Telephone Features offered by Vonage

Posts: 336

There are a couple of differences between the features offered in Canada and the US. Vonage US has all features, but in Canada, we are without 911 and some software called "Click2Call".

Has anyone got an update as to when 911 will be available in Canada?

What about Click2Call? That should be fairly easy to implement.

Thanks! Smile

Posts: 77 · Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:49 am Post subject:

J'attends impatiemment le "click2call" et surtout la possibilité de faire des appels 1-800 canadiens.

Posts: 336 · Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 2:21 pm Post subject:

I spoke with Vonage about the 1-800 problem, and their response was that they were installing a Canadian server that would look after this problem. I was told that currently, all 800 toll-free calls are placed from the New Jersey, NY server. Since it is American, some calls will not go through to Canada because the Canadian company you are dialing may not subscribe to inbound toll-free calling from the US. In any case, with Vonage you get long distance and can simply call the company directly. Most reputable companies will offer their regular number as well as their 800 number.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 03, 2004 Posts: 5

What about Local Number Portability (LNP) for Vonage Canada? For Vonage US you can keep your home phone number and transfer it to Vonage. I hear no discussion about this for Vonage.ca. Anyone know what the issue is or an ETA for the feature?

Posts: 508 · Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 6:40 pm Post subject:

merrickw wrote:

What about Local Number Portability (LNP) for Vonage Canada? For Vonage US you can keep your home phone number and transfer it to Vonage. I hear no discussion about this for Vonage.ca. Anyone know what the issue is or an ETA for the feature?

from what I understand, the CRTC is reviewing Number Portablility in Canada, but it's far off.. we dont' have the population the US does, and not as many ppl here complain about little things like changing their number..

Posts: 336 · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:27 pm Post subject:

dabones wrote:

from what I understand, the CRTC is reviewing Number Portablility in Canada, but it's far off.. we dont' have the population the US does, and not as many ppl here complain about little things like changing their number..

I know that it can be done in Canada. Sprint has been in Canada for a long time and they have been doing it. Also, in Nova Scotia there is a cable/telephone company called Eastlink that has been doing this for at least 5 years now. Perhaps Vonage does not want to pay the cost of porting the number, or the company representing Vonage in Canada is not offering this service. It is an administrative service, and this could be why - it's just not available due to the company Vonage is dealing with here to get the numbers.

I will say this, some customers really do care about their number. I have a friend who is running a business who wanted to switch to Vonage, but when he found out that he would need to change his number, he declined. He has his current number on letterhead, business cards, envelopes, etc. It would be mighty expensive for him to change his number, and could cause a loss of business.

The other thing that might cause a loss of business for Vonage is the fact that they do not publish the phone number in the phone book. Other Voip carriers like Primus, do publish your phone number. That's about the only advantage of Primus I think. They have disadvantages that far outweigh the disadvantages of Vonage.

For me, I'm satisfied that things work as they are. I look at it as getting a free unpublished number. The crap calls I used to get no longer happen. When my phone rings now, I know it is from a person I want to hear from. Smile

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 12, 2005 Posts: 5

dabones wrote:

merrickw wrote:

What about Local Number Portability (LNP) for Vonage Canada? For Vonage US you can keep your home phone number and transfer it to Vonage. I hear no discussion about this for Vonage.ca. Anyone know what the issue is or an ETA for the feature?

from what I understand, the CRTC is reviewing Number Portablility in Canada, but it's far off.. we dont' have the population the US does, and not as many ppl here complain about little things like changing their number..

You're thinking of WLNP (Wireless Local Number Portability) between cell phone providers. No, indeed this is not available and won't be avaiable for a very long time.

On the other hand, LNP is possible. Vonage simply needs to apply for a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier, such as Sprint & Primus) status, and they will be able to import and export phone numbers from the ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier, such as Bell, Telus & MTS).

Now I don't know how easy or hard this is, and what are the requirements but Vonage should be able to apply for it - I know that Vidéotron got their CLEC status a few years ago for their own Voip service. Here's links to the proper info on the CRTC website. Perhaps the forum admins might want to submit this to the proper persons Wink

Registration as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC)
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/t1014.htm

Telecom Decision CRTC 97-8
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/1997/DT97-8.HTM

And while we're at it, implementing WLNP would be quite easy, wireless carriers would simply need to apply for a CLEC status as well - Microcell did a few years ago and you can now import/export your landline number to Fido and vice-versa.

Slipstream