Surcharge for TollFreePlus from a payphone?

Posts: 153 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 11, 2007 Posts: 153

Thanks. I've PM'd you. We'll test this out, and I'll post the results of what we find out. Thanks again. I knew this forum would eventually come through with the answer, as long as I kept the topic active so that someone who could answer it would see it.

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 12

I have a Vonage 800 number exactly for one family member who must use a payphone (no, he's not an inmate). No surcharges what so ever....but my old Verizon plan had a 50 cent charge per call.

Posts: 164 · Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 1:48 am Post subject:

jcovert wrote:

I'm amazed that this forum is unable to produce a definitive answer to this question from a Vonage customer using this forum who has TollFreePlus service. I really might order a Vonage TollFreePlus number, but I need to know the answer to this question! I find it very hard to believe that there is no payphone surcharge, but the information on Vonage's web site says nothing about it.

When making calls to an 800 number from a payphone, it has been my experience that the coins must be deposited to gain a dial tone. The inserted coins are returned upon call termination. (Ypsilanti, Michigan) The problem is in finding a working pay phone. They are becoming both rare and often not in working condition. There is no longer enough traffic to pay for installation. I attribute *that* to the popularity of cell phones.

Why don't you test your local phones by placing an 800 call. It is certainly easier and more satisfying than going into attack mode on folks who have little use for pay phones.

I have both an 800 Vonage line and Vonage softphone in addition to my basic Vonage line. Charges for the 800 line are as stated in the FAQ, with no additional charges for use to the holder of the 800 number. I presume that the pay phone vendor is compensated for originating the call from Vonage, but this is speculation.

Posts: 153 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 11, 2007 Posts: 153

Quote:

When making calls to an 800 number from a payphone, it has been my experience that the coins must be deposited to gain a dial tone.

That has not been the case with most payphones for years, especially outdoor payphones. "Dial-tone-first" was introduced almost universally in the 1970s and 1980s. I travel a lot, and frequently use pay phones in airports, train stations, theatres, etc. I haven't seen a payphone that required a deposit for an 800 number in years.

Quote:

Why don't you test your local phones by placing an 800 call.

That wouldn't do any good all on its own. First I needed to find a Vonage customer with 800 service who would be willing to check his bill after allowing me to place a call to him. Old Snipe was kind enough to make that offer, but before I got to a payphone (it has been VERY cold here, and the next time I was going to be near an indoor payphone would have been next Sunday) there was a reply from jbee with the answer.

Quote:

I presume that the pay phone vendor is compensated for originating the call from Vonage, but this is speculation.

Pay phone vendors are definitely compensated by the LD carrier (or carriers) delivering the call to Vonage. That much is an FCC requirement, not speculation, guaranteed to all payphone owners. We now know that Vonage doesn't pass the charge on to its customers. Whether the LD carrier swallows the charge as part of its contract with Vonage or whether Vonage swallows the charge as part of the way it provides 800 service will have to remain a matter of speculation.

Quote:

going into attack mode

Oh, please. In forums like this, when trying to get an answer, it's necessary to keep a topic active so that people who might actually have the answer will see it as an active topic. I already knew that an attempt by someone else a year ago to get this question answered had fallen on deaf ears. I wasn't attacking anyone, I was making sure that discussion continued. It worked. I got the answer.

Posts: 249 · Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 1:07 pm Post subject: No Charge

I received your network call yesterday on my toll-free number and was not charged for it. That still doesn't prove out the payphone theory. I have had that toll-free number from Vonage for over two years and have never had a charge on it other then overage. At .05cents a minute for overage who cares about that? A toll free number for $5 bucks is as good a deal as it gets! I'm not quite sure why your so up tight about pay phone charges? Like the feller says, pay phones are nearly extinct.

Posts: 153 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 11, 2007 Posts: 153

Thanks for all the feedback.

Based on the feedback I've gotten here, I've activated a TollFreePlus number.

The reason I'm concerned about pay phone calls is that I expect almost all of MY usage of this number to be from payphones, mostly myself calling home from airports or other places when I'm travelling. If they whacked a surcharge, I probably wouldn't have signed up for the number, since a friend with a bunch of extra numbers has been giving me free 800 service for a long time, but I know that he DOES get charged when I use it from payphones, so I've used it sparingly.

/john

Posts: 433 · Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 5:48 pm Post subject:

If you find a payphone that requires "coin-in" first, contact your Public Utility Commission. When 9-1-1 was introduced, it became policy that no coins were needed to obtain dial tone.

With this, 800 numbers were included.

Posts: 249 · Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 12:56 pm Post subject: No Cell Phone?

jcovert wrote:

Thanks for all the feedback.

Based on the feedback I've gotten here, I've activated a TollFreePlus number.

The reason I'm concerned about pay phone calls is that I expect almost all of MY usage of this number to be from payphones, mostly myself calling home from airports or other places when I'm travelling. If they whacked a surcharge, I probably wouldn't have signed up for the number, since a friend with a bunch of extra numbers has been giving me free 800 service for a long time, but I know that he DOES get charged when I use it from payphones, so I've used it sparingly.

/john

Good Lord, you travel and don't carry a cell phone? You really seem to be missing something. How do people talk to you?

Posts: 153 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 11, 2007 Posts: 153

I carry two cellphones. But they are on weird grandfathered plans that meet my needs: first incoming minute free, and when I travel to Europe, low local rates like 15 cents/50cents/minute rather than the horrid $1.00 or $2.00 rates, and if I make any changes, even to increase the number of included minutes, I lose all of that. So I use landlines when possible. I also prefer the sound quality of a good landline phone talking G.711u over a cell phone's compressed codecs.