Would you recommend Vonage ?

At $25/month? Hell, no.

ViaTalk right now has $199 for two years, but you have to buy the hardware. If you catch them on a holiday or on a good day, Sunrocket has $199 for two years and for that they provide the hardware.

$8.33/month. I snapped it up. So far, so good.

I have no complaints for 2 years. Just remember, the internet is a 'funny' happening. Packets can go anywhere to get to the same place and depends on the amount of traffic between two points. My calls from New Jersey to Colorado have been very good. Calls to Western Mass. are iffy.

I would and often do. I've been with them for going on 3 years and no complaints here. Occasional (very seldom) degradation of voice quality, but I'd put them right up there with a landline any day. Based on our phone usage at the time we switched over, we have saved over $4k.

Well worth the switch, in my opinion.

CIAO!

Ed N.

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

I'm not clear about where you are in the decision making process. Are you deciding between Vonage and other VoIP providers, or are you deciding between VoIP and standard telephone service?

As a VoIP provider, Vonage is great. They are reliable, and they are priced well. They also have a wide host of features available. Overall, if you decide that VoIP is what you want, Vonage is a good choice.

However, while VoIP is marketed and typically used as a replacement for standard telephone service, it is not standard telephone service. It's not regulated the same way. It doesn't use the same technology. It has different limitations, and different benefits.

The most important part of VoIP is that little "o" in the middle: The "over" part of it. With VoIP, you are essentially making phone calls on a system that's an overlay over another system. The phone system was designed to be used for phone calls, and is essentially a connection switching network. When you make a phone call on a regular telephone, essentially the pair of wires coming out of your phone become connected with the pair of wires going into the phone on the other end of the call. Your call goes through a number of switches, and the signal is processed by various pieces of equipment, but you are essentially directly connected between the two places. There may be places where multiple phone connections are multiplexed, and are using the same physical wire, but you're still essentially directly connected.

With VoIP, after your voice is turned into digital data, that data is broken-up into packets, and those packets are sent off to the destination. These packets could go in different directions, but the most important difference is that the packets, not the connection, are the discrete units. It's a far more efficient way of sending data, but efficiency isn't always the most important.

Think of it this way: If you were shipping a dozen widgets across town, you could hire a delivery service to come and pick them all up at once, and take them as a unit over to their destination for next day delivery. Yes, they might sit in the truck along with some other deliveries, but they're essentially being taken straight from one place to another as a unit. That compares to standard telephone service. Now take those same dozen widgets, pack them into a dozen boxes, and drop them in the mailbox outside your office. They'll get picked-up with all the other mail in the box, taken to be sorted, and dispatched to a delivery person who'll deliver them. That's VoIP.

In the above example, most of the time the dozen widgets will get from point A to point B in about the same amount of time, and in the same condition. The significantly lower cost of the second method will be the primary reason why you would choose method two over method one. That's a perfectly valid choice, and most people will be completely satisfied making that choice.

Likewise, most of the time VoIP is going to work just as well as standard telephone service. The sound quality will be the same. Everything will work just as well as if you were using a standard telephone -- but the cost will be significantly lower! And that's a perfectly valid choice. (One that I made, as a matter of fact.)

But VoIP does have it's limitations. Because it's using your Internet connection, it depends upon your Internet connection being up and running. You're going to have your cable modem, a router, and a phone adapter in your house (perhaps two or even all three of them might be combined in the same box) that all need power to operate. But even if you get battery back-up to power these devices during a power failure, if your ISP is having problems, it doesn't matter if you've got power going to those devices. Even if your ISP is up 99% of the time, that's 14 minutes a day that they're down. And what percentage of time a consumer-level ISP is up or down is not regulated. They don't have to be up any more then they need to be to keep from losing customers, and that's more like 95% of the time than 99% of the time. A regular phone company typically needs to be up

99.999% of the time. That's less than a minute a day down.

Not only does your ISP need to be up, the VoIP provider needs to be up, too. Are they striving for just 99%, or 99.999% of the time? Remember that it's far more likely that their down-time isn't going to overlap the ISP's down time than it is that it will overlap. So if both the ISP and the VoIP provider are shooting for 99%, that could mean an average of 28 minutes a day you won't have phone service, compared to an average of less than a minute a day with standard telephone service!

In most cases, it's not going to be that bad. And even if the numbers do reach those extremes, it's unlikely that it's going to have a bad outcome. However, for some people, this potential may not be acceptable at any cost.

