Voip Comparison

VONAGE.COM voip phone service DEAL OR DUD?

I'm thinking of switching from Dallas TX - ATT.COM to VONAGE VOIP. However, vonage seems tooo good to be true. Do you or do you know anyone that actually has vonage voip? If so, would you or they recommend the service to others. Word of mouth is more important to me vs. any website or commercial they can offer. Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply!! Bren

Public Comments

1. In order to get vonage you have to have at least dsl internet. With some internet services you have to have a phone line. You will probably pay a good bit for "dry" internet in order to get vonage unless you get internet through cable which is also expensive.
2. I have had Vonage for a year and it works perfectly for me. After installing it i read a lot of negative reviews from former customers on cnet.com, and I agree with some of the points they made. Customer service is not as easy to reach as regular companies, and you have to know what you are doing when installing. And it takes 3 weeks to switch the number. I guess that you will need a quick internet connection. I have 6 Mb/s cable connection, which used to be 4Mb/s which worked just as well. For me there is no difference from the old service other than that its cheaper.
3. I have been a Vonage customer for 3 years and have been very satisfied. I will make one suggestion though...unless you are quite computer savvy, buy one of the Vonage boxes that is a combination router and phone terminal. These are most commonly produced by Linksys and will save you hours of headaches during your initial startup. Also, while Vonage's customer service is a little lacking, Linksys does a great job and will get you up and running in no time. As for the actual quality of phone calls on Vonage, they are excellent. The only difficulty I have had was getting a fax machine to work over it. The voice quality is great, and it really doesn't slow down your internet connection much at all.
4. I also have vonage. I have had vonage for 3 years. It is GREAT. the only thing I dislike about vonage, is that when I have had to call customer service (only on 2 occasions since getting service) the customer service representatives are always very HARD to understand. I think that their customer service center is based over seas or something, because both times I've called, I have gotten someone that sounds middle eastern and they don't speak english well and are hard to understand. The two times I did call customer service, it turned out to be a problem with my internet modem rather than the voip router. My mom has vonage, as well as my brother and grandma. they all got vonage about a month after I did. I know my grandma had a LOT of problems hooking her voip router up, and getting service to actually work, but it turned out that she got a faulty voip router. Once she got the new one it was smooth sailing from there. My brother nor my mom have ever had to call customer service.