Basic questions about portability and international calling

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 5

I'm a potential Vonage customer, but I'm trying to sort a few things out first.

My mother is moving to Germany for six months and I'm here in the US. I'm interested in using Vonage to try and cut down on the cost of making frequent international phone calls.

First:

I'm a bit confused about the portability features of a Vonage phone number. Would it be correct to say that if she created a Vonage account while still in the US, she could use that number (send/receive calls with a US area code as her phone number) while using a broadband connection in Germany? Is this correct or is there something that I'm missing here?

Second:

I'm guessing (but I don't know for certain) that her best bet for broadband in Germany will probably be ISDN. It seems this is really on the low-end of requirements for Vonage service and packet loss/latency with a trans-Atlantic hop has me concerned. Should I be worried?

Thanks for any and all replies.

-mp

Posts: 13 · Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2005 10:02 pm Post subject:

Yes, technically, you could take it anywhere in the world and the outgoing calls would come from the phone number you purchased the account with. Make sure you get out your electric adapter!

From Germany, even with a good dual-channel ISDN line, I'd have concerns. With overhead and the latency across the Atlantic, you may not have good sounding calls. You could put the quality way down in the Vonage account manager so you don't actually drop the call completely, but it's really a matter of trial and error.

Sorry Sad

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 5

Hi:

We came to Saudi Arabia on business, and brought our Vonage box with us. We plugged it into the router on our 128 kbps ADSL line and it works fine.

Why do you want to bother with ISDN? You will need to get a router with ISDN support. Why not get DSL?

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 5

Ayidth wrote:

Hi:

We came to Saudi Arabia on business, and brought our Vonage box with us. We plugged it into the router on our 128 kbps ADSL line and it works fine.

Why do you want to bother with ISDN? You will need to get a router with ISDN support. Why not get DSL?

Well, I don't *want* to get ISDN for her. It's a matter of what's available in the area of Germany she'll be in. Of course, DSL would be ideal and I'm working to try and figure out exactly what's available.

Thanks to all for the replies. I've signed up for an account myself and I'll be testing it when it arrives. I'll be sure to post any follow-up questions that come to mind.

-mp