuits have brought Vonage to it's knees. As soon as Vonage appeared to be a threat to ILEC's business they began their dirty tricks to force them to incur costs that would destroy their future. The ILEC's engaged in similar dirty tricks in order to put the companies attempting to compete installing business telephone systems out of business. Most of the first companies competing against the Bell System Operating Companies failed because of unfair tactics. Most dissatisfied customers are dissatisfied because of poor quality of service provided by the Broadband Service Providers not Vonage. Unless the US Government provides some legislative relief Vonage may be doomed. | |
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webpc
join:2001-06-21
Bridgewater, NJ
·LINGO
|  Well we are happy with Vonage
About the only downside is voice quality when calling Australia and some other Asian destinations.
We have tried 3 other providers over the same period all of which had issues. | |
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ed56
join:2008-01-13
Cincinnati, OH
·Vonage
edit:
March 5th, @01:41PM
| Happy with Vonage - But Google would be a good suitor I have been very happy with my Vonage service and saving around $300 per year vs my local telco. Why the churn rate? lots of reasons, primarily VOIP is only as good as your internet connection.
I agree with a poster who said the type of customer they attract MAY be the bottom dollar one who will jump ship for a buck. However, not all fit this category (me), as my cellphone bill alone is in excess of $250.00 per month for 4 lines (family) a broadband card and blackberry service. Heck, had to save a buck somewhere!
I do think Google with their Grand Central service (in Beta) would be a good marriage. | |
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Millenniumle
join:2007-11-11
Erie, PA
| ... We've had Vonage for about a year or two and have been very happy with the service. So in that respect I hope they survive. But with Skype being so much cheaper for the same national unlimited service I kind of hope they do go under. It's the only way I could talk the other half into the trouble of getting a new phone number.  | |
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CajunWon
join:2005-12-30
Cary, NC
·ViaTalk
·SUNROCKET
| Re: ... I too hope they stay in business, or at least provide a planned migration to a new service for clients. We, VoIP users, do not need another SunRocket black-eye and I'm quite happy with our current (not VG) provider, currently enjoy a high WAF.
If VG shuts down then the VoIP providers will again be flooded with new business, but worse this time due to the (perceived) (in)competence of their user base. | |
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kiddo1985
join:2008-02-21
Beverly Hills, CA
| Vonage Rock Yeah right, i have Vonage for the past 3 years and I haven't got any problem not to mention that I have a large network of computers at home and still VONAGE rocks. Maybe the reason why these people are having a lot of problem is that they don't really understand the concept of an Internet Phone. Billing??? their billing people is so kind to credit my money if there is a billing error and they never abuse me. Now I'm wondering why there are people who's having a problem dealing with these call center people. Maybe its not because these call center peeps is not from America, its because people keeps on complaining before listening to their explanation, keeps on shouting and bragging that leads misunderstanding that will also lead to a non-solving of the issue.
I HOPE VONAGE CAN MAKE IT!!!!!!!! You ROCK | |
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Yeah Its Me
@gci.net
| Vonage and other VOIP I think the idea is STUPID. Cable is for Cable TV and internet service. Putting a dial tone on a damn cable TV cable has always seemed STUPID to me.
It doesn't really work that well and it was only invented to compete with the telephone companies. Just some over eager engineers trying to come with a new technology to compete with one that's been around for 100 years.
The damn telephone works perfectly and does EXACTLY what it is supposed to do. Cable TV is for wathing telivision. | |
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| Blisk
join:2001-01-15
Orlando, FL
| Re: Vonage and other VOIP said by Yeah Its Me :
I think the idea is STUPID. Cable is for Cable TV and internet service. Putting a dial tone on a damn cable TV cable has always seemed STUPID to me.
It doesn't really work that well and it was only invented to compete with the telephone companies. Just some over eager engineers trying to come with a new technology to compete with one that's been around for 100 years.
The damn telephone works perfectly and does EXACTLY what it is supposed to do. Cable TV is for wathing telivision.
No offense but you completely don't understand VOIP or the idea of internet and packet switching. Or am I taking this post too seriously? | |
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vonagesux
| bye bye vonage hello verizon or at&t LOL | |
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| kiddo1985
join:2008-02-21
Beverly Hills, CA | Re: bye bye vonage Vonage will still be VONAGE till you guys' money are all out using those stupid company who bills us for nothing. | |
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Sid
Premium
join:2002-11-29
Santa Maria, CA | I hope they dont go I was also with Sunrocket when they shutdown. I ported my number over to vonage fairly easily. I like Vonage service. I hope I dont ever have to go back to landline like Verizon. | |
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brianMc
@verizon.net
|  we just started with Vonage
I like the pricing especially the calls to Europe for free!
I am pretty technical (one of the first things I did was to play w/ the programming and URL calls to dial) and I can't see why someone would have the caveman view espoused by the guy who said "cable is for watching TV"
Uh actually not
Coaxial cable was not specifically invented for tv
for example in eastern europe they had RADIO on cable in the 40's
this is about expanding possibilities, empowering people etc
I don't have much opinion about Vonage itself yet, my review of these posts shows about a 2 or 3 to 1 favorable reaction (though the unfavorable are pretty bad)
but as a general thing we need to get these kinds of capabilities and I do think the technology has caught up with the need, the switching and routing on the main internet connectivity are up to the job (really have been for probably close to 2 years, certainly the bandwidth has been sufficient for maybe 5 years)
I hope Vonage does "pull it out" but if not then maybe its about the financials and their goals (i.e., the comments about the customer base)
but it ain't because this is a bad idea, bad technology, "not ready for prime time" etc | |
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hobo
@cox.net | No Problems Here I have been using Vonage for at least 4 years. The only problems that I have had are with my ISP. Who, by the way is now selling their own VIOP solution for about twice the amount.And it appears to have a bunch of hidden fees also. | |
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Vonage Fights To Avoid Bankruptcy
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