Anybody use Vonage?
- Thread starter cyadict
- Start date
I have used it for a couple years, no complaints. You do need a decent speed to be able to surf, etc. And have no loss in quality. Also, voicemail transcription is marginal, but having the vm recording come to email is pretty cool. Only outages I have had is when the Internet is down.
It may be a good alternative but if you have a cell phone why get rid of a landline just to get another house phone.
We had it but couldn't get our fax machine to work at all using Vonage. Vionage tried saying it would work if we slowed our baud rate way down on our fax machine, still didn't work 90% of the time.
Switched back to a Centurylink land line because we have to be able to fax to/from our home office.
Switched back to a Centurylink land line because we have to be able to fax to/from our home office.
We had it for a couple of years. The call quality on long distance isn't great, and had a tendency to drop. For some reason, the cost kept creeping up on us over time until it was in the 30 dollars a month range. Eventually dropped it due to the long distance and the price, no longer have a land line.
For comparisons sake, during that time we had a cable modem through Mediacom with their 20 mbps+ service.
I don't know why it seem to good to be true, It's just basic VOIP. I've used it for 3 years now.
We had Vonage for a while. Vonage itself was great but when we had it Mediacom kept dropping our internet connection. Coincidence? I think not. I don't know what they have now in terms of pricing packages but at that time they had like a 500 minute plan that was only $14.99. It was perfect for people who want to have a landline just in case but don't use it that much.
No, but I've used Google voice and the Obihai OBI100 without any problems for a couple years. Monthly charge = $0.00.
Newegg.com - Obihai OBI100 VoIP Telephone Adapter with Google Voice & SIP
Newegg.com - Obihai OBI100 VoIP Telephone Adapter with Google Voice & SIP
We've had vonage for quite a few years and really like it. The call quality is better than what we used to get and it's substantially cheaper with a lot more fun tools. I don't know how it compares to other VOIP services, but compared to regular phone companies, there is no comparison.
I had vonage and could not use my house security system due to vonage problems - yes, they could not figure out how to make a npn centralized vonage system to avoid my house alarms. I know two family people with oompa and it is great. One is lifetimed in at $5 a year. The way to go although the price has gone up.
I guess the fact that it is basically free after you buy the equipment! I did not intend to have that interpreted as "doubt"...my bad!
Here is what I did.
First I created the Google Voice account and number. It allowed me to pick a number from my local area. I even got to see the open numbers so I selected 515-***-0001. Then I went in and created my 20 most common contacts and seperated them. So I have some people in "work", I have some people in "my side of the family", and some people in "her side of the family".
I then put into GV my OOMA number, my cell number, my work cell number, my wife's cell number, etc.
I then gave everyone I know that one Google number. So when someone from work calls me it rings my work cell, when someone from my family calls it rings my home OOMA number and my personal cell at the same time, when someone from my wifes family calls it rings the home OOMA number and her cell. If someone calls that's not on the list I have it default to my home OOMA number.
I also have GV set up to be my voice mail. When someone calls and just hangs up it sends me an email. When they leave a voicemail, google sends me an email with the transcript(pretty accurate) along with a link to the actual voicemail.
I can also text for free from Google voice using the web site or an android app.
You can also set-up things like voice screening by asking the caller their name, record calls, etc.
What's really nice about this is that it can be your lifetime phone number (assuming that GV doesn't go away). If you later change cell phone numbers or add any others it's really easy to just change it on the web and you don't even have to tell friends/family.
First I created the Google Voice account and number. It allowed me to pick a number from my local area. I even got to see the open numbers so I selected 515-***-0001. Then I went in and created my 20 most common contacts and seperated them. So I have some people in "work", I have some people in "my side of the family", and some people in "her side of the family".
I then put into GV my OOMA number, my cell number, my work cell number, my wife's cell number, etc.
I then gave everyone I know that one Google number. So when someone from work calls me it rings my work cell, when someone from my family calls it rings my home OOMA number and my personal cell at the same time, when someone from my wifes family calls it rings the home OOMA number and her cell. If someone calls that's not on the list I have it default to my home OOMA number.
I also have GV set up to be my voice mail. When someone calls and just hangs up it sends me an email. When they leave a voicemail, google sends me an email with the transcript(pretty accurate) along with a link to the actual voicemail.
I can also text for free from Google voice using the web site or an android app.
You can also set-up things like voice screening by asking the caller their name, record calls, etc.
What's really nice about this is that it can be your lifetime phone number (assuming that GV doesn't go away). If you later change cell phone numbers or add any others it's really easy to just change it on the web and you don't even have to tell friends/family.
My OOMA use to be free but the government started charging taxes and fees. I now pay $3.77/month.
If I ever decide to get rid of OOMA, I could still just direct my GV number to my cell phone.
Sorry, I keep remembering more things.
I have my OOMA box connected to my one cordless phone base and then it works around the house with the rest of the cordless phones. No use in buying the OOMA handsets. I've heard they are expensive and junk.
When I first got OOMA I messed with the QOS settings on my modem to make sure it had a good fats connection but I've since turned that off without any issues.
If I ever decide to get rid of OOMA, I could still just direct my GV number to my cell phone.
Sorry, I keep remembering more things.
I have my OOMA box connected to my one cordless phone base and then it works around the house with the rest of the cordless phones. No use in buying the OOMA handsets. I've heard they are expensive and junk.
When I first got OOMA I messed with the QOS settings on my modem to make sure it had a good fats connection but I've since turned that off without any issues.
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NP. What's really nice is that if you buy it at Costo and don't like it you can just return it after a few months.
I just saw Costco has it and a wireless adapter for a total of $149 after rebates. Much better than buying it direct from the Ooma website.
