VOIP cost effectiveness
Lena
> Lena, did you do a post on your call-advantage? Point me to
> it, but I don't see how it could be cost effective? thanks
Cost effectiveness: POTS with Caller ID, Call Waiting, Voicemail, 8 cpm
Long Distance (Verizon Regional Essentials Plan) $37/mo with taxes and
fees.
AT&T CallVantage (VOIP) with unlimited local calling, 4 cpm LD, CID,
CW, VM, Call Forwarding, "Locate Me", "Do Not Disturb", Call Filtering,
call logs, online retreival of VM (or by phone), speed dial, and many
other features; $27/mo with taxes and fees.
Both Vonage and VoiceWing (Verizon) have VOIP plans with unlimited
local and long distance and many, many calling features for $25/mo,
taxes and fees adding about $7/mo.
I chose CallVantage after reading a lot of reviews on the major VOIPs
(Vonage, VoiceWing, CallVantage). Didn't need LD, and AT&T had a $20
local plan with 4 cpm LD or unlimited LD plan for $30. At the time,
VoiceWing was $35 for unlimited LD, but since then, they dropped the
price to match Vonage at $25/mo.
Voice quality was the major consideration in choosing AT&T, but also
AT&T claims one can use the house wiring after disconnecting the
incoming POTS line, where Verizon insists that only one phone (multiple
handsets are o.k.) be connected to the telephone adapter. Vonage has
the most customers and also the most complaints in the reviews I read.
HTH
Lena
Beachcomber
>Cost effectiveness: POTS with Caller ID, Call Waiting, Voicemail, 8 cpm
>
>Long Distance (Verizon Regional Essentials Plan) $37/mo with taxes and
>fees.
>
>AT&T CallVantage (VOIP) with unlimited local calling, 4 cpm LD, CID,
>CW, VM, Call Forwarding, "Locate Me", "Do Not Disturb", Call Filtering,
>
>call logs, online retreival of VM (or by phone), speed dial, and many
>other features; $27/mo with taxes and fees.
>
>
>Both Vonage and VoiceWing (Verizon) have VOIP plans with unlimited
>local and long distance and many, many calling features for $25/mo,
>taxes and fees adding about $7/mo.
>
>
>I chose CallVantage after reading a lot of reviews on the major VOIPs
>(Vonage, VoiceWing, CallVantage). Didn't need LD, and AT&T had a $20
>local plan with 4 cpm LD or unlimited LD plan for $30. At the time,
>VoiceWing was $35 for unlimited LD, but since then, they dropped the
>price to match Vonage at $25/mo.
>
>
>Voice quality was the major consideration in choosing AT&T, but also
>AT&T claims one can use the house wiring after disconnecting the
>incoming POTS line, where Verizon insists that only one phone (multiple
>
>handsets are o.k.) be connected to the telephone adapter. Vonage has
>the most customers and also the most complaints in the reviews I read.
>
You might want to read the recent Wall Street Journal article on
Vonage in which they quote, you might be better off with two tin cans
and a string.
To a businessperson who needs reliable, consistently available phone
service, there is more involved to the costs involved than the monthly
fee.
Vonage is criticized for often having little to non-existent customer
service. Numerous users complain that once they sign up and turn over
their phone number, they are basically "hijacked" and find it
near-impossible to transfer their number anywhere else.
Beachcomber
George
>
>
> You might want to read the recent Wall Street Journal article on
> Vonage in which they quote, you might be better off with two tin cans
> and a string.
>
> To a businessperson who needs reliable, consistently available phone
> service, there is more involved to the costs involved than the monthly
> fee.
>
For sure, Vonage is a cheepo service targeted at home users. Usually
cheap is not frugal.
Margaret Houlihan
"Lena" <lenaga...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1148206466....@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
What Vonage doesn't tell you is that if you've got an alarm system, you need
a hard-wired phone line (which Vonage does *not* have), and it also doesn't
work most of the time with a home network.
