NetTalk VoIP phone (and dump Vonage)?

[JDUCKY]

Anyone have any experience with NetTalk?

I've had my Vonage phone for YEARS but am looking at shedding some costs and since we use, maybe, 100-200 min./month on the home phone, looking at other options.

MagicJack is out as I've heard too many horror stories about their equipment and esp. their customer support.

NetTalk got good reviews from PCMag last year:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387769,00.asp

Soo...$50 upfront and then $30/yr for what amounts to 5,000 min./month seems like a great deal! I could even add on international calling (not that I really need it usually) and still be well under Vonage's cost.

Just looking for, preferably, first-hand experience


Oh, and they're now offering free porting of one's existing number, too.

 

[DawnM]

I have Ooma and not NetTalk but we have had it for over 2 years and we are happy with it. The first two years I paid $11/year for service. They have just upped that to about $30 (for taxes) per year.

Ooma also has a premier service if you want/need it with added features.

Basic features:

Call waiting
Caller ID
Unlimited long distance
Voicemail

 

[JDUCKY]

Well, I'll be officially giving Vonage the heave-ho in a couple of weeks (just paid the latest bill so no sense canceling now). But, I've looked thru my billing history and I'm paying almost $10/mo more than when I first got Vonage almost 7 years ago. Moving to FL added on a new tax and there's the Federal Program Fee that keeps going up and up and up.

No more!

 

[BellePrincessBelle]

My Vonage is $9.99 a month unlimited US & Canada for life with caller id, call waiting, voicemail, & call forwarding. It's $15.59 with all taxes plus I didn't have to shell out $200 for an Ooma "hub".

 

[DawnM]

Ooma was $179 from Costco and I have had it for 30 months so far.

That comes to $5.96/mo and it only goes down from here.

30 months Ooma for $179
vs.
30 months Vonage for $467.70

My Vonage is $9.99 a month unlimited US & Canada for life with caller id, call waiting, voicemail, & call forwarding. It's $15.59 with all taxes plus I didn't have to shell out $200 for an Ooma "hub".

 

[dex08]

I've been a Vonage subscriber since 2005 and I have two separate lines - my home phone and my business phone. I rarely use my home line anymore and I didn't want to lose the # since so many people already have it. Just recently I got rid of Vonage for my home line and ported the # to Google Voice and now have free calling using a OBI100 box. You set up the Obi100 adapter similarly to how you have your Vonage adapter set up.

I ordered my Obi100 from Amazon for just under $44. You can find more info on the device here: http://obihai.com/

The only issue I had was that you cannot port directly from Vonage to Google Voice. You first have to port the # to a mobile carrier and I just used a pay-as-you-go phone. Once that's done you can port your # to Google Voice for $20. The entire process took less than 2 weeks and my total cost to make this transition was equivalent to about 5 months of Vonage service.

Something to keep in mind is that with Google Voice there is no 911 service, so you would need a cell phone or other means by which to call 911. Or store your local fire, police and ambulance #s in your cordless phone memory.

Also, there's rumor that Google Voice will eventually charge for calls, but for now it's free calling to US and Canada. I can't imagine them charging more than Vonage service.

 

[JDUCKY]

My Vonage is $9.99 a month unlimited US & Canada for life with caller id, call waiting, voicemail, & call forwarding. It's $15.59 with all taxes plus I didn't have to shell out $200 for an Ooma "hub".

Is that some special grandfathered-in calling plan?

I joined Vonage in April 2005 for a $24.99 plan that was unlimited to the US and Canada (and now includes a few European countries but is now $25.99). Add in the $10 in taxes and fees and my last bill was about $36.50.

I can pay that in one swoop for a new NetTalk device ($49.95 + tax at WalMart) for year and then less than one month of Vonage for subsequent years and have all the features (minus int'l calling but that's ok) and still have 911 service (which, as pointed out above, isn't offered by Google Voice). And it's easy and free to port a number to NetTalk w/o going thru buying a pre-paid cell phone.

We'll save enough each year to just about cover two of our kids' AP renewals!

