Current Vonage Customers

[Shari 6]

I am considering Vonage. I had another broadband phone service last year, Lingo, which was #######. A lot of times my broadband would go down after I got Lingo and I had never had that problem before. Whe I finally got rid of Lingo and went back to regular landline phone service, I never had any broadband problems. Also Lingo would just go off line every now and then I wouldn't know it unless someone called my cell phone wondering my my home phone said it was disconnected, etc.

Anyhow,have any of you with Vonage had ANY problems? I see now they are doing free to most European countries and my husband/step-son call UK. My other big question is, is it EASY to get all the lines in the house hooked up? How? My Lingo was horrible if I added more than the original line that came off the back of the router.

I would appreciate any Vonage customers replying. Thanks!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Been a custoemr since 2004. Some problems, yeah. Sometimes I start dialing but nothing happens. But that's rare. For the most part it's been great.

[raymaga 25]

I find the "delay" a bit bothersome. I don't have it, but my daughter's Dad does in Canada, and when we talk to him, we always talk over each other because of the delay.

[terri o'neale 0]

I LOVE it. I've had it almost a year. I used to have some problems at the old house. But it was ssomething to do with placing the router too close to something else...I don't know what...hubby is my techie. When we moved, he fixed the whole thing so that the router is plugged into one wall jack and I have phone service on all my other jacks. I'm not techie enough to tell you how it all works. But I was able to do the basic stuff myself and I'm an idiot. I especially love the fact that I can call any land line or Vonage customer in England for FREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

My two cents....Yes.

[jen&darcy 0]

Been a custoemr since 2004. Some problems, yeah. Sometimes I start dialing but nothing happens. But that's rare. For the most part it's been great.

Same here except I got in 2005.

[Shari 6]

Thanks all. Did you guys just have to buy just one router from Vonage to hook up the rest of the phones in your house? I see the rounter is free because of an instant rebate, but they have other equipment listed too that confuses me, not knowing if I need anything else besides the "free" router.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Been a custoemr since 2004. Some problems, yeah. Sometimes I start dialing but nothing happens. But that's rare. For the most part it's been great.

Same here except I got in 2005.

Are you getting the Vonage IPO offer? I got it and am still thiking if I should or not.

[Fandango 1,439]

Shari good to see you, how is everything with your stepson?

I'm planning on getting Vonage too. That free UK thing is too good to pass up. But also I hear you can get a 'virtual number' so that I can get a number like in my vill in England. So all my English friends and soon to be fam can call for the price of a local call! woo hoo!

If you go thru someone, you get a month free, So does the person you say referred you. I'm going to give my friend Jan the credit so she can get the free month. You should see if any of your friends (or people here even) have Vonage and give them a free month too!

I'm all about the networking, lol. one hand washes the other, yanno?

Anyways, Jan says the phone is fine. I've never noticed any probbo when talking to her. Dialing tho is a biotch cos you hear the reverb ring on the other end, which is annoying imo.

[Shari 6]

Shari good to see you, how is everything with your stepson?

Thanks for asking. Everything on that front is good. He got a job the day after he finally got his social security card. He is working for a landscape company. He is saving $200 a week for a car and giving us board money (voluntarily). The girl is long gone and forgotten. He has made a few more friends and goes out with them some after work and on the weekends. Again, thanks for asking.

[Anastasia 1]

We had Vonage last year for a few months, because we were broke and their services were the cheapest available. But it was horrible! People would call and wouldn't hear me talk, there would be weird delays in the conversation and sometimes people would call but the call would never reach us, the phone wouldn't even ring. Especially if we used internet to download something we couldn't use the phone at the same time, it wouldn't work. As soon as I got a job we got rid of it I heard they improved their services a lot nowadays, but I can't say from my own experience that I liked them. Don't think I'll ever use them again.

[sparkofcreation 0]

I adore it and never had any major problems either in New Jersey (where my broadband access was awesome) nor here in New Mexico (where it's less so). I've had it since March 2004. It's set up to simul-ring on my husband's cell phone, so if the broadband is down he can still answer it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "all the lines"? We only have 1 line although we have a dual-handset cordless phone, so there's a phone in the living room and one in the master bedroom. (Dual-handset cordless phones are the best: all you have to plug in is the base into a socket so it will charge, you don't have to run a phone cord around the house.)

We do sometimes have problems with faxes not going through properly, they need better line quality than voice calls do.

The *only* real problem we ever had is that my best friend also had Vonage and the line quality was awful between us. I should add that neither of us had problems talking to other Vonage customers besides each other (for example, she'd been living with her sister, and when she moved out, she got new Vonage service and her sister kept the existing service; and we never had problems talking between her new number and mine), so I assume it's just a weird freakish thing. But one of us always had to be on a cell phone for us to talk to each other.

