what are the benefits?

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 08, 2004 Posts: 3

im looking around, hey this is cool i think to myself, then i say, what's the point? i mean its cool and everything with the free 3-way and free caller id etc., but convince me to (or tell my why i shouldnt) buy vonage. help a brother out. Question

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 08, 2004 Posts: 3

yeah way to make my question more confusing. that's notwhat i asked. i asked what the benefits of vonage are. (thanks for the sweet link tho)

Posts: 110 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 06, 2004 Posts: 110

Coolestcow... It costs less.

There. Plain and simple enuf?

Posts: 89 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Feb 04, 2004 Posts: 89

$80or more to SBC or $26 to Vonage. It was a no-brainier.

Posts: 67 · Full Forum Member Joined: Mar 22, 2004 Posts: 67

Advantages -
Usually less expensive
Potentially unlimited long distance
Very inexpensive international calling (free to Canada, cheap elsewhere)
Lots of gee whiz features (3way, caller id, call hunt/forward/etc.)
Free voice mail (but no fax service Sad

)
Way cool and more toys to hook to your network
Keep your number when you move
Use your MTA when you travel to get local calls from anyplace you have broadband
Get more than one number per line
Ability to get trick area codes

On this last point. Say your dear old mum lives in Flordia and you live in Houston. You could get (as a primary line or an alias to your primary line) a Florida number so she can call you with a local call. This is also great if you have a business where most of your customers are in another city.

Disadvantages:
Not as reliable/robust as POTS (plain old telephone system)
May impact your network connection (or vice versa)
911 is not true 911
Power goes out or network goes down and you have no phone service

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 08, 2004 Posts: 3

aight thanks

Posts: 61 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 29, 2004 Posts: 61

I just want to touch on wd5gnr's disadvantages:
after working out the kinks my Vonage is eveybit as reliable as my POTs line. I have not noticed any network disadvantage and I am on it all day why I am onthe phone. Also most of us have 900mhz cordless phones that dont work if they are not plugged in so if the power goes out (no phone).

He is right with the 911 and there has been discussion on the board about this but I dont really consider this a disadvantage either.

I would just try it out and see if it works for you. Oh year on the Fax service issue...try efax.com and get a free account to receive. I use my normal line to send as most stuff is done in PDF etc...

good luck

Posts: 67 · Full Forum Member Joined: Mar 22, 2004 Posts: 67

Hi K5,

Don't take me the wrong way. I like Vonage, I just wanted to point out potential pitfalls. Even if you have your equipment ironed out, the service just isn't as reliable as POTS. There are times I can't call out on the first try, and occasional bad connections.

Efax is pretty restrictive about how many faxes you can receive and prohibit business use (although I don't know how they would know). I used to pay for j2 service, but I've dropped it in favor of a similar service that costs $1/month. The number is long distance, but no one faxes me locally anyway, so it is long distance to them in any event. Have a look at http://tinyurl.com/yszt5. The MessageOne service is $1/month (voice mail too, but who cares). I used to use these guys for cheap long distance, but not since I now have Vonage.