 

[Momoftwins+1]

Is that some special grandfathered-in calling plan?

I joined Vonage in April 2005 for a $24.99 plan that was unlimited to the US and Canada (and now includes a few European countries but is now $25.99). Add in the $10 in taxes and fees and my last bill was about $36.50.

I can pay that in one swoop for a new NetTalk device ($49.95 + tax at WalMart) for year and then less than one month of Vonage for subsequent years and have all the features (minus int'l calling but that's ok) and still have 911 service (which, as pointed out above, isn't offered by Google Voice). And it's easy and free to port a number to NetTalk w/o going thru buying a pre-paid cell phone.

We'll save enough each year to just about cover two of our kids' AP renewals!

I called vonage just after Christmas thanks to a post here and saud I want happy with their price increases since I started with them in 2004. They then offered me the same rate as a poster above. 9.99 plus taxes for life in US Canada calling. I have two lines so its a huge savings from where it was ( 70 ish a month! )

 

[BellePrincessBelle]

Ooma was $179 from Costco and I have had it for 30 months so far.

That comes to $5.96/mo and it only goes down from here.

30 months Ooma for $179
vs.
30 months Vonage for $467.70

But the Ooma hub is prone to stop working & needs to be replaced. Not everybody belongs to Costco. I don't, nor will I buy their membership. So the average person may have to spend $199 for an Ooma hub every 2 years(seems to be the point they stop working) negating any savings. Plus with Ooma you have to pay somewhere around $10 a month for "premium" services that I get included in my Vonage price. We'll just have to agree to disagree. What works for you does not work for me.
Back to the OP my price was a limited time grand father offer right after Christmas.

 

[DawnM]

What features do you get included that you have to pay for with premier?

I have had Vonage and Ooma and the only difference I found was call forwarding.

Just the OP knows, Ooma also offers a deal on their premier services one to two times a year. We have never purchased it because we don't need/want it, but they offer a one time payment for $60 for all 12 months of premier service.

Dawn

But the Ooma hub is prone to stop working & needs to be replaced. Not everybody belongs to Costco. I don't, nor will I buy their membership. So the average person may have to spend $199 for an Ooma hub every 2 years(seems to be the point they stop working) negating any savings. Plus with Ooma you have to pay somewhere around $10 a month for "premium" services that I get included in my Vonage price. We'll just have to agree to disagree. What works for you does not work for me.
Back to the OP my price was a limited time grand father offer right after Christmas.

 

[BellePrincessBelle]

What features do you get included that you have to pay for with premier?

I have had Vonage and Ooma and the only difference I found was call forwarding.

Just the OP knows, Ooma also offers a deal on their premier services one to two times a year. We have never purchased it because we don't need/want it, but they offer a one time payment for $60 for all 12 months of premier service.

Dawn

Emergency call forwarding. If my internet is down(happens once a week) my calls are automatically forwarded to my cell phone. As I said, glad Ooma works for you but, for me, Vonage is a better deal. Heck, even the ooma website says it would take me 22 months to break even not including the cost for premium service. Since the hubs are prone to break around 2 years it's really, really a bad deal for me.
Ooma taxes & fees for my state $4.27 a month plus 9.99 for premium so $14.26 a month PLUS $199. for a hub.
Vonage $15.56 inclusive no purchase of any equipment.

 

[JDUCKY]

FWIW, the switchover from Vonage to NetTalk could not have been easier. The worst part moving our big-screen out of the way to get behind the entertainment center to replace the Vonage adapter with the NetTalk one, since I keep the cable modem, phone, router, etc. right there hooked up to an HTPC (or listening to the Vonage CSR try to convince me to stay with them...heh).

 

[sookie]

I have Ooma and not NetTalk but we have had it for over 2 years and we are happy with it. The first two years I paid $11/year for service. They have just upped that to about $30 (for taxes) per year.

Ooma also has a premier service if you want/need it with added features.

Basic features:

Call waiting
Caller ID
Unlimited long distance
Voicemail

I also have OOMA and love it! I pay for premier because I like getting voicemails in my email.