NEW! Free Calls to Europe

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

abela2006 wrote:

thats cool that its free now... too bad i dont know anyone in europe.

My same sentiment. It's only beneficial for a hand full.

What about E911/ACR/outgoing CID Question

Posts: 55 · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 7:48 pm Post subject:

It may be beneficial for a small sector of Vonage's user base, but it isn't as if you are being made to pay more for Vonage adding these countries to it's Unlimited plans, they are adding them at no extra cost. Well, At the moment anyway.

Posts: 192 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Oct 08, 2004 Posts: 192

I am sort of surprised by some of the comments in this thread. Vonage adds value to the unlimited program and people want to bash them.

I for one welcome the hand-out an will enjoy calling the UK for free.

Posts: 150 · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 1:43 pm Post subject:

Me too. Calls to the UK will be great. If we can ever get this thing working, I will look forward to their adding Germany.

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 19

I hope these 4 countries is the tip of the iceburg....I would love to see Germany added one day!!!

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

LuisPR wrote:

I am sort of surprised by some of the comments in this thread. Vonage adds value to the unlimited program and people want to bash them.

I for one welcome the hand-out an will enjoy calling the UK for free.

I don't think of it as bashing but there are alot of other features that would be useful to everyone i.e ACR/Outgoing CID/Call recording /E911..... on and on.

The calls to a few European countries is nice if you know someone abroad.I don't.

I think Germany was not added because that would probably flood their servers with calls to all the military personel stationed in Germany.HMMMM???

Posts: 55 · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject:

Taylor2767 wrote:

I think Germany was not added because that would probably flood their servers with calls to all the military personel stationed in Germany.HMMMM???

And they're not using a Vonage unit registered to their civilian home, connected to the military's broadband connection, already?

Posts: 1422 · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 2:21 pm Post subject:

LuisPR wrote:

I am sort of surprised by some of the comments in this thread. Vonage adds value to the unlimited program and people want to bash them.

I for one welcome the hand-out an will enjoy calling the UK for free.

I think that is some respects we are continuing to do what we have done for a long time, specifically bash the Vonage PR machine. The original announcement was Free Calls to Europe, the fine print said to a fraction of the European countries. Then we find out in the fine-fine print that it is only to the landlines in those countries.

The second point was a discussion of the addition to the unlimited plan and not the 500 minute plan. This appears at first to be a ploy to move people up into the unlimited plan, however, the cost of moving up would likely be higher than the current cost of international calls for 500 minute people (on the assumption that they have low call volumes).

So the question becomes, why did Vonage do this? It's doubtful that they did it as a gift to the current unlimited subscribers so they must have done it either to a) be more competitive with some other service to avoid losing customers or b) attact an untapped market segment to gain new customers.

So once again it leaves existing customers shaking our heads at Vonage continuing to expend money to build the customer base without addressing the basic telephony needs (ACR) of the existing customers. I think it is perfectly reasonable to do a little bashing.

Trivia: First Vonage Forum Feature Wish List Post for ACR Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003

Posts: 1422 · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 2:27 pm Post subject:

taylor2767 wrote:

I think Germany was not added because that would probably flood their servers with calls to all the military personel stationed in Germany.HMMMM???

If you think about it the beneficiaries of this service are not necessarily people who are calling one or two specific numbers in the served countries, but the people who call many numbers in those countries. That becomes people who have business contacts or most likely people who have lived in those countries and now live abroad (not necessarily in the US).

The most likely reason behind the selection of countries is technical. If Vonage is using IP to carry these calls into Europe rather than PSTN then they may have added equipment in those countries to terminate calls locally. They may have made deals with ISPs or Telcos serving those countries to co-locate that equipment.

Alternatively the decision may have been made based on marketing research about where the customers they are hoping to attract are spending the majority of their money.

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

paulanddonnaknight wrote:

Taylor2767 wrote:

I think Germany was not added because that would probably flood their servers with calls to all the military personel stationed in Germany.HMMMM???

And they're not using a Vonage unit registered to their civilian home, connected to the military's broadband connection, already?

I think they all must have ones...yeah that's it.........Thanks Vonage for not including Germany!