I would point out, as I did when Philip blogged about this topic, that the problems he experienced were principally related to difficulties moving his old phone number to VoIP.Number portability has been the law for years, but too often it still doesn't work right. On the other hand, if you don't need to keep your old phone number (or you're like me and _getting rid of_ your old phone number is among the primary reasons for wanting to switch to a non-ILEC carrier), there's no particular reason for you to care how difficult it is to move it.
I've had uniformly good experiences with Vonage since I signed up with them in 2002, bidding my old used-to-belong-to-a-fax-machine-and-SBC-wouldn't-let-me-change-it phone number a disgusted "good riddance!" and gaining in the process not merely some monthly savings but a handful of services not available from ILECs at any price.
IME, unless something goes wrong with your internet connection, it Just Works(tm).
-- Matt Landry, March 11, 2005
I've been using Vonage for over 6 months now and I really love it. I too had trouble with the switch over of my old POTS telephone number, but Vonage actually credited my SBC phone bill for the extra month I had to pay them so It didn't cost me anything extra. I found their customer service in this regard to be excellant.My sound quality is excellant. Perhaps you were not using their QOS (Quality of Service) functionality on their VOIP router? If you were having bandwith contention then that would explain the lower quality you began experiencing after a while.
I would highly recommend Vonage to anyone that has been able to setup their own cable modem router or knows someone that can do that for them.
Later, Chad
-- Chad Sutton, March 11, 2005
I have had Vonage for 9 months and their technical support is extremely frustrating or non-existent. If you want sales you get them in a minute, if you are a "loyal" customer you wait over 45 minutes and then I just hang up. They are growing too fast or just think that their product doesn't require human intervention. I will likely go back to Verizon due to this. I'm not sure Vonage really cares.With that said, service is highly dependent on the quality of your broadband provider. There are times when comcast is just terrible and so my phone service suffers. Not Vonage's fault but it does highlight weaknesses in the overall system. When the ISP's start overing the same service it may be better since you'll have one point of contact/failure.
-- Peter Nirenberg, March 12, 2005
I've have Vonage for about 10 months now and overall I like it enough that I'm going to stick with it. I had the same problems with porting my number over and after emailing (I never called them . . . didn't even know you could) several times over two months it finally got done. Of course, the web page I kept being referred to was never updated to let me know the porting was done. I found out myself when I noticed that my old phone never rang anymore.I would only recommend people switch to Vonage if a) they have a lot of friends in Canada or b) they make a lot of long distance/international calls. In Phoenix, Cox will give you a $20 discount on your cable bill if you get the "big three" (Digital Cable, Internet, Phone) including a phone $40 phone package. We would be paying more with Vonage if it weren't for the fact that my girlfriend is from Canada and I have a good friend in Korea.
-- Sheldon McGee, March 15, 2005
I've had Vonage for over two years. I reviewed it after 3 months, and since then I'm still a happy customer.
I couldn't port my number because I was already signed up with a fleabag alternate carrier, so none of the portability issues came up. I've only had two times where I needed customer support, and one was resolved by email, the other by calling within 24 hours. Generally speaking the sound quality is good, but I have noticed some degradation on occasion, similiar to a dodgy cell phone call. It's hard to know if that was my service, though, since I am frequently talking to people on cell phones... But these instances are rare for me.
I consider myself the ideal Vonage customer in that I have good, reliable broadband, and use my phone very little. Thanks to Vonage, I've reduced my phone bill from $80 to $18 a month. I have no doubts that the customer service isn't ideal, but when I am paying bargain prices, I can understand waiting in a hold queue for a bit.
-- Mr. Nosuch, March 16, 2005
Since you've already signed up for Packet8, you don't really need to pay for SkypeOut calls from hotels. You can use the simultaneous ring feature and their Free World Dialup account to make calls.In short: 1. Sign up for free world dialup (http://www.pulver.com/fwd) which is free 2. Get a softphone (X-Lite or Pulver Communicator are free) and log on 3. Go the packet8 web site, log on, and change your 'call forwarding' number to the destination that you want to reach 4. From the softphone call your own Packet8 number using the syntax **898-1-617-xxx-xxxx (where 1-617-xxx-xxxx is your packet8 number)
voila the call is forwarded. Just don't forget to reset the Packet8 website after the call's been dialed. Otherwise that person will get all your calls.
