Ditched the phone co. for VOIP?

[flighty 0]

Just curious, has anyone here dropped your regular phone service for a voice-over-IP service like Vonage?

I had a royal hissy fit over our phone, broadband and cable bills this weekend. $88, $45, and $50 respectively. At least $2200.00 a year for all three and they are about to raise two of them. We don't even get HBO or unlimited calling or anything fancy.

Long story short, after being told about the rate increase, I dropped cable (hello three and a half channels off of antenna) and I'm in the middle of switching to Vonage for phone service over the internet.

I guess it's a little late to ask now that I have signed up, but does anyone have any good/bad experience with this service? I haven't received the equipment yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it. Hubby wants to wire the whole house for it by essentially cutting the line from the pole to the house and wiring the line from the computer into the house phone system. My vote is to just get one of those 2.4 gig base stations for multiple wireless phones.

I found out after I subscribed that you can get a month free for you and a friend with a referral so anyone about to sign up can pm me. Wish I had known that before I paid for the first month.

--Spelling and grammar errors are lift in as an exercise for the reader.
~Cindy~

[kevin922 0]

i've had vonage for about 6 months now. I love it, i was operating off my cell phone for my home phone .. i don't get many calls so paying for a phone line is pointless, but I'm a techno geek so VOIP for me was the "new cool thing" i just recently bought a house so i've figured out how to hook it up so all the home jacks are feeding off the voip. check out vonage-forums.com, i've seen a LOT of disgruntled people.. i don't use the phone enough to really know how it does for long periods of use. My GF hates it though, there are times where it provides some wierd noises to the person on the other end.. also if you're downloading anything large or sucking up a bunch of bandwith it will basically sound like a bad cell phone connection to the other party.

[Kennedy 0]

My solution was give up home phones entirely, get broadband, convince everyone I know to get broadband, and just use chat programs with a cordless USB headset.

Haven't had to much long distance or anything, but I don't see why it's not possible. I'll try Finland next week. [that should be fun lag time]

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Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[vid666 0]

I gave up my home phone about 7 months ago - but just signed up for vonage ( getting the adapter tomorrow actually ). I am sure there's downfalls to it, as internet is never optimized.. But heck, that's what the trial time is for :)

[aneblett 0]

Quote

I dropped cable (hello three and a half channels off of antenna)

You won't miss it.. all of the good shows are uploaded anyway.. and bonus! no commercials being shoved down your throat.

age

S.E.X. party #2

..It is far worse to live with fear, than to die confronting it.

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

That will end once the "broadcast flag" becomes real in a few years.

We use the Cisco IP phones at work and have our own DID and T1 for them...I'm guessing over 100 phones on the DID.

We have issues on occasions, some wierd voices and echos, just like a digital cell phone - they work pretty good for the most part, and may consider vonage for home.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[aneblett 0]

Quote

That will end once the "broadcast flag" becomes real in a few years

haven't heard of it.. what is it?

Age

S.E.X. party #2

..It is far worse to live with fear, than to die confronting it.

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2091723/

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[aneblett 0]

thanks for the link... I hadn't heard. It will be interesting to see what happens with that.

I don't think that it will end the flow though because there were uploads before there was tivo but it sure will make things different.

age

S.E.X. party #2

..It is far worse to live with fear, than to die confronting it.

[rmsmith 1]

Quote

I had a royal hissy fit over our phone, broadband and cable bills this weekend. $88, $45, and $50 respectively.

Welcome to the world of services!

We have a flat rate local phone without any long distance, only toll free at $18.20 monthly. I buy Walmart long distance prepaid cards; we save at least $50 monthly.

The broadband, I don't know.

The cable can be replaced with Dish Network with only local programming, no Top 50, 100, or 150. I pay only $12.09 monthly. However, you must own your satellite gear, no rent to own.

[souleh 0]

Get digital terrestrial (aka Freeview in the UK). It's quite good here, has many more than the standard analogue terrestrial channels and costs you nothing other than the box (£60/$100). Surely something like that exists in the states.. after all, you guys are meant to have much more technically advanced services than us old Brits, right?

'buttplugs? where?' - geno

[flighty 0]

Got the equipment today and boy is this slick.

I can check my voicemail on the web and I got a second "virtual number" with a 512 area code so that mom and dad can call from Austin as a local call even though we're in New Hampshire.

Voice quality is about the same as the landline in the calls we've made so far. I was mostly worried about this because I can't stand bad connections. Hard-of-hearing-Mom-in-law always calls on the cell phone and it drives me nuts to have every conversation full of what?what?canyouhearmenow? Now she can call the local Austin number toll free and not need to use the stupid cellphone with free weekend minutes.

Downside is we won't have a phone if the power goes out, but we can still call 911 from the landline even though the service is disconnected. Maybe I'll just get some prepaid minutes for my old cellphone if we have a long outage.

Don't know yet how reliable it will be, but everything seems to work so far. I love that warm fuzzy stick-it-to-the-phone-company feeling.

~Cindy~

[bobsled92 0]

You can always use on of the CLEC"Fly-by-night"/ no Service Techs/ telephone Co.s that uses rented local service from the REAL Phone Co. and charge you a deposit with hopes of you defaulting.
...if it's too good of a deal, ...it's a scam.

_______________________________
If I could be a Super Hero,
I chose to be: "GRANT-A-CLAUS". and work 365 days a Year.
http://www.hangout.no/speednews/

[Jimbo 0]

Quote

Got the equipment today and boy is this slick.

Cool. If you could provide us with an update after you've had a few weeks to get acquainted with it, that would be cool.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[Clownburner 0]

I'd agree, I'd love to hear your opinions in a few weeks. What company did you use?

7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez
"I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

[Gawain 0]

www.dslreports.com has an ongoing discussion in its forums that may provide more insight. I opted not to sign up for it because VoIP is barely suitable for a corporate enterprise (trunk side works with ATM, line side needs lots of bandwidth), let alone regular consumer broadband connections.

A friend of mine in Santa Monica dropped it after two months of continuous clipping and latency issues for both voice and data. Your results may very.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[flighty 0]

We are using Vonage. I like the name, it sounds dirty. No sound or clipping problems yet. We have cable broadband and it's pretty reliable. Lots of the folks that I have talked to have said that their companies use voip all the time, Cisco for one.

The only big disappointment is that the extra virtual number isn't a free lunch. The local calls that my parents make to it are forwarded to our regular number and we get charged minutes like we had called them. I will have to see how many minutes a month we use it to see if it's worth it.

I'll update again in a week or so. If anyone else decides to sign up, you can get a free month for both of us with their referral system.

~Cindy~

~Cindy~
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Spelling and grammar errors are left as an exercise for the reader.

[PhillyKev 0]

Any update on this? How's it working out for you?

[flighty 0]

Sorry for the delay, I'm on vacation. I'll give a report when I get home. So far so good though.
~Cindy~

~Cindy~
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Spelling and grammar errors are left as an exercise for the reader.