Cancellation Threat for Softphone Calls Originating Abroad

Posts: 49 · Full Forum Member Joined: Nov 27, 2004 Posts: 49

kws wrote:

From the vonage Terms of Service (emphasis mine):

Quote:

2.6 Use of Service and Device by Customers Outside the United States. Although we encourage you to use of the Service to place calls to foreign countries from within the United States, we do not presently offer or support the Service in any countries other than the United States and Canada. If you use the Service or the Device outside of the United States or Canada, you will be solely responsible for any violations of local laws and regulations resulting from such use. We reserve the right to terminate your Service immediately if we determine, in our sole and absolute discretion, that you have used the Service or the Device outside of the United States or Canada.

So the official policy does appear to differ considerably from the advertising and web statements.

No, it does not. Vonage is stating that using their phone adapter may be illegal in certain countries. Reserving the right to terminate service is only if Vonage determines/discovers that you were using the phone adapter illegally in a country other than the US or Canada.

From the Vonage web site, where it's made clear that you are not prohibited from using the phone adapter overseas as long as you abide by the laws and regulations of the country where you are located (emphasis mine):

Quote:

Can I use the Phone Adapter overseas?

Currently we do not sell our service internationally (except Canada and United Kingdom) and therefore do not ship internationally or accept international credit cards. However, our service will probably work in other countries. We advise you to check the local VoIP laws of the country that you are using it in because some countries regulate the use of VoIP. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the quality of service due to the long latency between your local ISP provider and our service in the United States.

If you use our service in another country, you will have to accept a US telephone number and pay our international rates to call within your country.

Vonage is not using bait and switch in advertising.

Vonage is merely protecting itself legally in the event a customer uses an adapter illegally in a country other than the US or Canada.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 24, 2005 Posts: 7

pdrayton wrote:

Reserving the right to terminate service is only if Vonage determines/discovers that you were using the phone adapter illegally in a country other than the US or Canada.

That's not what the policy (Terms of Service) says. Read this line again:

Quote:

We reserve the right to terminate your Service immediately if we determine, in our sole and absolute discretion, that you have used the Service or the Device outside of the United States or Canada.

Nothing there about only being able to terminate you if you're using it illegally. They can terminate your service if you use it at all outside of the US & Canada.

pdrayton wrote:

From the Vonage web site, where it's made clear that you are not prohibited from using the phone adapter overseas as long as you abide by the laws and regulations of the country where you are located

That's the original point of this thread ... the Vonage web info and advertising say you can use the service from abroad and even encourage it. The official policy threatens to terminate your service if you do.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 10, 2005 Posts: 7

""""To me, the international access (calls originating from out side the US are charged as if they are originating from the US). I know for a fact that people have used their softphones and even the hardware adapter abroad (Europe anyway).""""

Vonage can tell where you Softphone capable PC or VoIP enabled router is only by the IP address the router/softphone reports back to the server; and calls origionating from a Vonage device/software are origionating in the calling area based on Area Code, so all calls from a US number when calling with the router in Denmark is still a US call. Only the TOS state you will have to comply to the Communcation Laws of foreign countries. So the owness is on you, not Vonage, to monitor where you are calling from and to ensure you compliance to the TOS.

And yeah, the CS rep probably was misinformed somehow. I have caught them on a couple of occasions with the double talk. Ask for it in writing, ask for a ticket number, and ask them to explain it in an email.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 10, 2005 Posts: 7

Oh, and every company that provides a service and has a Terms of Service, reserves that right.. Vonage is no exception.

"pdrayton" is right, Vonage is only protecting itself, I doubt they have the resources in place to track down TOS viloators anyway, they would only lose revenue and give competitors a new client.

I know that Vonage helps its customers set up thier service with foreign ISPs, it understands that its the future of communications and its not restricted to North America only. Dont obsess with the TOS part of "we reserve the right to Terminate", its just a legal requirement of a business.

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Sep 22, 2005 Posts: 18

pdrayton wrote:

You're making a mountain out of a mole hill!

I'm a bit offended that you expect us to do your research to find out if Vonage will work for you overseas when you won't even tell us from what country or countries you'd like to use Vonage.

How about Bangladesh? Will resources about VoIP regulation in Bangladesh work for you? Maybe Cameroon? Djibouti?

Why don't you do what experienced foreign travelers do and consult with the State Department? Condi Rice has some really good contacts Lol

I'm getting the impression that you don't actually want Vonage to work. Hence, my reluctance to find resources for you regarding VoIP regulation in each of the more than 200 countries around the globe.

Good grief. Such hostility and snarkiness. No need to take things to such a personal level and with negative pop psychology.

And... Um... aren't we here to air our concerns, and share research?

I gave pdrayton the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that his/her previous comment was a reasonable suggestion:

pdrayton wrote:

I would suggest you do research into the VoIP laws & regulations of the countries you intend to visit to see if using a Vonage phone adaptor is permissable.

... and therefor it was reasonable to ask of the community (not just pdrayton) :

"Does anyone know a good resource for the aforementioned research? RE: VOIP Adapter as well as Softphone paradigm?"

If it's very difficult to figure out, then it underscores my concern about how we can be reasonably expected to comply with Vonage's policies if they don't clearly define them.

And if it is easy to figure out, then pdrayton why withold information? This forum is for a large community.

I didn't rattle off countries because I might end up anywhere, and I was hoping someone might point me to some URL's that have compiled the information. One stop shopping is probably too good to hope for, but I'd assume there's probably some accurate generalities and regional groupings out there with links for followup. I wonder if this would be a good wikipedia topic?

As far as Vonage's TOC ... clearly there's two major camps... those that take TOC terms serioiusly, and those that don't. Same with the concept of truth in advertising. So I'm not going to comment on those aspects of this thread further, and instead want to focus on researching international laws concerning VOIP usage (softphone AND the vonage phone adapter) so that I don't give Vonage any reason to yank my service while I'm abroad depending on it.

It might all work out fine if I just blindly use the Vonage service (adapter and sofphone) wherever I can manage, but I'd at least like to know when I'm participating in VOIP "risky behavior" internationally. I assume that there's a lot of other people who'd value such information, as there's lots of interest in this thread. We may have bigger concerns than Vonage should be break local laws ... clearly Vonage is unlikely to be of any help.

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Sep 22, 2005 Posts: 18

voipmonkey wrote:

I know that Vonage helps its customers set up thier service with foreign ISPs, it understands that its the future of communications and its not restricted to North America only.

Well... this sounds encouraging... could you elaborate?

Thanks for writing!