Of course, I just tried my softphone and it looks like the FWD-packet8 gateway is working intermittently right now.
-- Chris Yu, March 20, 2005
Very much enjoyed the web site, and all the comments.I myself have used Lingo since July 2004. Life was absolutely perfect until 2 months ago, when dialed calls would take 20-50 seconds to complete, and we would have to wait up to 10 seconds before we could say 'hello' for people calling us.
Like previously explained, Lingo's Tier 1 customer support is almost disgusting. My web support case got the automatic reply but noone called back for 3 days. Called them three more times asking for a status, and they told me that someone was going to call me right back - never happened. Finally, with me almost at a rage now, was able to talk with one of the supervisors, who admitted that they have very limited experience, no access to anything important for troubleshooting, and located in Canada while the company techs are in the states. Although entertaining, didn't help at all with my overall problem. The supervisor did say that I should have received a response by Tier 2, and will make sure that they are aware of it when they have their next conference meeting that evening.
And, believe it or not, I did get a callback. Through the whole process I talked to two Tier 2 support techs, and both of them were wonderful to work with. Being a geek myself, we were able to test out some scenarios and talk turkey on what options were available. In the end, it was suggested that I call my ISP (Road Runner) for more help.
Customer service at RR is about the same; Tier 1 doesn't know anything of relevance - you have to go higher for real support. But, after some convincing they got me in touch with Tier 3 support. Lo' and behold the Tier 3 support tech admitted that they were having major problem with the internal DNS servers and try some public ones for a while. Did that, and the problem was resolved.
Went right back to Lingo, and they appreciated the call back since at the time of my complaint there were several other RR customers complaining of the same thing.
In conclusion, I called RR back yesterday asking to see if the DNS server issue was resolved. Of course Tier 1 didn't know what I was talking about, and when I got back to Tier 3 another tech said that the problem is supposed to be resolved but couldn't confirm it since I called from work and not from home. Also said that I shouldn't put the ATA between the modem and router. However, behind the router removes the supposed QoS and call quality. I did switch it all back to pre-problem configuration and life has been good so far.
-- Dean Hoover, March 25, 2005
I am a long-time Vonage user, and loved their service...in the beginning. They've outgrown their ability to support their service, and as I tell friends, "Don't change unless you have problems. Lord help you if you ever need to contact customer service."I went through an entire week trying to contact them to cancel a fax line I'd added (which doesn't work well, but maybe be the quality of my broadband connection). I logged the time and it totaled 7 hours on hold without a response. Oh, correction: two times after an hour I rang through, only to be *disconnected* immediately. I tried to contact corporate headquarters and complain, but they have a recording there which directs you to call...customer service. They also provide a 1-800 sales number, which I tried. The automated message there? Contact customer service.
I eventually resolved the issue by FAXING the request to cancel the line (and including comments about all the trouble I've had reaching them), and received an emailed response, one terse line: "We have cancelled your fax line number." That was it...no apologies, no comments on my comments, etc.
Thanks for posting this article with alternates that I wasn't aware of...will be handy if my Vonage stops working (but I dread having to contact them to cancel the account...might take two weeks to do so).
-- Gary Varner, March 28, 2005
I have had VoicePulse the last 8 months and the service had been fantastic so far. They do not have 24 hour customer service though. They are the only carrier offering unlimited local regional calling plus for $15.
