Does Anyone Have Any Experience with a VoIP Provider Such as Vonage, Lingo, Etc?

Hi there M. -

I use Vonage and love it - it is about $30 a month and includes all the caller id, voicemail, etc featurres, plus it includes long distance. If you then tell others, you can get service for free. There are also some word of mouth marketing companies out there that offer VOIP and then you might be able to make extra money, too. I'm not with one of those companies, but word of mouth marketing has kept me home with the kids and out of debt, which can be hard if you are home with only one income!

Elsa M.

I signed up with vonage a few months ago and it was terrible service! I was unable to use my phone at all!! I would never recomend them to anyone. There is an extremely bad delay and when the weather is bad you can forget about using the phone at all.

I pay 117 a month with ATT for Service with call ID & Waiting, Dish (no hbo or showtime), and high speed internet.

Seems to me that you're obligating yourself to a cable bill + internet in order to use the VOIP - which I'd think comes out to about the same thing.

We had an awful experience iwht Vonage. We wound up having ot change our phone number after having it for 7 years. They told us, after "installing" the stuff that in order for it to work, our ISP would have to "increase our band width." When we told them to just forget it and transfer our number back to Verizon, they said they couldn't and we lost our number. I also know someone who used to work as an executive with Vonage and they are allegedly in financial trouble.

We have VoIP at work. I hate it! Personally I like to keep one corded phone in the house, all the others are cordless. The reason I keep a corded is because when the electricity is out I can still make phone calls including emergency calls. You can't do that with VoIP. I eliminated everything I didn't need with AT&T and got my bill down to $29. I finally decided that an answering machine (which is actually built into my new cordless) is less expensive thatn call notes. If you don't have an answering machine, just look at how much you're paying for call notes. An answering machine will pay for itself in a few months.

We used Voice Pulse. It worked good...but you can only have the phone that is attached to the computer. I was constantly running around the house looking for a phone. The other problem we ran into was using the internet and talking on the phone. That probably was that we had the slowest cable internet.

We have just recently switched back to att. It is more expensive but I feel that it is more reliable. Money is tight for us so I was hesitant...but I got tired of the phone not being reliable all the time.
Hope this helps.

AT&T has a VOIP called callvantage.com you can look it up online. I think it is 24.00 a month and if you have AT&T internet you get $5 discount. I was going to change because our phone bill was $100.00 a month including internet, but I they would not guarantee our house alarm would work. Also if you computer goes down so does your phone.

I have Vonage and I love it. I have not had any problems with it and my bill is the same every month even though I call Canada and all over the U.S.

I really like Vonage. I have had it for about a year and a half now. At first there were a few problems just because they were new in our area. My bill runs about $31 a moth for everything. I have unlimited long distance and voicemail.

Vonage is great. We had a little trouble with transfering our phone number but other than that we love it.

Hey girl...I am also a stay at home mother and we have two beautiful children. About 2 years ago, I decided that our phone bills were way too much with Verizon and thought that was all we could get in our small town, but after doing some digging, I found *Vonage* and we love it! We don't have to pay the bills...they just take it out every month online and it's never been over $34.00. It's 24/month and with taxes, ect. it's only $32.00 normally. You do have to have high speed internet though, but most families already have that. We save quite a bit monthly now compared to verizon and we get to have internet and cable tv. It's the best of both worlds...lol. If you have any ?'s, just holler at me. You can see for yourself // ###-###-####

We do NOT recommend VOnage. We could never get it to work unless the computer was offline, completely. Of course, vonage blamed that on the internet provider (our cable company.)
Troubleshooting was difficult with Vonage, as the help desk was apparently out of the country. Oh, and did I mention that we had to do the calls from our cell phones, since Vonage wasn't working? Forget calling the 800 # from work, you have to be sitting in front of your phone. Our Vonage NEVER worked. NEVER. Unless, of course, we took the computer offline. ANd cancelling Vonage, even after the contract expires? Expect to spend about 20 minutes on the phone, and to be asked repeatedly why you want to cancel, and can't they offer you a less expensive service.
We now have our cable company providing our phone and it's NO HASSLE!!!
J.

My husband and I switched to Vonage in September. If you want to transfer your number, be very careful! We had a HORRIBLE experience getting our number transferred. Eventually, I go so fed up that I contacted the corporate "compliance" line and filed an official complaint of fraud and customer mistreatment. Because their compliance line is answered by a third party, I knew that they would stay on top of things. By 8:30am the next morning, my phone number was successfully transferred to Vonage (the problem was on Vonage's end) and I was contacted directly by someone from the corporate office.

Since then, we haven't had any problems with Vonage and it's super cheap (like the other posts said). It's great to be able to check your voicemail messages online, especially when you're on vacation. Just know that if you have any problems with the service, their customer service STINKS. The front-line answer center is in another country and they all have very thick accents and clearly read from a script. If they eventually transfer you up the ranks, you'll get a department that's in the US and someone who speaks perfect English and doesn't understand why it took the call center so long to transfer you.

FYI - if you ever decide to change from Vonage (or any other VoIP) to someone else, you'll leave your number for good. Once Vonage takes it, it's theirs and you can't take it to another provider.

Vonage is great. I have been with Vonage for 8 yrs. The only problem that I run into is if your internet speed drops below 3 megs then you sound like a bad cell phone call or it drops you all together. That however is not Vonage's fault that is the internet service provider but you will not get them to admit to it though. We have Charter internet and sometimes have problems with the speed and it does cause me to have a bad connection or a dropped call here and there. And if you are downloading something from the internet then it is best to either pause the download or wait until your download is complete b/c it slows down the meg speed and gives you a garbled call. With thoses two problems being what they are, I ssill love my Vonage. I have lots of features that you do not get with regular phone service and I have friends that live in Canada and Italy that I can call for FREE!!! That cannot be beat! I also get unlimited calls in the US as well so I know that it saves me a ton more than the problems that I have from time to time. Oh and the only other trouble is if the power goes out then the internet goes out and you have no phone. But other than that I would no change VoIP companies or go back to regular phone service. Vonage Rocks! I hope this helps you.

Hi.. I recently signed on with vonage. I got the $24.99 a month plan. Its unlimited local and long distance. I live in Texas and my son called a friend in Hawaii and stayed on the phone over an hour. No charge! I'm impressed so far. I had AT&T and was paying almost $60 a month so this service is a very big improvement for my budget, being recently separated and stuck with the bills.
Try and catch it when they offer the router for free.

P. V.

I have Vonage and love it. I make long distance calls almost daily and my bill is always $30 plus change per month. You may have to change settings on your vonage but the instructions are very clear via web site. I have the minimum SuddenLink cable rate and it works fine. Just go to Vonage.com and research it. Hook up is about $50 to get the modem thru Vonage. Usually the 1st 2 months are free which pays for this and you can keep your current phone #.

I've used Vonage for my home business since December and I love it. I've not had any problems with it and am on the phone at least 4-5 hours a day!

They have great options and I think I still have a promo code that can get you your first 2 months free. Send me a message if you are interested.