Potential new subscriber - some questions

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 08, 2003 Posts: 1

Hi,

I'm interested in getting Vonage. I've been hearing rave reviews, especially from those on the TiVo Community forum. TiVo compatibility isn't a problem for me though, because I have an ethernet card in my TiVo and do my TiVo calls over broadband. Anyway, here are my questions.

I live in Queens, New York (Astoria). My area code and exchange is 718-721-xxxx and I have an analog line with Verizon. I saw that Vonage offers 718 as an area code. However when I tried to check my exchange on Vonage's website to see if I can keep my phone number, it said that I can't. Why is this? I pay 23 cents to Verizon per month for number portability. Why can't I keep my number?

I currently have DSL on the line which I want to get rid of in favor of cable, and at the same time get rid of the analog line sometime soon. However, this means that I'll be running Vonage on DSL for a little while until my cable is installed (roughly 1 month). If I were able to keep my phone number, would I be able to get Vonage with a temporary number then change to my existing number on the analog line when it becomes portable?

I've been seeing great rates for International calls. Low rates to my home country (Trinidad)!! This is the main reason I want to switch to Vonage. What is the call quality when calling overseas? Anyone had any issues calling Trinidad or anywhere in the Caribbean (excluding Puerto Rico and other US territories)? I'm also interested in calling India. What is the voice quality of calls to India? Anyone had any experiences?

Thanks in advance for answering my questions!

Ryan J.

Guest

My experience calling India so far has been bad.

if you remember the good old days with AT&T where one had to literally scream to carry the voice across.

Well, Act2 Scene I those days are back with Vonage now.

Connect times are also significant.

I did a caluclation a while back and found that IP telephony calls
to India will go down to about 15c. Vonage offers 19c. AT&T call India
plan offers 27c and reducing...

It all comes down to - if you want to save money and scream - go Vonage
if you want to spend a few dollars more and save your vocals - go AT&T

Cheers!

Posts: 83 · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2003 10:35 am Post subject:

I don't know about either India or Trinidad, but calls to England and Canada are crystal clear. Plus for me, unlimited calls + virtual numbers across the US alone are easily worth the money.

I only use Vonage and ditched SBC some months ago.

My 2 cents worth

Posts: 40 · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2003 1:22 pm Post subject:

You must remember is that Vonage can only be as "solid" as your ISP.

One thing Vonage service has done is to make me much more sensitive to my ISP's (Cox Cable) quality of service.

I use Ping Plotter -- http://www.pingplotter.com -- to run a traceroute to my primary DNS once a minute 24/7.

The data recorded has proved interesting and has served me well. You can see outages that you never would have even been aware of before (e.g. during the day while at work) ... I've had Cox reterminate all of the external coax at my house (resulting in a BIG improvement) and I've sucessfully gotten Cox to refund charges for when they have network "bad days" themselves. (Yesterday they were down almost 8 hours for what they termed "router problems")

Cox Cable in Northern Virginia isn't yet providing IP QOS up to the standard of PSTN dial tone ... but Vonage is a whole lot cheaper too and in fairness, works pretty darned well.

Additionally, I don't mind "fiddling" and using my cell phone backup. In other words -- for me, the cost saving is woth the extra fiddling required.

I'll keep beating on Cox though ...

Guest

I just got Vonage IP phone service. I tried a few calls to India.
Land lines in Bangalore, Hubli and cell phone.

Part-1
-------
Service to landlines in Banglaore had a long connection time appox. 45sec.
Quality of service was good. there was some difference b/w AT&T
and Vonage. But my mother could not notice it. Smile

Part-2
-------
Connection to landline in Hubli was ok. It used to get broken sometimes. I could not tell the but the person on the otherside noticed it.

Part-3
-------
Connections to Cell phone (not WLL, reliance) has been great.
Comparable to AT&T. I have called 4 friends. And nobody could notice
the difference. I think it is the packet n/w which is helping here.
Connections to WLL cell phones (reliance) have the same issues as land lines.

Part-4
-------
After 2 days and 4-calls to my home phone. !!!It stopped working !!!
Looks like Indian Telephone dept. disabled phone calls from the local
Vonage POT n/w in India. So it does not accept any out-going
calls from that phone. The last-mile for which Vonage uses local
phone service. Cry

Have submitted a request to Vonage service. Hope they can resolve it. Otherwise will have to disconnect it within their 1-month trial period.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 03, 2003 Posts: 4

Better check your Terms of Service... it looks like a 14-day trial period, not 1-month... quoting:
Terms of Money Back Guarantee:
You must cancel your service within 14 days of the activation of your account.

Customer Service says they'll refund the $39.00 cancellation fee upon return of the ATA, though.

Guest

Quality is unusable to India since Oct. Jitter and cutouts make Vonage unusable - you just keep saying "can you hear me?..." "what did you say?". Despite several complaints, Vonage has been unable to fix this for over a month. Completion rate is poor too. I'd say fewer than 1 in 20 calls to South India is usable. May seem cheap, but only if you are able to use treh service. Quality within the US has also gotten worse - one in 5 or so calls suck.

Used to be good quality, though call setup time was long.

Guest

Just my 2 cents ...
I've had Vonage since end of October- I too live in Queens and I was able to get my number transferred, however it took them 8 weeks to get the transfer thru (they advertise 10-20 business days). So, for 8 weeks I had a verizon bill and a Vonage bill. I asked customer service for some sort of credit for this "double-billing" but they have been unhelpful so far.

When I use Vonage for domestic calls the quality is great. When I have dialed India (Bombay) the quality is atrocious!! It takes 1 minute to connect (which you get billed for) and then there's the constant "what was that? can you repeat yourself" I contacted customer service and they were useless.
When I was with Verizon I was paying 42c/min to India and the call quality was crystal clear. I am most likely going to go back to Verizon, At&t, MCI etc. Whichever one has the lowest rates to India since most of my bill is weighted by my India calls.

If anyone knows of a good company or way to save on (clear) calls to India please post that info. I'd appreciate that very much.

Cheers!

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 17, 2004 Posts: 2

I have to agree with the posts here
a) Call Quality to Chennai is choppy, my calling cards are better than this!
b) Rate Changes to Bombay has happened without notice, increasing a huge 83% from 12C to 22C in the last three days. Watch that Call!

I must say, domestic calls are OK. Willl try for a few days.