Vonage
 

Hey has anyone looked into or has used Vonage.com's service. I looked over their plans and they look much better than the existing phone service provider.

ive thought about it. makes alot of sence to get voip if you have broadband, but seeing as my phone bill is about 14 dollars a month it would be counter productive for me.

i also noticed there's a verizon equivalent. anyone used their service?

voicewing i believe it's called..

hey landmule. what do you know about it?

also anyone used FTTP/FTTH yet?

wow no one's try vonage or knows anyone that has?

ill be switchin with in the next few weeks ill let you know how it is.

nope, i just have regular ol' copper service. i know its called Voicewing, but that's about it. :D they have some new crap called Iobi, too.

what exactly are the advantages of having voip? no phone service when the internet breaks? viruses in teh yu0r voicemail:D

Verizon is rolling out FTTP (fiber to the premises), but can't say how long it will be before its in your area.

yeah dude, I want FTTP. can you have them hook me up? I hate bellsouth with a passion and I think fiber would be swell.

yeah? viruses in da voicemail? fer real? well i like having VoIP because I wouldn't have to pay for long distance. Since I'm working from home more often nowadays, it's run up my phone bill to $600+++/month. I'd like a cheaper alternative.

besides I have...had...DSL and Cable modem (DSL is screwed cause of bellsouth) and I have plenty of UPS's lying around so I wouldn't lose service if the intraWab goes down.

I am using skype now. No connection problems, very clear and is saving me a fortune.

I looked at Vonage prior to going with Road Runners broad band phone system (Time Warrner Cable) and the deal with Vonage was it's set up to have one phone pluged into the router so unless you use a multi-reciever cordless set up, it only works on one phone. The company says it can be wired into the house/apartments phone box so it will run on all the jacks you have, however they won't tell you how to do it, and say if you mess something up, it's your problem. If your in a small apt (or small house) it isn't an issue.
With the cable company set up, all the jacks work with the system and they installed it, so if there is a problem, they have ot take care of it.

My brother's cable company offered him a promotion for voice over IP service with his cable modem hook up. He went for it and pays something like $20 a month for unlimited calling anywhere (obviously it's the internet). He's had no problems with his service whats so ever with caller id, 3 way and call waiting.

As for Vonage I can't say anything about their company. But I don't think there's anything wrong with voice over IP.

hey horselips,

here's that iobi i was telling you about. i have no idea how much it is, or if its available in Atlanta, but it seems kinda cool.

IOBI

got the box in
 

So I finally got the Linksys VoIP box in and got it hooked up to my network. Seems alright. My first connection had a slight delay and the echo effect was present. On the second try, it cleared up. And on the third try, the voice came over really clear without the echo effect.

From what other people tell me, when I'm not speaking, there's like dead silence without background noise similiar to a speaker phone, but it's pretty clear when I'm speaking. Other than that, the VoIP from Vonage seems pretty decent.

I'm pulling 2 megabit down and it's pretty clear.

Just pulled 4 megabit down and it started to get choppy. Then again it's probably doing that because because my router's directing traffic to flow out of the backup WAN port so it's choppy. 2.x-3.0 megabit down WAN1 and 1.x+ out of WAN2. I'll bind the VoIP to WAN2 and then pump up the traffic to see how it runs later.

All in all, I give it 2 thumbs up.

Sounds pretty cool, Harry.

yeah dude, phear me. i'll be calling you up and shouting 'JACKASS' over da phone. ;)

this should save me $300/month in cellular bills :)

I have Vonage Business Service. I have a Voice Line, A fax line and a Softphone PC line. The Softphone is awesome. I can use the bluetooth headset I have through my computer anywhere there is Internet access.

I have never had an issue with call quality. If you have the Linksys router, you can control bandwidth to the LAN allowing you to keep clarity with any downloads.

I'm saving a ton over SBC's business service and I get all the cool stuff. Web voice mail retrieval, called ID, forwarding, call waiting, nationwide calling. All the stuff I couldn't afford with SBC.

Doug