-- k s, March 31, 2005
I wish I had visited this page before I signed up with Lingo. Everything occured just a described. I signed up on early March. The "temporary" number they assigned me never worked...couldn't call out - couldn't call in. After the 20 day waiting period, I contacted customer support by email explaining the I had heard nothing and my phone wasn't working. On March 27th I received an answering email stating that my number could not be ported over. I phoned my local phone company and they said they could and would port the number over as soon as Lingo made the request. (I had already signed and faxed the required documents). On April 1st I again emailed Lingo explaining what I had discovered, and requested clarification. Today, (April 20th), I phoned customer support. After the obligatory 20 minute wait, I spoke with a human about my concerns. After much fumbling she announded that my number could not be ported over - no explanation from Lingo or my phone company. I inquired as to why they had not responded to my email of the 1st. Of course she had no idea about my email. I then expressed desire to opt out...which I could do for the cancellation fee of $39.95. Well, they got my money, but at least I am now free of them. In my opinion, this is a shyster operation with little or no concern for their customers. I asked to speak to a supervisor...as expected they were all busy with other calls. No Wonder! I mentioned that I knew I would not receive a return call. My recommendation...Run away from these people - they promise everything and deliver nothing! About all you get is a bill for two months of non-existant service and a cancellation fee. Cheap at the price I guess.
-- Gaylord Poole, April 20, 2005
You commentary about Lingo was very accurate except...Your $5 per month charge infinitum relates to a 2nd number. When Lingo is setup they issue a temporary number. When the number port is complete you now have 2 numbers. Thant's why your Calling ID stayed persistent with the old Calling Line ID.
I had the same thing and called to have them obsolete the temporaryu number and make my Ported Number the primary account number.
Why we should have to do this shows they didn't have their procedure correct. The email told us to do nothing and the tempory number would drop off the account. If we had wanted to keep the temporary number and the ported number we were to contact them. They were reversed.
The support is still poor even with Canada. I haven't had to call them. 0800 numbers and 0845 numbers are incorrectly tarrifed as Premilum numbers when they are not, they should be charged as straight local numbers in both cases as the called party pays.
That said, I love the cost savings. Using Comcast the servcie is rock solid, I'm behind a Linksys router with QOS enabled. We save close to $75 per month using this service and have terminated our land line from Verizon.
-- Neil McAslan, April 27, 2005
(Mar.31)I've been using the Canadian version of Lingo (Primus Talk BroadBand; the Lingo trademark was already taken in Canada) since the beginning of the year. Call quality has been variable but steadily improving.I have never called their tech support but have had occasion to email them on several occasions. Only once did ever I receive an email reply. On one other occasion I received a phone call in reply to an email support request, but no email response. The agent who called was very knowledgeable and polite and resolved my problem quickly. But mostly I had no contact from them, or even an automated response that my email had ever been received. Other users have mentioned 30-60 min. wait times on hold when phoning in to tech support. The few times where I would have called for help was when my service was not working, but as this was my only phone service... :-\
Upon first signing up, I was told that, as a signup bonus, they'd send me a dual handset cordless phone set. This duly arrived about a week later, but it took another week for the gateway box(ATA) to arrive. I then connected it (the ATA) as per their instructions but it would not connect to their server. This was when most of my email to them happened.
Finally when I had cc'd one of these emails to their customer service(CS) (as opposed to technical support) dept., I got a very prompt reply. They must have rattled a chain or two in tech support(TS) because my unit suddenly started working shortly thereafter. I subsequently discovered that I should have been told to call TS to have the service provisioned once I received the ATA.
Ever since, I have cc'd every email for tech support to customer service. I always get a reply from CS but never from TS and many times my questions go unanswered. I guess they assume that no one uses their service as primary phone service, and everyone always has another way to reach them by phone. :|
Fortunately for me, I have a background in both Telecom and IP networking and, with some help from Google, have been able to solve most of my problems. For the past six weeks or so the service has been quite good. And I love the extra features I never had before... getting voicemail as an email attachment is pretty cool :)
Update, May 11.: Call quality has been extremely variable, depending on how busy our cable Internet has been. I have since found out that my cableco/ISP has been doing load balancing across their network (covering most of Western Canada) which results in packets arriving out of order at the destination, disastrous for a service like this. Recently they began offering QoS (Quality of Service) as an option, which gives VOIP traffic priority, so I signed up for that and now it's just like POTS all the time :-) ...but at a $10Can./Mo. cost.