We had it and dumped it because of the above, and they went and totally
hosed my original phone number because they sent through a disconnect notice
to my phone company, a cancellation of the disconnect notice, and then sent
through another disconnect notice that the phone company told me would take
7-10 business days to get cancelled again. If not for a friend calling me
on my cell to say that our home number was disconnected, I never would've
known.
They're crap.
bar...@amnia.com
diminished quality. Not a very good opening when,on the first call, the
prospective customer has trouble hearing me.
--
To reply via e-mail please delete 1 c from paccbell
bar...@amnia.com
will caller ID,privacy manager,three way and call waiting for $35 which
comes out to $51 with all the taxes and fees.
Shawn Hirn
inv...@notreal.none (Beachcomber) wrote:
>
> You might want to read the recent Wall Street Journal article on
> Vonage in which they quote, you might be better off with two tin cans
> and a string.
>
> To a businessperson who needs reliable, consistently available phone
> service, there is more involved to the costs involved than the monthly
> fee.
>
> Vonage is criticized for often having little to non-existent customer
> service. Numerous users complain that once they sign up and turn over
> their phone number, they are basically "hijacked" and find it
> near-impossible to transfer their number anywhere else.
I have been a Vonage VoIP user since 11/2004. I know some other people
who have been Vonage customers even longer. I am not a business user
though and my call patterns are very light because I hate talking on the
phone; its a total distraction.
I have the cheapest plan Vonage offers and I am thrilled with it. I am
saving a lot compared to the Verizon residential service I used to use.
The CallerID feature works great and I love the option to send voicemail
messages to me as email. On the two or three occasions when my cable
modem service went out on me, the few incoming phone calls I received
were properly directed to my cell phone.
I have had to use Vonage's customer service two or three times. It was a
bit slow, but the quality of the responses I received was fine.
As I said, I am a light residential phone user. I would definitely have
concerns about using any VoIP service for a business that depends on
telephone service for its income.
Shawn Hirn
George <geo...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Beachcomber wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > You might want to read the recent Wall Street Journal article on
> > Vonage in which they quote, you might be better off with two tin cans
> > and a string.
> >
> > To a businessperson who needs reliable, consistently available phone
> > service, there is more involved to the costs involved than the monthly
> > fee.
> >
>
> For sure, Vonage is a cheepo service targeted at home users. Usually
> cheap is not frugal.
In my case, cheap = frugal. I am saving roughly about $20 a month with
Vonage and I have never had a reason to regret switching from Verizon's
residential service to Vonage and I get considerably more service
options than Verizon offers.
Lena
Beachcomber wrote:
> You might want to read the recent Wall Street Journal article on
> Vonage in which they quote, you might be better off with two tin cans
> and a string.
If you read my post, you would see that I chose CallVantage over
Vonage, based on reviews including call quality.
If you read some technical reviews rather than just an article in the
Wall Street Journal, or had tried VOIP yourself, you may find that the
service works well in most cases.
My CallVantage is clear as a bell.
It is to easy to be negative about something new, but I challenge you
to try it; you'll like it.
Lena
George
But if you were using it for a business it may be another story. Outfits
that have cheap service need to cut a lot of corners as far as
redundancy. Remember when one of those $0.03/minute LD outfits "melted
down" earlier this year and just didn't work? What if you were running a
business and Vonage "melted down" and your business number went dead for
a few days?
larry
> My CallVantage is clear as a bell.
Lena, thanks for your update! I've always valued your
comments, and found good deals from them.
-larry / dallas
timeOday
Same here, I use Vonage because it's cheap and because I don't consider
outages a big problem. With Vonage my monthly phone bill averages
$19/mo including long distance.
I certainly wouldn't use it for a business though. Maybe someday. My
Internet access itself is extremely reliable, but I still get a
noticeable number of Vonage outages.
Lena
timeOday wrote:
> I still get a noticeable number of Vonage outages.
