is the service good?

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 19, 2004 Posts: 4

1) Ease of setup: A+. Running behind a linksys router connected to cable modem. I followed the quick setup guide and 10 mins later, dial tone and calling ability. I thought I would have to do some forwarding in the router, but didn't have to.

2) Quality of connection: A. If nothing else is going on with your broadband, i.e. up/down loading or heavy use, quality is just as good as POTS. I initially had some lost words, just a few and after turning down the bandwidth saver quality is perfect. I really cannot tell the difference in voice quality between POTS and Vonage. Quality, relatively speaking compared to cell phone is excellent.

3) Features: A. Call forwarding is a main feature I use. You just can't beat the features for price comared to POTS.

4) Customer Service B. Response times need to be improved, but once connected to a rep, the rep was knowledgable and polite and paitent.

5) Overall: A. Come on, anyone that trys to tell me that Vonage isn't the greatest deal compared to POTS is crazy. I'm saving $30 per month and that doesn't include long distance. When you factor in average long distance, I'm saving $40 per month. This savings pays for the cable modem connection.

Given this day and age of cell phones and reduced reliance on POTS, Vonage is a tremendous deal.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 25, 2004 Posts: 2

I've had Vonage for about 2 months now and find it to be a great deal over what Bellsouth wanted. I'm away at college in Daytona Beach, using an Orlando area code with Vonage since they dont have the local area code here yet. I purchased the retail option with the Motorolla VT with the $50 rebate. That was a few months ago, looks like everyone is using the linksys product now.

I'm using Roadrunner cable through Brighthouse Networks and an IPCop firewall/router system. No configuration needed. Installed the VT through the WAN port into my switch as if simply another computer connected. After downloading and self-updating the Motorolla adapter and setting up the account online, I was set up and talking within 10 minutes. IPCop is a linux based firewall system and also serves as my VPN gateway to our business network.

I have 2 computers connected and have no drop in speed. I am not using the QoS with the router and have the bandwidth saver on high. The voice quality is definately improved over POTS and my cell phone. I went with Vonage because my cell phone wouldnt pickup in my apartment building and bellsouth wanted $25 bucks for a dial tone, with no features, or long distance, and not to mention the $40 set up fee plus the usual rip off of taxes.

Ive talked for hours at a time on the service and never had a dropped call. With a networking and computer background, this is definately the way to go. Just a note, I'd make sure to check for packet loss and PING times for your connection. My pings average about 30-40ms here.

I would and have definately recommended Vonage over POTS.

Voice Quality: A - Excellent. Better than POTS and definately better than Cellphone. Depending on traffic, you may hear a little voice change when downloading or heavy web use, simple web traffic will have little effect on quality.

Ease of Use: A. Website easy to use and navigate. Speed is a little slow sometimes but nothing to be concerned with. Detailed call tracking is also nice.

Customer Service: Never had to use them, mine was up and running with the first try and ever since with no problems, even at different internet locations. Remember, customer service reps are expensive. You can't have these kinds of prices with huge overhead and payroll costs.

Features: A. I've used as many features as I could to see how they work. Call waiting, call transfers, caller-id block, call forwarding, voice mail, click2call, etc.

It would be nice to configure voicemail from the website, but I'm sure these are completely seperate systems and implementing this might be a little costly. It'd also be nice to have an area code from my home town, but this is going to be another FCC and industry issue that takes time.

Hope this helps!