Anyone use Vonage?

[brymolmom]

Hi there! We currently get our land line phone through Time Warner and our cable. Tomorrow I am downgrading cable to basic and then in a few months when the snow clears DH will be putting our new antenea on the roof and we'll get rid of it completely - to use PC and Netflix plus local stations from the antenea.

So, shopping around to trim down the landline costs. We thought about going to cell only...but honestly aren't ready to do it yet. And our work pays for our cell plans - so we'd feel bad doing all of our long distance on them, etc. SO, at this point keeping the land line.

We would do the online package that says it's $24.99 after the first 3 months...Does anyone have this package? Would you mind sharing what your final costs are on your bill every month after all fees, etc? I'm trying to compare to the current phone bill in my hand. I don't think we'll save too much over what we pay now...

Any other comments or pros or cons to Vonage you can give me?

TIA!

 

[JeffreyY]

We have had Vonage for about 3 years now and are very happy with it. It is clear and anytime the computer or the electricity goes out the phone calls go over to my cell phone. We have the $24.99 plan but with taxes and fees it comes to about $37 a month. We live in NYC so I think we have a lot of taxes and fees.

 

[RRL38]

Hi there! We currently get our land line phone through Time Warner and our cable. Tomorrow I am downgrading cable to basic and then in a few months when the snow clears DH will be putting our new antenea on the roof and we'll get rid of it completely - to use PC and Netflix plus local stations from the antenea.

So, shopping around to trim down the landline costs. We thought about going to cell only...but honestly aren't ready to do it yet. And our work pays for our cell plans - so we'd feel bad doing all of our long distance on them, etc. SO, at this point keeping the land line.

We would do the online package that says it's $24.99 after the first 3 months...Does anyone have this package? Would you mind sharing what your final costs are on your bill every month after all fees, etc? I'm trying to compare to the current phone bill in my hand. I don't think we'll save too much over what we pay now...

Any other comments or pros or cons to Vonage you can give me?

TIA!

We have had Vonage for about 3 years and we pay a total of about $32.00 a month for the unlimited long distance. We don't use it often as we use our cell phones, but we have been satisfied with the service. So, I have no complaints about it.

 

[jg789]

We had Vonage for 6 years - loved it! Just got rid of it last month. Our bill was unlimited $24 plan and usually came out to about $31 total (we live in Mississippi). The only reason we got rid of it was that comcast had a triple play plan that ended up being cheaper for cable/phone/internet than what we were paying separately ($99 total for 1 year, then goes to $119).

 

[dex08]

I've had Vonage for 6 years this March. We rarely use the line since most of our friends call us on our cell phones. I recently called and had them change our plan to their lowest 'Vonage Lite' plan and now our bill is just under $15 a month. This lite plan includes 200 minutes for $9.99 + taxes & fees.

 

[Brer Shay]

We've had Vonage for six years and I've been very happy with them. WIth taxes, our monthly charge is $32. Be sure that you have a internet connection or your service will reflect it.

 

[mamaLori05]

I guess I'm the odd ball here, but we had vonage for 2 years and I hated it. It would go out on me all the time. I'd go to make a phone call and the line would be dead, or I'd be mid phone call and it would cut out on me. The price was nice (which is the only reason we kept it for 2 years), but it just wasn't worth it to me. We switched back to Time Warner and never had a problem with it.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

We switched to Vonage in October. LOVE it! We also have the $24.99 plan and it comes to $32 or so after taxes. Unlimited long distance to more countries than I can list and my favorite feature... it transcribes your voice messages and emails the transcripts to you. I don't even have be home to know who left a message and what it's about.

 

[JDUCKY]

Been using it for several years and love it. Didn't have to worry about porting my number over to another cable provider if I wanted to switch from whom I got internet service (esp. when I moved to FL). Took the adapter and a phone w/me on a trip to China once and called home FOR FREE. So nice!

 

[Duchie]

I guess I'm the odd ball here, but we had vonage for 2 years and I hated it. It would go out on me all the time. I'd go to make a phone call and the line would be dead, or I'd be mid phone call and it would cut out on me. The price was nice (which is the only reason we kept it for 2 years), but it just wasn't worth it to me. We switched back to Time Warner and never had a problem with it.

No, it's not just you. We had it for years and I hated it. Call quality was fine most of the time, but like you we experienced frequent outages for no apparent. reason. After a while I got really good at learning how to reboot the box so that I didn't have to contact customer support (which was a nightmare all by itself). We also experienced calls dropping in mid conversation on multiple occasions. We just switched over all of our services to AT&T's U-Verse so I called to cancel Vonage. I swear it was like breaking up with a boyfriend. But I'm VERY happy to be done with them. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the stupid Vonage box that's cluttering up my house.

ETA: The other big issue we had was that if someone else was using the internet connection (watching a video, playing an online game, etc.) our call clarity was impacted. We could hear just fine, but people we were talking to told us we were breaking up badly.

 

[jg789]

No, it's not just you. We had it for years and I hated it. Call quality was fine most of the time, but like you we experienced frequent outages for no apparent. reason. After a while I got really good at learning how to reboot the box so that I didn't have to contact customer support (which was a nightmare all by itself). We also experienced calls dropping in mid conversation on multiple occasions. We just switched over all of our services to AT&T's U-Verse so I called to cancel Vonage. I swear it was like breaking up with a boyfriend. But I'm VERY happy to be done with them. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the stupid Vonage box that's cluttering up my house.

ETA: The other big issue we had was that if someone else was using the internet connection (watching a video, playing an online game, etc.) our call clarity was impacted. We could hear just fine, but people we were talking to told us we were breaking up badly.

The vonage was always perfect for us - and all my neighbors have it and don't have issues either. My choice to leave was simply about saving $$ by using comcast's triple play.

On another note - does your vonage box have wi-fi router built in? Ours did, and instead of getting rid of it we put it with our luggage - so now when we go on vacation we have a router to take with us. Sure lots of hotels have wi-fi, but we also rent from owners on the beach and at the lake. Many times these places will have a hard wired internet but no wi-fi - so now we can take our own with us We've done this for years, but always had to unplug it all, plug it back in when we got home. Now that we don't use it at home, I just store it in my luggage

 

[Madison'smommy]

We have had VOnage for about 6 years and LOVE it! We have NO problems. We have the $24.99 package and pay right around $30. We always have atleast 1 computer online and often 2... and it has never affected our phone quality.

 

[mamaLori05]

No, it's not just you. We had it for years and I hated it. Call quality was fine most of the time, but like you we experienced frequent outages for no apparent. reason. After a while I got really good at learning how to reboot the box so that I didn't have to contact customer support (which was a nightmare all by itself). We also experienced calls dropping in mid conversation on multiple occasions. We just switched over all of our services to AT&T's U-Verse so I called to cancel Vonage. I swear it was like breaking up with a boyfriend. But I'm VERY happy to be done with them. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the stupid Vonage box that's cluttering up my house.

ETA: The other big issue we had was that if someone else was using the internet connection (watching a video, playing an online game, etc.) our call clarity was impacted. We could hear just fine, but people we were talking to told us we were breaking up badly.

Yup, we had that issue too. I swear I had to reboot the box at least once a week, which seemed to take forever. My dh thought maybe it was our box that was bad, but when we switched to Time Warner we actually saved a little money because we were able to use the same box (instead of having to rent one). We switched just over a year ago and haven't had any of the problems mentioned above, so now we know it wasn't the box.