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Vonage I've posted my fair share of Vonage gripes, so to even things out I'm making this
I've posted my fair share of Vonage gripes, so to even things out I'm making this thread about something positive.
There are many reasons for getting Vonage: the satisfaction of telling the local phone company to get bent, getting free long distance, being able to take your local number with you when you move, taking your TA on the road when you travel, just to name a few.
In my case it was from looking down the itemized charges on our local phone bill, and really thinking about what each one represented.
$6.50 for that bogus "Federal Subscriber Line Fee" which is NOT Federal at all. It's nothing more than a charge the Feds say the local carrier is allowed to charge if they want to ... as if any phone company wouldn't fully exploit that free gift.
$7.50 for Call Waiting. (used to be $3.)
$3.57 for the privilege of not having them list our phone number in the phone book where every telemarketer, political activist, and used car salesman can abuse it. (used to be $2)
Then there are the taxes... Federal, State, Local.
The "telecommunications relay service" which means we are subsidizing service for the hearing impaied. How about the Federal Universal Service Fee, which is us subsidizing service for low income users.
And then we get to the Extended Calling Service Area (ECS) charges. Verizon charges us $0.25 for each call that is outside our local calling area, but not far enough away to be considered long distance. From our house, friends, family, and employers which are a mere 7 miles away- just 10 minutes down the road by car- are in the ECS. When you live so close to everyone and see them frequently, the phone calls are usually short. Call Mom and get the answering machine.... BAM, that's a 25-cent call. Call my best friend to say I'm leaving the house and will be by to pick him up in 10 minutes... WHAM, another 25-cents. We spent more per-minute on ECS calls (on average) than we pay per-minute on out-of-state long distance. That is just wrong .
As far as I'm concerned, we were being raped by Verizon financially. Their landline service quality is superb. We never have service outages. In fact, even when we lost power during the Florida hurricanes last year- one power outage lasted 3 days after an oak tree up the street wiped out the wires- phone service was the only thing that never went out. They have never made a billing error on our account. On the few times we called for service, the issue was handled very quickly and the repair men were always polite and friendly.
So had it not been for Verizon price gouging us for all these years, I would not have seriously considered replacing their trusted-and-proven landline service with a new, unproven, and sometimes-unreliable service like Voip from an upstart company like Vonage... which relies on the sometimes unreliable network like the Internet... even giving up the security of Enhanced 911 service as part of the deal.
But I feel vindicated, because Vonage represents freedom. Freedom to tell Verizon to go pound salt, because we don't need you anymore . You gouged us for years, and now we can throw you to the dogs.
Freedom from all those state, federal, and local taxes- at least until some influential bureaucrat realizes how much tax revenue they're "losing".
Freedom from all those subsidies for the disabled, unfortunate, and yes, those too lazy to get off their butts and get a job.
Freedom from being nickel and dimed (actually, dollar'ed) to death for even simple features like call waiting.
Freedom to move to a new neighborhood a few miles away and not have to worry about losing the phone number we've had for so many years.
Vonage may not be perfect, but at least I know when I hand over $27.24 each month, I'm getting every penny's worth of value for my hard-earned dollars. And that to me is the most important feature of all.
Read The Full Thread: What Vonage Means To Me
• JSCOTT, Whats up with the E911. I believe that answer is still unanswered on this
• AMEN to that. Fifteen years ago this area had 13 prefixes. Then it was 16. Today,
• Just wait until the "Big 3" (Your Federal, State, and Local Government Beaurocrats)
• The straw that broke the camels back for me with 'Bell-South' was the endless 'local'
• I manage & program several different call center site for my Company both using
• I was just playin around, but seriously, I have NO control over the defective device
• http://vonage-forum.com/reviews.html
• This is exactly the reason I went with Vonage. I didn't have a "land line" and haven't
• Amen brother. It feels good to get rid of a 47 dollar a month bill from Bellsouth
rebus posted "I've posted my fair share of Vonage gripes, so to even things out I'm making this" on 01/17/2005 |
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