Adding a second line: need another adapter?

Posts: 28 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Oct 18, 2005 Posts: 28

Hi all. As you know, I ditched my personal landline and switched to Vonage a few weeks ago. Couldn't be happier with the service, performance and price. Now I'm thinking about switching my business line over. This would be another number, would need to be fully functioning (ingoing and outgoing calls), and I would of course be subscribing to the small business unlimited plan.

My question is, would I then need another adapter? I currently use the PAP2 which I bought at Staples. I know there's another phone port on it that's unused, but I'm not sure if Vonage uses the same device for two seperate numbers, one personal and one business.

If anyone knows and could post a reply, that'd be great.

Thanks!

Posts: 25 · Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 3:28 pm Post subject:

If you contact Vonage they can enable the 2nd phone port to be a 2nd line without buying another phone adapter

Posts: 277 · Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 3:38 pm Post subject:

mjmellin wrote:

If you contact Vonage they can enable the 2nd phone port to be a 2nd line without buying another phone adapter

They can and will definitely do that if you add a second line to your existing account. It sounds like the original poster currently has a personal, consumer account and wants to set up a business account for the second number. I'm not sure that Vonage will combine lines from two separate accounts onto the same adapter. Besides, since a second adapter is basically free with the setup of a new small business account, why not take the second adapter? That way if you ever have a hardware failure on a phone adapter, you're only going to lose one line, not both of them at once.

Posts: 28 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Oct 18, 2005 Posts: 28

Quote:

Besides, since a second adapter is basically free with the setup of a new small business account, why not take the second adapter? That way if you ever have a hardware failure on a phone adapter, you're only going to lose one line, not both of them at once.

EXCELLENT point...thank you.

Posts: 28 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Oct 18, 2005 Posts: 28

I"ll tell ya, what's fueling this is Verizon's ridiculous and convoluted billing. I pay around $92/month for my business line with Verizon (not counting my yellow page advertising). Plus, I pay for every incoming call to my toll-free number. That's why I'm seriously considering porting the number over to Vonage.

The only issue I might run into is porting the 888 number. From what I've read, that's not possible. Wouldn't be the end of the world though. I'll just contact all my out of area customers and inform them of my toll-free number. As long as I can port my local number over, I should be fine.

Posts: 25 · Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:31 pm Post subject:

You could get a 2nd adapter from Vonage for Free but now you are going to run into QoS issues because at least one of the adapters is not going to be directly connected to Cable/DSL modem and will be connected behind a network switch. Remember Vonage recommended configuration is

Cable/DSL Modem -- Vonage TA -- Network Switch/Router

Posts: 28 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Oct 18, 2005 Posts: 28

Well, that's how I'm set up now. Since I have a PAP2, I have no choice but to have it plugged into my router. So I go modem, router, adapter. No problems with it this way.

Posts: 18 · Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 10:23 pm Post subject:

If your ISP connection is good you'll have no problems with 2 adapters behind the router. I'm set up that way and have no QoS problems at all.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2005 2:13 am Post subject:

Definitely go for the extra adapter. As others have mentioned, if one adapter happens to go belly-up, you'll still be in business. Also, that PAP2 is a rather nice travel size. I do wish my RTP300 was that size, but I do use it's router when I'm on the road (like now).

Posts: 277 · Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2005 8:59 am Post subject:

Almost forgot - when you sign up for the small business unlimited plan, you'll get a fax line free with that, so you'll actually need both lines on one adapter for the business account anyway - one for the main business number and one for the free fax number.