just joined the Vonage club

aircooled

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
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The UPS guy showed up with my Vonage phone adapter today.

So far everything seems great. Call quality, ease of installation (plugged it into my linksys router, opened a few ports, BAM it works).

Haven't tried hammering my bandwidth and making a call at the same time yet, but will do so shortly.

30 bucks a month flat rate sure beats my average $70 phone bill!!!

Anyone have trouble with their's yet, especially during high bandwidth usage??


 

KK

Lifer
Jan 2, 2001
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:thumbsup: It's a great product. May not be as reliable as the standard pots line but the price makes you forget about it.

Curious as to if you tried it without opening any ports up?

KK
 

43st

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
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I've had mine for 9 months or so. I've had one service outage that was in the vonage system and I've had one billing error (the bill said I made a 23 hour hone call!). In the end Vonage is much more stable than my internet connection (at least 99% uptime though), other than that I can't complain.

I have the cheap $15 per month plan. Considering the additional per minute charges after you reach 500 minutes it was a better deal for me.
 

aircooled

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
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Originally posted by: KK
:thumbsup: It's a great product. May not be as reliable as the standard pots line but the price makes you forget about it.

Curious as to if you tried it without opening any ports up?

KK


Actually I did. Initially I just plugged it in to the router, let it boot and I had a dial tone. I then proceeded to open the ports just cause the manual said so... (I think some of the enhanced features need them open.)
 

Hoober

Diamond Member
Feb 9, 2001
4,395
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Do you have to pay the service charges the friggin phone company tacks on to the bill? Or is it really just $29.99?
 

KK

Lifer
Jan 2, 2001
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you should have gotten the linksys vonage router from staples. That looks' like a neat little device.

KK
 

Kishan

Platinum Member
Jul 2, 2004
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do you have to change your phone number?-the cable company here (Cablevision) has something similar, and you do have to change it. Anyone know?
Thanks,
Kishan
 

KK

Lifer
Jan 2, 2001
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Originally posted by: Hoober
Do you have to pay the service charges the friggin phone company tacks on to the bill? Or is it really just $29.99?

on my 14.99 plan there are some minimal fees that makes the total 16.xx. some of the other voip companies don't have them though.
 

FleshLight

Diamond Member
Mar 18, 2004
6,883
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Another stupid question:

Does your old phone number transfer to VOIP? Or does it redirect to your VOIP number? I'm thinking about VOIP right now but I don't want to go through the hassle of contacting all of my contacts to tell them of my number change.
 

aircooled

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
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Originally posted by: yllus
How many phones can you run off of it?

Not sure what the limit is, but if you physically disconnect the old phone service from your house, you can plug the vonage service into any phone jack and your whole house is active.


 

KK

Lifer
Jan 2, 2001
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Originally posted by: yllus
How many phones can you run off of it?

All your house phones if you want. just break the pots line coming into the outside box first.
 

KK

Lifer
Jan 2, 2001
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Originally posted by: FleshLight
Another stupid question:

Does your old phone number transfer to VOIP? Or does it redirect to your VOIP number? I'm thinking about VOIP right now but I don't want to go through the hassle of contacting all of my contacts to tell them of my number change.

You can port your tele no. It'd take about a month. not sure if other VOIP companies have started to offer this.
 

aircooled

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
15,965
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Originally posted by: FleshLight
Another stupid question:

Does your old phone number transfer to VOIP? Or does it redirect to your VOIP number? I'm thinking about VOIP right now but I don't want to go through the hassle of contacting all of my contacts to tell them of my number change.

Depends on who your provider is now. I had to get a new number but many people get to keep their old one. see here for keeping old number
 

aircooled

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
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Originally posted by: KK
you should have gotten the linksys vonage router from staples. That looks' like a neat little device.

KK


That does look cool (just checked it out at Staples website).
 

UTmtnbiker

Diamond Member
Nov 17, 2000
4,129
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I just got mine today also from the Staples/Linksys deal. Configuration was about 15 minutes. Activated on the Vonage website, plugged it in to my router and within about 5 minutes, it had configured itself. It actually took me more time moving my phone over to my desk where my broadband router is and getting it plugged in with my rats nest of cables under my desk. I'm running it off of a Vtech base station with 2 other phones slaved to it and haven't had any problems at all with any of the slaves either.

I've requested a transfer of my original POTS number to Vonage. They said it could take up to 20 days and have assigned me a temporary number until that time. Great service so far.

I've made a couple of phone calls with it and so far I'm quite pleased. The volume is a little bit less than that of the POTS and there seems to be a low frequency riding on the line, but still, not bad and hardly noticable at all. For the price (I'm on the $15 plan myself) it beats even my POTS with caller ID by about $20 to $25 and included in the price is long distance, which I never had on POTS.

What services do you gain by opening ports? I haven't read the manual yet and really had no intention of reading it as the config was so easy.
 

isekii

Lifer
Mar 16, 2001
28,578
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I switched back to Verizon.
The Call quality drops a bit, and the other party has trouble hearing (voice skip) if you are using bandwidth on 3.0mb down 384k up Cable line.

Not having the ability to fax multiple pages at one time is a pain in the arse as well.

 

UTmtnbiker

Diamond Member
Nov 17, 2000
4,129
4
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Never been a faxer so that won't be an issue for me. Basically, just using it to replace my home POTS as I hardly used it as it was. Maybe 120 minutes tops per month. I figure between my cell phone, my wife's cell phone, and Vonage, we should be okay.
 

KK

Lifer
Jan 2, 2001
15,903
4
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Originally posted by: UTmtnbiker


What services do you gain by opening ports? I haven't read the manual yet and really had no intention of reading it as the config was so easy.

I don't believe you gain anything. What I remember reading on the issue is that the once the motorola device starts a session on whatever port it uses that port stays open for a set amount of time. On the older routers I believe the time that the ports would stay open was less and would close the session before the motorola device was finished. At least that how I interpeted the post about it over at dslreports.

KK
 

Amused

Elite Member
Apr 14, 2001
57,118
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Yep, Vonage is great.

I have the 29.99 package and it comes out to 32.39 each month.

For some reason, I can fax multiple pages. Yesterday, I faxed a 4 page document.

I have Insight Cable with 3mb/128kb and am able to surf and talk at the same time with no noticable degradation in voice quality. Though I have not tried uploading a huge file, I have talked while downloading stuff.

Tivo, DirecTV and your security system CAN work with this, if you make sure everything is set up correctly.

If you do not live in a major metropolitian area or suburb, you will probably not be able to port your number or get a local area code. I live in downstate IL and had to get a Chicago area code. It's no big deal, though. Anyone who wants to call me either has VoIP or unlimited LD with a POTs CO.

Is Vonage worth it? Damn straight. It's the best deal out there now and the only down side (one I don't even notice anymore) is having to dial the area code for local calls and not being able to get a local area code in some areas. (soon to change as they expand)

But this wont last. The government has noticed and will soon tax the crap out of VoIP making it nearly as expensive as the unlimited deals with POTSCOs (an average of $75/month after taxes).