Vonage does have a way to address most of this. If your phone adapter loses connection, and you've got a call coming in, it can be rerouted to another number of your choice, typically your cell phone number. And having a working cell phone is also a good back-up for when you need to make an emergency call, and bad luck puts that emergency at the same time that your VoIP is down. (A working cell phone is a good back-up for standard phone service, too.)

The other issue with VoIP is the "V". It stands for "voice". VoIP was designed for voice communications. Most of the time your fax machine will work just fine. Most of the time your DishTV box or Tivo will be able to phone home just fine. Alarm systems, medical equipment, Realtor's eKeys... most will work okay much of the time. However, this is not what VoIP was designed for. These devices may or may not work reliably. And they may not work at all. This could be very important for some people.

All that said, I did make the choice to drop my standard phone service, and go with VoIP. And I did go with Vonage. And I have been satisfied.

I have it, but it's only for a 'work' phone line. (I work from home.) I haven't had too many problems with Vonage itself. The quality varies a bit, but so do regular phone calls, too. The Vonage caller-id info keeps setting the date and time on my phone to random times (I cannot configure the phone to NOT autoconfigure from caller-id info!)

My main issue is the reliability of the service it rides on. I have both Comcast cable and DSL due to unreliability from Comcast (I'd consider

100% DSL if I could get faster speeds than 1500/384). As others posted, if the power goes out, there goes your cable and VOIP. Using a UPS might work, but that depends if Comcast's routers and other equipment are not also out.

Even if you go with Vonage, you should still keep a standard phone line, with a CORDED (not cordless) phone for emergencies. If you dicker with the phone company, you may be able to strip your service down to just local calls only. That should be enough for 911 and toll-free utility emergency calls. Even if you want to make long distance calls, you could use your cell phone if you have one, or one of those dial-around services (pricey, but better than nothing in an emergency.)

Get Skype instead. The overall costs are much cheaper. You can get a Skype-in number for only $12 every three months and can add an unlimited calling plan to the USA and Canada for only $30 more per year. That, overall, is much cheaper than Vonage.

But, Skype requires you have your computer on and running. I've also found it very sensitive to any bandwidth congestion.

Vonage uses a separate adapter and normal phones. I've never noticed audio issues, even when my computer is transfering files.

Skype is fine for computer-to-computer, but I wouldn't rely on it for everyday use.

Both of these rely on the reliabilty of your ISP. I would still stick with a stripped down, basic landline service for home use. 911 is too important, and non-landline 911 is still iffy at best.

In most areas, Vonage now has e911. That makes it less of an issue, but yes, you are depending on your ISP being up when you need it. But traditional landline phones can, and do, go down, too. Having a back-up system is important either way.

My back-up to Vonage is my cell phone rather than a basic POTS line. If a tree falls, it could take out both my cable ISP service and a POTS line. The odds of both ISP and cell phone service being out at the same time are better for me than the odds of my cable and POTS line being out at the same time.

Right now I feel that with Vonage and a working cell phone I'm safer,

911-wise, than I was with just a POTS line, even though POTS usually has a higher level of reliability than either my Vonage phone or my cell phone alone.

And even though my computer is normally on, there are already times when I'm using all of it's processing power. Send me an IM at the wrong time, and I'll hear the alert sound thirty seconds before the IM window appears. Imagine if I were trying to run Skype at the same time! But my Vonage adapter is it's own little mini-computer, and works just fine no matter what kind of work I'm doing on my computer.

Skype may be cheaper than Vonage, but the key here is that it's really cheaper, not just less expensive. Skype doesn't meet my needs for phone service, so it really doesn't matter what they charge for it. Vonage does meet my needs.

And since my needs don't include a lot of time actually talking on the phone, the 600 minutes a month plan works for me, too. Even if I have to pay a surcharge for minutes over 600, it's around 750 minutes before it would cost more than the unlimited plan. And I don't think there has ever been a month in my entire life that I used my home phone more than 500 minutes, let alone 750 minutes! So even if something unusual happens, and I have a month this year that I use more than 750 minutes, I'm still coming out ahead for the year by going with the $15/600min/month plan over the $25/unlimited/month plan. And I get the same reliability, which is important to me.

My $15/month, which includes long distance without toll charges, is better than the $40/month of Comcast phone, or the $35/month for local POTS service, especially when you consider that the POTS service is only local, and long distance would be toll calls. It's still more than Skype, but Skype can't offer me what I need despite my rather low threshold of needs.

