Holo

I'm considering switching to VoIP and telling Verizon to eat my ass. Vonage offers service in my area and I was interested to see if anyone is using VoIP and what they thought of it.

oopsdidn't search first in my haste. Feel free to add or ignore.

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rubicon

I haven't used VoIP, however Verizon won't let you have a DSL circuit without regular phone service. Not in LA at least.

However, just this morning I read an article on CNET that says Verizon is offering "naked" DSL service at the end of 2004 which will allow you to have only DSL - no voice service.

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powerclown

wondering about vonage myself...have they got caller id with a name yet?

whats the catch here, it's only $16/mo...

Wyodiver33

A coworker has been using Vonage for a couple of months now and he likes it a lot. I'm going to wait a couple more months to see if he still likes it. But I'm pretty sure I'll be using Vonage soom.

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Wyodiver33

soon, even.

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yodapaul

I have had vonage since March and I love it. This phone service has EVERY feature that any normal service has(including Caller id w/Name). The sound quality sounds as good as any normal phone, and much better than any cell phone that I have every used. I really like vonage, the best part is i can get my voice mail messages from the vonage website as .wav files. COOL!

If anybody has any other questions about vonage please post them here in this thread, and I will try to answer them

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Bamrak

I have a friend that has it, and he loves it. All of his family is out of state, so he got his area code for the city they are living in and he has no issues with it at all.

powerclown

sounds great, but is the advertised $15/mo legit?

I just switched from sbc to talk america because they were advertising $19.95/mo. Sounded great, signed up. When I got my first bill, yeah it was $19.95/mo BASE, then there were 13 million different charges and surcharges and interstate taxes and allsorts of bs that brought me to within $5/mo of my old sbc bill. I hardly use my landline at all, basically I just have it for emergencies, and these damn companies are bound and determined to get as much as they can out of you, one way or the other.

Is Vonage any different in this respect?

yodapaul

My bill has 3 charges on it,
1. My package charge (premium umlimited plan) 29.99
2. FET tax 0.90
3. Regulatory recovery Fee 1.50
total 32.39

(All amounts in US $)

So, you should expect the total to be about 2 or 3 dollars more than what the Vonage web site has listed.

All in all I really like the service, and lets not forget that the $15 plan has things like Voicemail, call forwarding, 3-way calling, caller ID w/name, call waiting that are INCLUDED at NO EXTRA COST. These features are free! I don't know about your service but the last 2 phone companies I had charged extra for things like voicemail or call fowarding, but Vonage does not.
It is a very good deal, and I have not seen any other company that has offered this.

I am by the way getting this information off of the Vonage Web site.
www.Vonage.com

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powerclown

Looks good; think I'll take the plunge and give vonage a looksee.
I guess I can always go back to the regular analog pirates if I need to.
Thanks yodapaul.

Delirious

I'm sick of my 35 dollar cell phone bills being 50+ because of taxes... damn them all to hell!

Cynthetiq

AT&T will be providing a similar service rolling out in major metropolitans....

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flamingpeach

As you know Wee and I have Vonage and love it.

The free calling to Canada is pretty sweet too

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qweds

what about the free voip sevices like skyp? is there one that is noticeably superior? i talk to my ussian fiancee using trillians biult in voice app but it often cuts out. any suggestions?

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spindles

We have been trialling skype for work.

Calling another PC using it (which is free) the sound quality was excellent and the lag was non existent.

We then tried doing a three way conference call, and suddenly the geographically distant guy was lagging badly (a couple of second delay for him to here us, and a couple of second delay for us to hear his response).

Finally, the remote guy used it to call my normal phone line - the sound quality on this was awful

So, it is quite good as a PC to PC thing, but for calling phones it is useless.

Final note - skype software gets around firewalls (if it needs to) by piggy backing on other skype users internet connections. I was seeing 10-15 connections to/from my machine while I had the software running, so other users can hog yuor bandwidth - this may be concerning if you pay for your bandwidth/don't have a lot of bandwidth to spare.

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trib767

I use freeworld dial-up for PC-PC comms between London and Dublin. Meets my needs.
PC to PC is, of course, free. Also has call outs to US and UK toll free services, also free.
Services exist to get a free local number that calls thru to Freeworld dial-up. Haven't played much with these.

Ratman

FWIW, I live in Asia, and use VoicePulse. I have a US telephone prefix (Seattle) so I call home quite a bit. The call quality has always been excellent, and I have never had any connection issues. I just talked to my dad, and it sounded like he was next door. The only thing I have to do is turn off bitTorrent before I call because it eats up lots of bandwidth. $25/month unlimited US calling is a bargain!

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Hardknock

Check out my Vonage thread in Electronics. I told Qwest to eat my ass and haven't looked back since.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=82477

smarm

I've been using Vonage for a couple of months now. I'm very happy with my experience, except they (or Verizon) screwed up my paperwork so it took extra long for my number to get transferred. I did get a credit for that month, though.

KnifeMissile

Okay, I'll take you up on that offer!

How does it work with your firewall/NAT server? I use a computer running OpenBSD as my NAT server, so that prevents incoming connections to my (desktop) computer. Will this interfere with Vonage VoIP service?

Thanks...

zen_tom

I've been using Skype for talking between myself (in Bermuda) and family friends at home in the UK and in the States - and find it works really well computer to computer. I also like the P2P idea working behind the scenes. When I later saw stuff like Vonage, I was surprised people were charging for it - what is the cost/Quality like?

The only time I've seen lagging on Skype is when a conference call is in progress - otherwise, it's always been remarkably good.