Vonage and Toll-Free Numbers

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: May 06, 2003 Posts: 1

Hi everybody. Just got my Vonage service hooked up yesterday and so far I have absolutely no complaints. I'm planning on replacing my POTS line with Vonage, but I'll give it a week and then we'll see. The only problem I've got with the system is that Vonage doesn't currently have my rate center available. The obvious result is that my nearby friends and neighbors have to dial long-distance to reach me. I think I've found a solution to use in the interim, although it's not a perfect one. I signed up for a toll-free number from TelCan (www.telcan.net) that rings through to my Vonage number. TelCan's service is $2.00 per month, plus 6.5 cents a minute for forwarded calls. So our friends can call us on our toll-free number, then we can call them right back. We still get hit with the cost of the toll-free call, but even with a couple hundred minutes a month charged to that we'll still be saving money over our previous phone bill. Has anyone else found a similar or different solution to this problem? Are there other toll-free services with better rates that you know of? Does Vonage plan to offer some kind of toll-free service in the near future? It would be ideal if any inbound calls on the toll-free number were just debited from the available minutes on my Vonage plan, but that would obviously necessitate Vonage providing the actual redirection. Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dustin

Posts: 24 · Posted: Tue May 13, 2003 7:29 pm Post subject:

I have a TelCan account too and the charges can quickly add up. I'd suggest that you keep your POTS line for incoming calls. Don't have any of the extras like caller ID, call waiting, etc. See if you local phone company can make your line local only with no long distance dialing. You might also check out Packet 8 and see if they have a local number in your area. They have a lot more cities served than Vonage does and the quality is about the same. I kept my POTS line just for incoming calls and in case the power goes out and my Voip phone goes dead. I also have the $25.99 Vonage package and the $19.00 Packet 8 (1,000 minutes) package which my family uses extensively.

Posts: 83 · Posted: Wed May 14, 2003 11:27 am Post subject:

We use Virtual Numbers. They cost $5 a month per number but it has saved us hundreds of dollars (seriously).

We live in New England and have 2 VN - one in Texas and the other in New Jersey.

So our relatives call a toll-free local number (local to them) that gets "charged" against our Unlimited Vonage plan.

So for $10 extra a month, we can keep in touch with all of our relatives.

And by the way, it works seemlessly.

Papu Papu