-- Ken Moren, May 12, 2005
This is a shameless plug for my company which Philip mentioned in his weblog. It's galaxyvoice.com, and we're a privately held, kick ass tech supporting, VoIP. We have plans that give you the number for free, and then you only have to pay per minute charges which are cheaper than the other players. So, if you want to support the little guy and make sure that my family doesn't have to live under a bridge in a cardboard box, please try us out. Bob Carp bob@gis.net
-- Bob Carp, May 18, 2005
I just wanted to say I have Vonage through Earthlink, it cost's about $5 more per month, but I call an Earthlink support number, I don't know if earthlink supports it, but I have never had much trouble getting to customer service, which I have had to use 3 times in about a year and a half, once on setup, once when I changed to a wireless router, and the third when I fried that router in an electrical storm. I am not saying the service aspects are any better than what I have read, but my bill is alot cheaper than when I had the old Verizon hard line. Plus I have boycotted all of Verizon services, so anything is better than giving them another cent in my opinion. P.S. They ported my number in 24 hours from Verizon.
-- Ty Keeth, July 17, 2005
I've had vonage since late June 2005. I decided to switch over the old phone number from Talk America. Did the on-line paper work. A few days later got the new router. Needed to get information on hooking it up to my current network which was already using a wireless router that I wanted to retain and have as the first router off the cable modem. Sent off an email to Vonage and a couple hours later got a nice response on just how to connect it all up. Must have been a standard question in the answer pool, but that's fine it all worked and they responded fast.The one interesting thing was that the Vonage webpage would provide a log for the old number switch over. It listed the dates the request was sent to TA. I didn't bother using the VOIP connection, but did keep a phone hooked to the router. About 30 days later my old number got switched over and my VOIP phone was ringing under the old number. The funny thing is Vonage never let me know it was moved nor was there anything on the website. Low and behold last week, a month and a half later, I get an email from Vonage indicating my old phone number has been switched over and I should reset the router to make sure all works fine. Even the website indicated the change over. Kind of late to tell me the switch over was made a month and a half after I've been using it ;)
I guess this industry is just growing so fast. I'm sure we'll experience these growing pains for a while. Still it's been very good so far with Vonage. The only real problems were during the first week of the phone number switch over and that was a problem with the cable provider and not Vonage.
I love paying $16.50 total a month instead of the $65+ to TA for a plan that is advertised at $39.95/month unlimited. All those fee's and taxes do add up fast!
Don B
-- Don Buska, September 9, 2005
I signed up with Sunrocket Last month. It is 24.99 a month. No additional fees. This covers unlimited calls to US and Canada. 300 minutes to most other countries. The equipment and "gizmo" arrived two days after I signed up. Installation was super easy. It took less than a month to port the #. Most of the porting can be done online, but I was porting a number that had originally beena landline that i had transferred to cricket and cricket wasn't on the list of providers you could transfer online.I called sunrocker to ask how to go abuot it and they quickly, while I was ont he phone , sent the form to my email. I had called sunrocket with a question and I got someone who appeared to be in the country.. a big plus. Vonage, I couldn't understand them. I had called with a question as well upon trying to decide. I called again today, with a porting question, as my phone was now ringing here but I ahdnt' gotten teh confirmation email. I also wanted to cancel the number they'd given me temporarily , to avoid teh fee for a third #. You get two free (So i have a number on the other side of the country so friends can call me free)Well, they weren't totally done with the porting yet,so they noted the acct adn won't be charging me for the 3rd #. Everything so far has been great. Good voice quality. No long waits for support. Some really need features, all available online at their site. You can click on a contact from their site and it dials for you. You also can listen to voicemail online. I'd highly recommend them.
-- Teresa V, February 21, 2006
After Hurricane Katrina destroyed my house in New Orleans, we move to temporary quarters in Atlanta. We had an internet connection because we were always able to get cable TV but it was impractical to get a hard wired land line so I signed up with Vonage.Getting rid of our New Orleans number was a blessing as we had been besieged by telephone solicitors, crank calls and request for donations for years. I finally had to turn off my childrenęs line due to obscene calls.