Of course I still have to pay for HSI, but I'm paying for HSI anyway. Someone who's Internet needs aren't great enough to pay for HSI, the economies are a little different. But considering that many dial-up ISP's run around or over $20/month, spending another $22/month for HSI, while saving $20/month with Vonage, and getting no-toll long distance seems to imply that now may be the right time for those people to move up to HSI even if they don't need better than dial-up.

is cheaper and better. They also have a deal sometimes where you get 2 years for the price of 1. Same thing as vonnage just better and cheaper.

I would second Sunrocket. I have been using them for a couple of months and couldn't be happier. Just make sure that you have a rock solid internet connection.

And that you have a cell phone for when the internet goes down. I personally would hate to be stuck with no phone.

I would third that. I had Sunrocket for a few months before finally dumping the landline and porting my number over, and the process was painless. So far, so good.

I mean, pretty much everybody has a cell phone, right? So there's no real worry about "what happens if SR or my cable go down or if the power goes out?".

Just remember that the 911 situtation for cell phones is even worse than VOIP! Every time there is a federal guideline to reach a certain level, the companies complain and it gets pushed back.

Andrew Rossmann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@newsgroups.comcast.net:

I've tested both my TW DigitalPhone and my Verizon cell phones with my local E911 number. I called during the day on a Monday morning when they were least busy after verifying via a non-emergency number if it was ok to do so. Both verified as being from my home address. As far as the cell phone, I don't know exactly which method was used. I guess that it could either use the billing address ( which would lead to bad emergency response if I were somewhere else when calling ) or used the GPS setup from the phone.

Also consider where you live... if words like "Katrina," "Loma Prieta" or "F5" are a concern for you, having multiple methods of communication could be important. Even though your cell phone has a fully charged battery, the local cell tower may be overloaded or missing. Having VoIP, cell and a landline gives you the greatest chance that one will be working when you really need it. Consider your risk factors and buy the service(s) appropriate for your needs.

No matter where you live, if you get VoIP service make sure you buy a uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for your modem and VoIP equipment. It's not uncommon to have a power outage that doesn't effect your cable or DSL service. If you don't have a UPS, you'll loose phone service. You don't need a big one, and the little ones often go on sale for $20 or $30 bucks.

-Gary

After working for a fire dept for many years I can tell you that none will complain if you call during slack hours and explain that you are testing. If you do not say right away that you are testing they might get upset. But ensuring the number works is good for them if you need it, and they understand that.

Slack hours? You mean they don't adjust staffing according to expected call load?

If they schedule their people right, they will have more people working during the busy hours, and fewer people working during the slower hours, and the workload per agent working will be similar. So while there might be fewer calls at a certain time of the day, the workers on duty at that time will be as busy as those working when more calls are coming in.

And if they're not doing that in your 911 call center, they're throwing money away when they're over-staffed, and/or endangering people when they're under-staffed. And given the plethora of workforce management software designed for busy call center environments, they shouldn't be scheduling properly for their call volume.

Essentially, that means there really is no slack-time, and the advisories not to just "test" 911 that are sent out in press releases by many 911 call centers mean something. And in some jurisdictions, even if you say you're just testing, the assumption is that there really is a reason for you to be calling, and your "test" call will result in a visit from a police officer.

Of course your local policies may differ, and you might not get in trouble for "testing" 911, but don't count on it. And certainly don't count on the call center being over-staffed at any given time.

Don't know where you are from but how can you plan for a Hurricane or Tornado or shooting with 5 victims that will needs 5 dispatchers not counting the ones that are handling the normal call load? ALL call centers I have ever been to have been staffed exactly the same every shift day in day out. Some days you have slack time, some days you could use 30 more people.

Workforce management software can do an incredible job of right-staffing a large call center. Combine it with good intraday management, and money doesn't have to be wasted by staffing the way you describe. It's 2007, not

1985. And with the public demanding better use of tax dollars, a call center that doesn't use workforce management software to reduce staffing costs is just another item on the list of ways that government can make better use of the money they already have.

If all the call centers you've been in staff that way, I suggest you need to get out, and see more call centers. And the call centers you were in need new managers.

Either way, it is irresponsible to suggest to anyone that they call 911 just to test it. Even if it is a poorly managed call center that uses an outmoded staffing model that leads to excessively idle operators, you should not call 911 unless you have a real emergency.