Vonage...

[johntofva]

I am sure a lot of you have see the commercials for Vonage. I have been using it for about a year now. I am here to tell you this is one of the best things since sliced bread. My phone bills were over $100 a month before switching. Now I pay only $28 with taxes. Unlimited calling anywhere in the U.S., Italy, France, Spain, UK and Ireland. (Hey I can call our English members free.).

Another nice thing about Vonage is that I can take the adapter anywhere I go. So when I go to Hong Kong next year, I can take it with me. Plug it into the hotel broadband connection and receive and make calls as if I was back in the states. The service also comes complete with all the extras free of charge. It also allows you to have your phone calls bounced to your cell when broadband is down.

I have meet a few people who said they receive to much static with Vonage. But this is something I have never experienced. I thought this would be a good time for everyone to mention the pros and cons of this service. For me, it also helps to justify the cost of broadband.

[Tulsa]

Well I have my phone through my cable company which provides my broadband. I don't actually use their cable service though. I prefer satellite to cable for television but for internet, it's cable all the way.

Anyway, I've seen these commercials and I've been skeptical since my phone rates are about the same but I don't have unlimited calling LD. That would be a nice plus but I've been unsure how this is going to work when there is an issue over the line. Who do you blame, cable or vonage? Who fixes the issue?

[johntofva]

It should be the cable company that fixes it. All the adapter (which holds your MAC address) does is connects you to the Vonage server. No different than connecting to a web site with your computer, basically the same idea.

You have your phone through the cable company? That is pretty cool. They don't have that here.

[Tulsa]

Yes, it's the same principle, VOIP as they connect a modem to my cable line. Then I had to spend the next four months arguing with them about the crappy quality and how the phone kept dropping out and on their sixth visit to my house they finally begin to listen to me and look down the road at their switch instead of in my house where they reran new cable in the house, reran (twice) the drop to my house including upgrading the drop to TRIAX!

I tried to save them but the poor soles would not listen. Finally they spent six hours between my house and the switch down the road and figured it out. So this was why I asked about service. I'm trying to imagine how that would have all worked out for me, had they only been the ISP and not the phone company too...

I fear it would have been ugly.