About a year and a half ago, I saw an ad for the "Net2Duo", a device that plugs in to your router on one end, and lets you hook any home phone up to the other end. We tested it for a few months before deciding to drop our ~$25 a month home phone service. The Net2Phone service seemed to work ok at first, so I signed up for 3 years of service for less than $3 a month. (saving us about $22 monthly)
Trouble is, even though our Internet speed has doubled since then, we regularly have issues with the service. About 90% of the time it works fine, but the other 10% of the time, people have to call multiple times to leave a message. Occasionally, we simply can't get through to local numbers that we know should be in service, like my local doctor. Often we have to wait up to 45 or 50 seconds until a call we dialed actually starts ringing. Sometimes (and this is the worst) when someone tries to call and we are already on the phone, they get an automated message about the line being out of service, rather than it just being busy. (not acceptable)
I have a new job starting next week, and my boss already had trouble getting through once. It won't be much of an issue for the first couple of months, but after that the job becomes part time on call, and they would be calling often to see if I can come in. I realized that it is time to replace the net2phone service, but the question is, with what?
We are presently paying $15 a month for 2 Megabits per second internet from Time Warner. Add the $3 for Net2Duo, and our total monthly cost for phone and internet is $18. That would be great if it was dependable, but it is not working well enough. I had previously been using Google Voice and an Obihai 100, but then it suddenly stopped working for about 6 months due to a Google change of policy. I'm wary of depending on that and having a repeat loss of service. I'm also wary of going back to regular old landline service, since we got loads and loads of political & sales calls, despite being on the do not call list.
My wife says we should only contemplate hardware solutions - such as Magicjack, etc. I originally bypassed MagicJack, since there were a lot of negative reviews.
If you currently use a hardware (bridge between a regular phone and router) VOIP solution at home, I would really be interested in hearing about your experience. Obviously, I realize now we will probably have to pay more than the current <$3 monthly cost, but I'm still hoping we might be able to keep the cost under $10 a month. Also, my wife absolutely hates that Net2Phone requires us to enter the area code for every single call. Something that would not force us to do that would be fantastic.
Thanks for any suggestions! (we are not interested in cell phones, just home landline replacement)
Trouble is, even though our Internet speed has doubled since then, we regularly have issues with the service. About 90% of the time it works fine, but the other 10% of the time, people have to call multiple times to leave a message. Occasionally, we simply can't get through to local numbers that we know should be in service, like my local doctor. Often we have to wait up to 45 or 50 seconds until a call we dialed actually starts ringing. Sometimes (and this is the worst) when someone tries to call and we are already on the phone, they get an automated message about the line being out of service, rather than it just being busy. (not acceptable)
I have a new job starting next week, and my boss already had trouble getting through once. It won't be much of an issue for the first couple of months, but after that the job becomes part time on call, and they would be calling often to see if I can come in. I realized that it is time to replace the net2phone service, but the question is, with what?
We are presently paying $15 a month for 2 Megabits per second internet from Time Warner. Add the $3 for Net2Duo, and our total monthly cost for phone and internet is $18. That would be great if it was dependable, but it is not working well enough. I had previously been using Google Voice and an Obihai 100, but then it suddenly stopped working for about 6 months due to a Google change of policy. I'm wary of depending on that and having a repeat loss of service. I'm also wary of going back to regular old landline service, since we got loads and loads of political & sales calls, despite being on the do not call list.
My wife says we should only contemplate hardware solutions - such as Magicjack, etc. I originally bypassed MagicJack, since there were a lot of negative reviews.
If you currently use a hardware (bridge between a regular phone and router) VOIP solution at home, I would really be interested in hearing about your experience. Obviously, I realize now we will probably have to pay more than the current <$3 monthly cost, but I'm still hoping we might be able to keep the cost under $10 a month. Also, my wife absolutely hates that Net2Phone requires us to enter the area code for every single call. Something that would not force us to do that would be fantastic.
Thanks for any suggestions! (we are not interested in cell phones, just home landline replacement)
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