The new VONAGE WIFI phone, why isn't it available IN CANADA

Posts: 51

Hello to all the experienced Vonage Canada Reps. out there. I need this question answered, yes, I have asked before. There has to be a qualified rep who knows this answer: I am from London(born and raised in Islington) my husband from Germany we enjoy our travel to the above yearly. I would like to purchase the Vonage WIFI PHONE, it's available in the States and it looks like it is available in LONDON. See below: my question: WHY IS NOT AVAILABLE TO CANADIANS, thank you.

"Paragraphs below taken from the daily Newsletter":

Vonage UK Offers Free Service at The Cloud Wi-Fi Hotspots

Vonage UK says it is partnering with British Wi-Fi provider The Cloud to offer its customers free service at any hotspot operated by the company.

Beginning next month, Vonage customers will be able to use their selected local geographical phone numbers to make VoIP calls from any of The Cloud’s national network of over 7,000 Wi-Fi hotspots.

Vonage users will access The Cloud’s network via their Wi-Fi phone as soon as they are within range. There will be no password or user logon process; users will pick up the Wi-Fi signal strength and be able to make and receive calls immediately. Pricing will be included in the standard £7.99 a month “Residential Unlimited” package from Vonage, which includes unlimited calls to UK and Irish landlines as well as to other Vonage customers wherever they are in the world.

The deal between Vonage and The Cloud will see Vonage customers using their Wi-Fi phone whenever they are in range of a hotspot from The Cloud. These include all major UK airports, First Great Western train stations, Coffee Republic outlets, Little Chef cafes, Swallow Hotels, as well as over 4,000 pubs and regional hotels across the country.

In addition to conventional Wi-Fi coverage, The Cloud is also launching a number of city centre hot zones in Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford, along with the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Islington.
Later this year The Cloud will be deploying a ground-breaking Wi-Fi network across the entire Square Mile in London – all of which will be accessible to Vonage users.

Thanks to the daily newsletter, I enjoy reading it and find out so much interesting and helpful information.

It seems we cannot get a direct answer and an accurate one to this question which is; why is the WIFI PHONE not available to us in CANADA. Thank you.

Posts: 105 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Posts: 105

Vonage announced availability of the UTStar WiFi Phone in Canada yesterday.
$95CDN after rebate

Details on the vonage.ca website

Here is the globe story.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060504.gt vonage0504/BNStory/Technology/

Posts: 51 · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 8:56 pm Post subject:

Mustardman wrote:

Vonage announced availability of the UTStar WiFi Phone in Canada yesterday.
$95CDN after rebate

Details on the vonage.ca website

Here is the globe story.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060504.gt vonage0504/BNStory/Technology/

Hi, thanks we are thrilled, we read it this morning in the daily NEWSLETTER.

Posts: 105 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Posts: 105

The main thing to understand is that you will require a second number (and second monthly fee) if you already have Vonage. Either that or transfer your number from your existing ATA but then you probably can't collect the rebate.

So it's either two Vonage numbers if you want to continue to use your existing wired ATA or you transfer your number over to the WiFi phone. They will probably want some sort of one time fee for that.

Posts: 51 · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 10:00 pm Post subject:

Mustardman wrote:

The main thing to understand is that you will require a second number (and second monthly fee) if you already have Vonage. Either that or transfer your number from your existing ATA but then you probably can't collect the rebate.

So it's either two Vonage numbers if you want to continue to use your existing wired ATA or you transfer your number over to the WiFi phone. They will probably want some sort of one time fee for that.

Hi, thanks for info, however, I was under the impression that it uses your same vonage phone number and you can have it activated when you go away for the month or two and deactivate or cancel it when you are at home. Would there be another charge for another number then? Yes, it would be 19.00 approx. for 500 minutes when activated for us here in Canada and when back from London I can cancel it, is that correct? London has WIFI all over as mentioned in the Newsletter so that would be great for us.

Posts: 327 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 327

Vonage currently offers the WiFi phone only as a "primary device" on your account. It may be possible to get one and then call them and switch service from your terminal adapter to the wifi phone and back when you move around, but the effort to do that may be high.

As before, another option that can work for you is to add a Vonage soft phone account to your regular Vonage account. That would give you 500 minutes of outgoing calling to non-Vonage numbers and unlimited calling to Vonage numbers as well as unlimited incoming calls. To use your existing Vonage number for incoming calls, you can use the sim-ring feature to have Vonage ring both your existing terminal adapter and the soft phone account.

Note that to use the soft phone account, you would need to get an "unlocked" wifi phone, rather than the version that vonage is selling directly.