10-22-2007, 10:21 PM
|
|
Web Hosting Master
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: AR
Posts: 2,370
|
|
Looking to get a dedicated line for the business, rather than relying on my personal cell phone (that way I can answer with the business name instead of 'Hello?')
Not interested in regular telephone service, and was looking at Vonage. Their 14.95/month plan looks great on paper..
Does anyone have any real-life experience with Vonage? Would you recommend them? If not, do you recommend an alternative?
Kevin
|
10-22-2007, 10:24 PM
|
|
Community Liaison 2.0
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 4,384
|
|
Been a subscriber since January 2005. No complaints about the quality of service from this end. I find it cheesy that there is a $10 charge to change service plans, but I've done that just once since I turned the account on.
They've had a couple lawsuits slapped on them recently that they've lost, and just recently a third Telco sued them and looks to win for BS patent infringement. So I'm no longer certain that they'll be able to survive all these bogus suits.
__________________
A serial entrepreneur is someone who effectively manages startups within their means to manage them, not someone who runs 30 different business ideas at once hoping one works. If I wanted to hire someone to throw things at a wall to see what sticks, I'd hire a two year old.
|
10-22-2007, 10:25 PM
|
|
Web Hosting Master
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: AR
Posts: 2,370
|
|
Yeah - Reading about the lawsuits is what prompted me to ask here and see if the service quality has gone down because of them..
|
10-22-2007, 10:28 PM
|
|
Community Liaison 2.0
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 4,384
|
|
No, absolutely no change in the quality of my service at all. It helps that I have Verizon FIOS with 2Mbit upload and 5Mbit download, though. My parents have Comcast with 6Mbit download and ~384k upload, and there is a noticeable call quality difference.
|
10-22-2007, 11:26 PM
|
|
Web Hosting Master
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: AR
Posts: 2,370
|
|
I've got the largest residential plan available here (4 Mbps down and 512 Kbps up). Is the call quality at your parents' poor enough to justify a landline telephone? I get a decent upload speed here (470 Kbps), so it would be better than 384, but I'm worried that it will be bad enough to annoy me....
Comments anyone?
|
10-22-2007, 11:35 PM
|
|
Community Liaison 2.0
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 4,384
|
|
No, it isn't that bad. Also, they don't run ANY kind of QoS on their home router or even reserve bandwidth for the VoIP calls. I have a hunch that it would help a little since my father runs his computer 24/7. I have tested Vonage on 768k upload and it sounds fine.
|
10-23-2007, 12:00 AM
|
|
Web Hosting Master
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: AR
Posts: 2,370
|
|
Does the free (rebate) router offered by Vonage not include optimal QoS settings by default?
Kevin
|
10-23-2007, 12:20 AM
|
|
Community Liaison 2.0
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 4,384
|
|
I was given the simple unit that doesn't have router functions  . Normally the rebate one does QoS built-in.
|
10-23-2007, 12:28 AM
|
|
What should I put here?
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Albany, New York
Posts: 2,914
|
|
http://voip.awsinternet.com/ is what I use. No complaints yet, I've had it for about a year now.
|
10-23-2007, 12:36 AM
|
|
Retired Moderator
|
|
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Flint, Michigan
Posts: 5,768
|
|
We've been using vonage at the house for roughly 3 years now and I have no complaints.
|
10-23-2007, 12:37 AM
|
|
Web Hosting Master
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: AR
Posts: 2,370
|
|
I just now discovered that DSL Extreme (my mother's DSL provider) has a newly opened VOIP sister company. Since she's had nothing but good things to say about DSL Extreme, I've decided to try their company out (The total order charge came to $27.61). At least this way I'm not shelling out $70 only to find that VOIP doesn't work well for me...
|
10-23-2007, 01:24 AM
|
|
Newbie
|
|
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Southern California
Posts: 11
|
|
I have it for over a year. The only issue I had is last week for couple of days and it got resolved by itself! Overall, I am a happy customer.
|
10-23-2007, 03:35 PM
|
|
Webhosting Professional
|
|
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Gotham City
Posts: 1,849
|
|
I use Vonage (Canada) for business and personal use. Pretty happy.
__________________
[[ Reyox Communications / USA based cloud servers & support / 9 years of hosting websites ]] 
[[ Affordable ASP.NET4, ColdFusion, PHP & MS-SQL, MySQL, cPanel/WHM & Windows Reseller Hosting + Virtual Private Servers ]]
( www.reyox.com) - Mention WHT and get a discount on your first month! 
|
10-23-2007, 03:46 PM
|
|
Out there beyond the Wall.
|
|
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Chicago
Posts: 830
|
|
2 years Vonage here with Comcast and no issues. There was a little bit of service degradation when talking but logging into the vonage CP you can set/limit the bandwidth usage if you are online doing other things. I also paid the extra $4.99 for the Toll-Free # and its been the cheapest I found(100 incoming minutes included).
A friend uses packet8, http://www.packet8.net a little pricey in my opinion but he runs a bigger Company and his runs more like a Full PBX system.
__________________
My IP >> 127.0.0.1 Hack Away!! 
|
10-23-2007, 03:50 PM
|
|
Community Liaison 2.0
|
|
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Akron/Canton, Ohio (USA)
Posts: 11,114
|
|
I'll stick with my Skype. I paid $30 for a year of unlimited Skype-to-Phone calling in the U.S. and Canada, and another $30 for a SkypeIn phone number.
For my wife's sake (she can't stand talking into a microphone), I made a one-time purchase of a Skype-ready cordless phone for $80.
Caller ID? Yes
Call waiting? Yes
Call forwarding? Yes
Voice mailbox? Yes
Conference calling for up to 10 people? Yes
P2P Chat functionality? Yes
File transfer? Yes
A whole bunch more crap other digital phone providers don't give you? Yes
Cheaper than all of them? Yes
Works great with my RoadRunner!
__________________
Studio1337___̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.__Web Design
|
| Thread Tools |
Search this Thread |
|
|
|
| Display Modes |
 Linear Mode
|
| Postbit Selector |
|
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Login: |
|
|
| Advertisement: |
|
|
| Web Hosting News: |
|
|
|