I have my CallVantage connected thru Verizon's FiOS, and I've never had
an outage. The only problem I had initially is that the telephone
adapter kept detecting a "power loss" so that several times a week when
I made an outgoing call, I would get an AT&T automated "verification"
message where I had to dial a 1 to indicate that I had not moved my
telephone adapter to a new location. Then my call would go through.
Incoming calls were not affected. It was part of the requirements by
the FCC to know where the phone was located in case of a 911 call. I
tried plugging the adapter into the Uninterruptable Power Supply for my
computer, the the surge protector of the UPS, and to a receptacle
separate from the computer electronics. Nothing seemed to help.
Lately, however, my calls go straight through, and I have no idea why
initially so many "power loss" indications were being picked up by the
telephone adapter.
Lena
IP Daley
http://www.testyourvoip.com. We've had it for a couple of years and rarely
experience a problem. Sound quality is indistinguishable from POTS.
Vonage is not the way to go, however. It costs too much, $27/m. There are
plenty of better ones for $20. ViaTalk and VoicePulse are the best rated
choices at the moment. See: http://www.dslreports.com/gbu. Most offer
cheaper tiers at about $13/m for 500 outgoing minutes (unlimited incoming)
with no fees or taxes.
We've have VOIP.net www.voip.net for over a year. It's $19.95 unlimited, no
taxes, free 2nd number, all features. We've only had one brief outage caused
by the LA power failure. The only thing we don't like is that CID name must
be in "Contacts" to show up. It uses the Broadvox network which is the most
reliable one out there.
IP
timeOday
Does VOIP.net lock down the SIP box? (the one connects the IP network to
the POTS network).
Vonage does this and it annoys me. I should be able to accept direct
IP-to-IP calls that have nothing to do with Vonage at all. Fairly often
I wind up in a hotel with unlimited Internet but super-pricey long
distance calls. I'd like to be able to "phone home" to my vonage box
through my laptop. There's no reason I should have to pay Vonage for a
softphone to do this. In fact it shouldn't charge against my Vonage
minutes either, since IP to IP calls don't need their service.
techPK
> I chose CallVantage after reading a lot of reviews on the major VOIPs
> (Vonage, VoiceWing, CallVantage). Didn't need LD, and AT&T had a $20
> local plan with 4 cpm LD or unlimited LD plan for $30. At the time,
> VoiceWing was $35 for unlimited LD, but since then, they dropped the
> price to match Vonage at $25/mo.
>
To save money I use the Vonage $14.99 (500 mins) plan. Since Vonage
only charges for outgoing mins, incoming phone calls are free. This
seems best for people like me who are heavy cell-phone users and don't
need an unlimited home phone plan. I'm also a Skype user which gives me
unlimited calls from my computer to any phone in the US or canada for
free (during the rest of 2006). I also use Skype for LD calling to asia
and europe (About $0.02/min). My Vonage service does not include free
calls to some europe countries (that's only being offered to Vonage
unlimited plan subscriber which I'm not).
Lena wrote:
> Voice quality was the major consideration in choosing AT&T, but also
> AT&T claims one can use the house wiring after disconnecting the
> incoming POTS line, where Verizon insists that only one phone (multiple
> handsets are o.k.) be connected to the telephone adapter.
Most of the time I have great sound quality with Vonage and Skype. And
the times that I don't have good sound quality, it's always been a
problem originating with my broadband connection. When I fix my
broadband connection problem, my VOIP connection goes back to being
great. I use Vonage with my V-tech wireless phone system which give me
more flexibility for the placement handsets than does house wiring. I'm
considering buying a wireless Skype phone handset that connects to my
computer.
Lena wrote:
> Vonage has
> the most customers and also the most complaints in the reviews I read.
I am a longtime Vonage customer and I never had any complant like those
reported in the news media recently. My friends, who are also Vonage
users, have not had any major problem with Vonage either. It may be
Vonage is having growing pains since Vonage seems to be growing at a
faster rate than any of their competition (AT&T included). But for now,
I'm a VERY HAPPY Vonage user!