I've never, ever had any of the problems people mention above with bad line quality (except to my best friend on her old Vonage line) or people not hearing each other or anything. Now that I have Comcast Internet (boo-hiss) the modem (or maybe the service itself?) re-sets itself every 30 minutes, so every 30 minutes the line goes silent for about 3 seconds [we also lose Internet access for those 3 seconds]. That's not Vonage's fault, and it never happened when we had OptOnline, but it is a possibility depending on your broadband.

You may want to consider whether it's actually cheaper to get the $14.99 plan if you don't call a lot of people. My inlaws live in the UK too, but since our phone bill is never over $25 anyway (even though they charge for calls to the UK), there's no sense in getting the $25 plan (we also have a $5/month "virtual number" for New Mexico since we kept our NJ Vonage number when we moved here).

Edited May 12, 2006 by sparkofcreation

[terri o'neale 0]

I adore it and never had any major problems either in New Jersey (where my broadband access was awesome) nor here in New Mexico (where it's less so). I've had it since March 2004. It's set up to simul-ring on my husband's cell phone, so if the broadband is down he can still answer it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "all the lines"? We only have 1 line although we have a dual-handset cordless phone, so there's a phone in the living room and one in the master bedroom. (Dual-handset cordless phones are the best: all you have to plug in is the base into a socket so it will charge, you don't have to run a phone cord around the house.)

We do sometimes have problems with faxes not going through properly, they need better line quality than voice calls do.

The *only* real problem we ever had is that my best friend also had Vonage and the line quality was awful between us. I should add that neither of us had problems talking to other Vonage customers besides each other (for example, she'd been living with her sister, and when she moved out, she got new Vonage service and her sister kept the existing service; and we never had problems talking between her new number and mine), so I assume it's just a weird freakish thing. But one of us always had to be on a cell phone for us to talk to each other.

I've never, ever had any of the problems people mention above with bad line quality (except to my best friend on her old Vonage line) or people not hearing each other or anything. Now that I have Comcast Internet (boo-hiss) the modem (or maybe the service itself?) re-sets itself every 30 minutes, so every 30 minutes the line goes silent for about 3 seconds [we also lose Internet access for those 3 seconds]. That's not Vonage's fault, and it never happened when we had OptOnline, but it is a possibility depending on your broadband.

You may want to consider whether it's actually cheaper to get the $14.99 plan if you don't call a lot of people. My inlaws live in the UK too, but since our phone bill is never over $25 anyway (even though they charge for calls to the UK), there's no sense in getting the $25 plan (we also have a $5/month "virtual number" for New Mexico since we kept our NJ Vonage number when we moved here).

You shouldn't be paying to call in-laws anymore. Vonage just rolled out a new Europe for FREE. The UK is one of the countries that is free. Except for cell phone calls. But all Vonage to Vonage and Vonage to Landline calls are FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

[Vagina Journey 0]

I used it for about 2 years and had no problems what so ever, when we moved i cancelled it and since we have been just using our cells, im thinking about dropping the cells and going back to vonage...the UK thing could really come in handy once stephen gets in town for calling his friends and family~ Kelle

[sparkofcreation 0]

You shouldn't be paying to call in-laws anymore. Vonage just rolled out a new Europe for FREE. The UK is one of the countries that is free. Except for cell phone calls. But all Vonage to Vonage and Vonage to Landline calls are FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

It's free with the unlimited plan which has a $24.99/month base rate. As I said, we have the $14.99/month package (which has unlimited incoming calls and up to 500 minutes/month of outgoing calls to the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, and IIRC Mexico--and I should add, we usually only use a couple hundred per month).

Since our calls to Europe never add up to more than about $5 or $6, it would be really stupid of us to upgrade to the plan that's $10/more month to get our calls to the UK for "free," wouldn't it? Since we only spend $5-6 on them now. That's why I told the OP to think about whether getting the more expensive plan with "free" calls to Europe is worth it. If (like us) she doesn't use her phone all that much and doesn't spend all that much time on the phone to the UK, it might be better to get the cheaper plan even though the calls to the UK would have to be paid by the minute.

Edited May 12, 2006 by sparkofcreation

[kaydee457 13]

Can't say enough good things about it....for ordinary voice service that is.

However, just one note of caution- The Vonage service is not compatible with most digital modems. If you have DirecTv that requires a phone connection for TiVo the DirecTv modem is not compatible with Vonage.

At best it's intermittent. I've tried several aftermarket devices/modems to alleviate the incompatibility problem to no avail.

Same problem with my Home Alarm system.

I finally had to reconnect an ordinary phone line for my TiVo and Home alarm system.