How did you come to Vonage?

Posts: 30 · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 8:55 am Post subject:

Sounds like we’re all saying the same things: We got tired of the POTS excessive charges for minimal services, indifferent attitude toward customers, and no sense of urgency to incorporate emerging technology.

Well, maybe Voip will shake the POTS’ tree much the same as direct broadcast satellite (dbs) did to cable.
Lol

Posts: 1179 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1179

Similar story but I was introduced to Vonage through of all means, a RadioShack weekly flier. In it they were introducing the PAP2 and the Wireless router. So then I looked online and called Vonage. That night I had order my RT31P2 and have since ditched the $58/month SBC line. Can't beat the $15.91 or around there /month.

Also the phone has had some hiccups but nothing worth getting upset about considering that it's saving me over $40/month for better quality and great web access. I love the voicemail sent through email feature. It gives me virtually real time access to voicemail at the office.

Posts: 10 · Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 12:09 pm Post subject:

Living in southeast Asia for the last 26 years and not having a phone for the first 10 years makes you really appreciate Vonage. When I arrived here if you wanted to make a overseas call you had to call ahead and make a reservation to pace the call or you could go to one of the telco's offices and try to get through in a hour or two.

Finally got a dedicated phone line about 1991 but no way to call overseas directly with out operator assistance (another way to gouge the customer). You make a collect call through ATT and later MCI or if you had an ATT/MCI card you could charge it to that. As a matter of fact the local goverment owned telco wanted you to call collect because they shared 50/50 on the revenue of that long distance call. But they did not have to foot the bill for the infra-structure for that call. Anyway the rates both for collect and paid calls was about $3.00 per minute with minimum 3 minute charge. A couple of years ago the FCC ruled that the overseas telcos could not longer receive a 50/50 split. It went to a 15/85 split for collect calls. I have never seen the advertising for collect calls disappear so fast and be replaced with ads for you to now call direct and pay their high charges.

Initially used the call-back services prior to the Implementation of the internet and was able to slash my costs by 60%. Even started several business centers around these call-back services. when the internet entered the scene started trying net2phone and others like that, but never with much luck on a dial-up connection. Once I got my broadband connection I used Go2Call for a couple of years with varied results. I was even a beta-tester for a company called "Call The Planet" but after several months gave up. Their technical folks had obviously never been in a third world country with tin cans for phone lines.

After all that Vonage is the natural progression for me and my wife loves it. She always hated the headset. I have hooked my Vonage into my house system and it rings in three rooms and on a cordless phone. Except for an initial problem with my ISP blocking one of the UDP ports that Vonage was trying to update my VT-100 with and the area code problem this has been a real giant leap from those first days of $3.00 a minute calls to less than $.03 per minute.

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 21, 2005 Posts: 20

When we moved to Georgia we were planning on just using the wife's cell to call family and freinds back in CA. That got expensive quick. We looked at getting BellSouth, but our bill would've been over $60/month, plus the initial install. We'd been thinking of Vonage for a couple years, and decided now was as good a time as any. Been mostly flawless for the last two months. I had the Caller ID time issues, and have been getting DTMF tone interpretations occasionally, but nothing that bothersome.

Posts: 51 · Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 5:14 pm Post subject:

For our household it was just about the money. We have SBC down here with AT&T long distance. We had two lines of which I have transferred one and am getting ready to transfer the second. Our monthly bills were horrific. In addition to that you almost have to be an accountant to decipher a SBC bill. We were being nickel-and-dimed to death and it was almost impossible to figure out how to only pay for what we wanted without getting ripped off. Can you believe that there is actually a line item on our SBC bill for "Touchtone", $0.18 per month? Sheesh.

Posts: 318 · Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 9:05 pm Post subject:

I hate Sprint and will take this opportunity to expound on how much Sprint ****.

They lied to me when I signed up, told me I would not be under a contract for DSL service. They quoted me the wrong DSL service rates. They quoted me wrong information about long distance service and their "package" service.

I spent almost a year suffering with them. I had heard of Vonage mostly through news reports (I like reading tech news), and found it intriguing. When I talked with a friend about his great Vonage experiences, I decided if Sprint kept giving me the guff I would finally cut my ties.

Two months later, I spent an hour on the phone with Sprint Executive Offices (needless to say, I had so many problems and so many escalations they eventually gave me the number to bypass their call center). I was trying to get my long distance straightened out, Sprint had slammed me a couple times (yes, they switched me from my cheap Internet-based LD provider back to Sprint).

I made the decision then. Ordered cable modem service, ordered Vonage. Called up Sprint's Executive Offices again, got them to waive the DSL cancellation fee. Waited for the install, and it's been working perfectly ever since. In fact, I now get digital cable service + DVR, much faster cable modem service, my Vonage account with free long distance, all for about $20 more than what I was paying Sprint for DSL and local phone service. I think it's quite a deal Smile

Go Vonage! I must also say: Go BrightHouse! (my cable company, they have also been great.)

Posts: 14 · Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 11:25 am Post subject: How did you come to Vonage?

No doubt cost, & all the options that come with the service. I've had a few providers, AT&T, Verizon, SBC, & RCN the local cable bundle service, & when they wanted to charge $5 for Caller ID, that when I switched..That was over a year ago

Posts: 2 · Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 7:44 am Post subject: new to vonage

i agree with all the other posts ahead of me....number one is the cost...being retired and not much social security, we were having to cut costs...then i found Vonage and voile"..i am in love lol. Good-bye Verizon Hello Vonage!!...Let me tell you short story about me and Vonage...I have my settings set to ring to my cell if i'm not at home...Had i not had this i would of missed a VERY important message from my dr about my diabetes..I needed to go have tests asap.....sooooooo THANK YOU Vonage.
You are a god send.. Very Happy

i have only been a Vonage customer for 2 months and everyone is so nice Hope i didn't bore you all with my story

Posts: 508 · Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 9:41 am Post subject:

when my wife moved up here from SC, we didnt' have alot of money and only used my cell phone that I already had, we did that for almost a year, using calling cards to call SC for about 4.5c/min.. I refused to get a Bell Landline cuz it'd be a little more than $30/mo for an exchange that is LD to most of the ppl we call.. I saw Vonage last spring, but they didnt' have service in Canada yet, they were just starting to have some Virtual Numbers here, but I didnt' have a credit card witha US addy, so i stil lcouldnt' get it.. then in teh fall I noticed they had service here, so we talked about it, and after Christmas we signed up, now the $30/mo in calling cards goes to Vonage instead, and my wifes family down south can call her whenever they want for free too.. and I can take my cell with me in the car and be able to call home Smile

it sucked havign to use MSN MSG'r on the cell <---> computer to talk to my wife while I was out, (or while she was out)

Vonage is Da Shiznit.. lol..