How did you come to Vonage?

Posts: 50 · Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 3:26 pm Post subject: How did you come to Vonage?

I live in a high rise apartment in Washington, DC. One Friday morning, last December, I picked up the phone before leaving for work to check the weather report, and found my line dead. Since I knew I'd paid the bill Lol

, I realized that something else must have happened. As I left for work, I asked the front desk receptionist if Verizon had been doing any work in the building. He said that they had, and were, in fact, in the wiring closet still.

I figured that they'd just temporarily disconnected my line -- I was a subsciber of MCI Neighborhood -- and that it would probably be back on that afternoon when I got home from work. Needless to say, it wasn't, so I called MCI. They said that they'd send out an outside wiring tech and that I should have service no later than 4:00 pm on Sunday.

Sunday came and I still had no service, so I called again. They said that the outside wire tech had found no problems, and that an inside wire guy would be needed. I said fine, send him out -- until I found out that I'd have to pay $180.00 for the visit. I was furious, because it was obvious that the problem was not in my apartment, but in the wiring closet, and that Verizon had disconnected me. In spite of my demands to speak to increasingly higher up supervisors, I was continually told that I'd have to pay the $180. Interestingly, several times I was offered the inside wiring insurance, but when I asked if it would cover this situation, naturally I was told "No. But, you'll have it for the next time you have a problem like this!"

I had seen the Vonage ads on the net and since I already had cable modem service decided to give it a try. I was just leaving to go visit my parents for the holidays, so when I told my Dad about the phone situation he said that when I arrived we'd go to Circuit City, and the router would be on him as a Christmas gift. We picked it up on the 24th, and I set it all up within about ten minutes. I had already decided to not port my number, since I refused to pay MCI for service that I couldn't use during the transfer period. So, in just a few moments I had my new DC number up and working on my Mom's North Carolina cable modem. Five months later, I'm still thrilled with the service, and I'm so thankful to MCI for their $180 inside wire tech fee.

So, how did you get here?

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 18

cvmoreau wrote:

So, how did you get here?

$14.99, that's why.

My wife and I were getting sick of getting hosed by Verizon and AT&T for some $75 a month... especially when we could get essentially the same service for a fifth of the cost.

Posts: 24 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 02, 2004 Posts: 24

Mine's the same reason as MassD. 14.99, and not to mention, the cool-factor!!
Even after a year of using Vonage, I get raised eyebrows when I tell people that I use VoIP - some have never heard of it, others have heard, but hadn't known that it was so easily available and reliable... Needless to say, I waste no opportunity to expound on the virtues of Vonage and the money I save every month!

Posts: 98 · Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 10:46 pm Post subject:

Ditto for me. I was tired of paying Sprint $35 for local service, and a few bucks a month for long-distance to another company on top of that. The total was about $40 a month with no frills except Caller ID and Call Waiting. I had seen the ads for Vonage, and did some research. At the time, Vonage was the highest rated VoIP company, so I figured I'd try the $14.99 plan.
Well, a month later, Sprint was out of the picture, and I haven't looked back in almost a year, now.

Posts: 47 · Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 4:26 am Post subject:

Easy enough for me.

I had SBC (AKA "Seriously Bad Company") and was paying them a small fortune for crappy, static-filled lines that they outright refused to fix, because "it would be too expensive." The telco cable that feeds my area is very old, and barely has enough good pairs left to service the area - yet they refused to replace it.

We had a bit of rain last year, not much, and all 3 of my lines went down for 10 days. On day 11, they had ONE line restored.

(In all fairness, the SBC field techs are absolute pros and nice people as well - but even they couldn't work very well with a trashed telco cable that the bean counters at SBC wouldn't replace.)

So - when Vonage came along - I went along, and have never looked back. I'm happy with the price and the quality - and the customer service is getting progressively better as well.

Vonage rocks!

Very Happy

Posts: 30 · Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 7:29 am Post subject:

Pretty much the same story for me. I was habitually paying $45.00 per month to BELLSOUTH for little more than a few local calls each month. I was using my cell phone for all domestic long distance calls and 10-10-987 for my international calls.

Needless to say, VONAGE cut my monthly expenses by half. I have been pleased overall with VONAGE but I sure do wish they could make their service more compatable with DIRECTV and TIVO. I noticed they have established their own home alarm program affiliation program. Maybe there is hope for DIRECTV.

Since dropping BELLSOUTH, I've received one phone call and one "greeting card" saying - we neglected to tell you how much we care and we'll do better if you will come back. Of course, they offer the same monthly package. Robbie

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

I too was tried of SBC(Sorry Bullsh** Company) with continued price increases and poor customer service. I switched to them only for DSL but they couldn't get that right. I went more than a month trying to get them to install DSL but they didn't even know what to do. So, I tried another Telecom company (Corecomm) and the service was flawless but they too kept having increased fees and now my bill is about $35/mo with a 1/3 of my bill being taxes and FCC fees. Now I have Vonage for about 5 days with no problems and a smaller bill too!

Posts: 93 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 93

I Come to vonage becuase simple $16 per month bill and yes real time billing.

I had SBC landline and international block on my line. but somehow they removed and my dad called INDIA for some reason. They charged mr $5 per minute totalling $500 monthly bill while my regular SBC bill around $30....... So, I hate SBC And I love vonage.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: May 09, 2005 Posts: 5

I have been a Bellsouth customer for years. I guess I never knew I had any other options. I had the complete choice plan + unlimited long distance + DSL extreme. My monthly bill came to around 130 bucks each month. Something had to give. The first thing I tried was to "downgrade" my phone service. I got rid of the unlimited long distance and swapped my DSL extreme service for DSL light. When I got my next phone bill, there was barely a dent in it.

This is when I switched from DSL to cable and started using Vonage. When I called Bellsouth to make sure I didnt have any holds on my account so I could transfer my number, the bellsouth operator asked me why I wanted to know this. I explained to her that I was ditching Bellsouth in favor of Vonage. She had never heard of Vonage. I then proceeded to tell her that they offered phone service through your internet connection for a great price. She was curious, she didnt understand at first that VoIP works like a "regular" phone. Once she understood that she could pick up the phone and dial over VoIP, I could literally hear her wheels turning. She was like, "really? you get all that for 25 bucks a month? no catches?" The fact that this comment came from the mouth of a Bellsouth customer retention specialist really cracks me up.

I seriously give Bellsouth 3 years before they go out of business. The only way I can see them surviving is if they start allowing their customers to have DSL without having landline phone service. Then, they would also have to start slinging VoIP services. Wonder is they have a clue?

-Clay

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 8:09 am Post subject:

I switched to Vonage because I wanted to, "Stick it to the man."

I was first interested in Vonage because of virtual numbers. I was interested in making it cheap and easy for my out of town relatives to call me.

I disliked some of the phone company charges, especially a LNP recovery fee that I had been charged for years even though I had no other choice of phone companies during that time.