Shawn Hirn
George <geo...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
True, but I clearly said I would not recommend VoIP service for business
users, so I do not see what prompted you to post that statement.
Shawn Hirn
"Margaret Houlihan" <mbh...@nospamyahoo.com> wrote:
>
> What Vonage doesn't tell you is that if you've got an alarm system, you need
> a hard-wired phone line (which Vonage does *not* have), and it also doesn't
> work most of the time with a home network.
>
> We had it and dumped it because of the above, and they went and totally
> hosed my original phone number because they sent through a disconnect notice
> to my phone company, a cancellation of the disconnect notice, and then sent
> through another disconnect notice that the phone company told me would take
> 7-10 business days to get cancelled again. If not for a friend calling me
> on my cell to say that our home number was disconnected, I never would've
> known.
>
Huh? I use Vonage on my home network (with an Apple Airport Extreme
Router and Comcast cable). A friend of mine uses Vonage with a DSL line
and a LinkSys wireless router. Neither of us has a problem with our
phone service.
techPK
> Vonage [lock down the SIP box] and it annoys me.
> I should be able to accept direct IP-to-IP
> calls that have nothing to do with Vonage at all.
Vonage is mainly a POTS replacement service and not a IP-to-IP VOIP
service.
timeOday WROTE:
> Fairly often I wind up in a hotel with unlimited Internet but
> super-pricey long distance calls. I'd like to be able to "phone
> home" to my vonage box through my laptop.
Instead, Have you considered using Skype to call from your computer to
your home via your hotel unlimited internet?
timeOday WROTE:
> There's no reason I should have to pay Vonage for a
> softphone to do this. In fact it shouldn't charge against my
> Vonage minutes either, since IP to IP calls don't need their
>service.
Skype is free to call to US POTS phones in the US (till the end of
2006). And incoming phone calls to Vonage users are free in this
situation!
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Saw this on the informationweek.
<http://www.chatterbug.com/config.do>
Skype offers callout to US/Canada FREE until the end of the year.
You can get a pc headset/mic under $10.00 or get a phone jack to headset/mic
converter and plug in your phone and use skype with a real phone.
On 21 May 2006 03:14:26 -0700, "Lena" <lenaga...@gmail.com> wrote:
=>
=>Cost effectiveness: POTS with Caller ID, Call Waiting, Voicemail, 8 cpm
=>
=>Long Distance (Verizon Regional Essentials Plan) $37/mo with taxes and
=>fees.
=>
=>AT&T CallVantage (VOIP) with unlimited local calling, 4 cpm LD, CID,
=>CW, VM, Call Forwarding, "Locate Me", "Do Not Disturb", Call Filtering,
=>
=>call logs, online retreival of VM (or by phone), speed dial, and many
=>other features; $27/mo with taxes and fees.
=>
=>
=>Both Vonage and VoiceWing (Verizon) have VOIP plans with unlimited
=>local and long distance and many, many calling features for $25/mo,
=>taxes and fees adding about $7/mo.
=>
=>
=>I chose CallVantage after reading a lot of reviews on the major VOIPs
=>(Vonage, VoiceWing, CallVantage). Didn't need LD, and AT&T had a $20
=>local plan with 4 cpm LD or unlimited LD plan for $30. At the time,
=>VoiceWing was $35 for unlimited LD, but since then, they dropped the
=>price to match Vonage at $25/mo.
=>
=>
=>Voice quality was the major consideration in choosing AT&T, but also
=>AT&T claims one can use the house wiring after disconnecting the
=>incoming POTS line, where Verizon insists that only one phone (multiple
=>
=>handsets are o.k.) be connected to the telephone adapter. Vonage has
=>the most customers and also the most complaints in the reviews I read.
=>
=>
=>HTH
=>
=>
=>Lena
---
The more we know, the less we know.
Low carb cures hungry but stop not craving.
k 1 6 8 9 a t h o t m a i l d o t c o m
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