Vonage worked great from the start. it was up and running in minutes. The bill has been under $30 and the same amount every month. Quite a difference from the $125 to $150 we were paying Bell South in New Orleans for local and long distance service.
I love the voicemail feature where I can get voicemail over the internet or from an outside line and am alerted whenever one comes in via email. This is very handy because I travel a lot.
Free long distance is a big plus because now all our friends and family are scattered all over the country.
Another big plus was that I just plugged in the Vonage router each time we moved and we had phone service with the same phone number. We are going to keep our Atlanta phone number even if we ever move back to New Orleans.
The only thing I could never get working was plugging the Vonage router into the land line wiring system of the house we purchased in Atlanta. I finally installed a wireless phone system.
I tried plugging the RJ11 from the Vonage into a wall outlet. You could make and receive calls but the sound quality was so poor you could not understand the other person.
To me, Vonage has been a godsend.
#
-- Gary Waters, March 31, 2006
I would not use Lingo, company ripped me off, please read on: I contacted Lingo to sign up for their service. They took my credit card info and signed me up for an account. I never received their product to connect up to their network. They have been charging my credit card since 2004 until Jan 2007. I could not use their service because I had no means to connect to it: they had to provide the box, they never did. I escillated my complaint to the executive level, they cited their contract that said billing starts 3 weeks after signing up. A company that bills it's customers, does not provide the product required to use their service, and then will not do ANYTHING to compensate is not a company that I would want to do business with. My email is posted (john.govern@gmail.com) and I will be happy to forward my email correspondence to anyone to prove what I am saying is true. I cannot comment on their service because I was NEVER able to use it. My question to you is: Is this the kind of company that you want to do business with? I cannot recommend anyone else because I have never used their services, I just know that Lingo ripped me off.
-- John Govern, February 2, 2007
If you're going to have an ILEC landline at the cheapest price anyway, and your main interest in VOIP is reducing the price of long distance, you might also consider something like RNK Telecom's prepaid calling card, which has local access numbers throughout Massachusetts. That may end up getting you rates that are just as good without the tech support hassles of VOIP. Especially if you go for the second cheapest plan that gives you a limited free local calling area.While you may have 384kb/s or more on your cable modem in both directions, and you may only need about 64kb/s in both directions, one of the features of IP is that it lets many connections be multiplexed on the same link, and in general the equipment that's out there isn't necessarily set up to make sure that your VOIP calls get their 64kb/s no matter what. I've certainly found myself having to kill a bittorrent client on one occasion to get adequate VOIP quality (although the VOIP was buried in an IPsec VPN which my cable provider may not have recognized as VOIP even if they were trying to be helpful).
Ideally, the router on each end of each potentially saturated link should be doing priority queueing to make sure that every time the link is ready for another packet, a VOIP packet goes across the link if a VOIP packet is waiting. Some of those routers are controlled by your cable company.
Given that most cable modem providers also seem to sell voice phone service (for which they're often using VOIP internally, I hear), it seems to me that they have a disincentive to make services like Vonage work well for their customers.
I also suspect that part of how VOIP providers try to keep costs under control so that they can offer lower rates than a traditional landline involves skimping on quality of tech support. (Of course, if this increases call volume, it is probably a false economy.)
I recently had to get my ILEC to fix my landline, which involved calling them on a Monday, having them promise to come out on a Wednesday, and then calling them back on a Friday when nothing had happened on that Wednesday. The people I talked to on the Friday seemed to actually care that my service got fixed, and it did get fixed Saturday morning without any further effort on my part.
The FCC now requires interconnected VOIP providers to do the right thing with E911, and has for well over a year. The main caveats are that if you move your VOIP equipment, you are responsible for telling your VOIP provider your new address; and not all of the US is covered by the companies that route VOIP E911 calls for your VOIP provider. (However, some parts of the US don't even have any 911 service at all for landlines anyway.)
-- Joel Weber, July 24, 2007