Vonage, CallVantage, or other VoIP?

yourbeliefs · #1 (**permalink**) 07-07-2008, 03:57 PM

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My mom recently passed away, and I am living in the house until we get it ready to sell it and move out. As a result, I not only am responsible for upkeep, but paying bills (or sending them out to the executor of the estate) as well. Also as a result, I have been doing a lot of cost cutting, and one place that could use a LOT of that is the phone bill. Currently I have to pay about $100 a month for phone and DSL, and only $30 of that is for my Pro DSL service. I use my cell phone for 95% of my communications, but I don't want to just cancel the house # since that is the only point of contact to the house, and also want to keep it open for any communications from companies/people about my mother.

At first I was looking at Vonage and that looked very appealing, and then I saw some people here had "CallVantage" by AT&T and seemed to enjoy that, although I just read a story that said that CallVantage will be phased out very soon in favor of another offering by AT&T. I looked around at a few other services that have been mentioned on this site, and it seems like all of them are "award-winning" in some way (according to the respective websites.) ViaTalk and MagicJack looked very appealing, but the inability to transfer my existing number over rather defeats the purpose of this.

A few other comments/questions about my situation:

The Pro internet speed is about 280-300 kb/s down and about 40-60 kb/s up. I often download over Bit Torrent network, which usually sucks up my bandwidth. The speeds get down to old school ISDN speeds sometimes. Would that cause a problem with talking to people on the phone, and vice versa, would talking on the phone have a major impact on my download/upload speeds?

Is transferring your phone number over a pain in the a**? As I said, I have AT&T currently.

People have mentioned issues with Vonage where you can't make some 800-number calls, especially 866. Can anyone attest to this, such as is this a problem on their services? The range of VoIP services people use on this site seems to be rather extensive.

Any thoughts/experiences on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

charper1 · #2 (**permalink**) 07-07-2008, 09:15 PM

I have had ViaTalk for nearly 4 years without any issues; effectively under $10 for a full featured service, unlimited local and LD product. Internet Phone Service & Broadband Phone Service by ViaTalk VoIP

jokeworm · #3 (**permalink**) 07-07-2008, 09:35 PM

Speed should be fine for VOIP.

I had Vonage for quite a while .. zero issues whatsoever .. might be worth getting the "500 min" plan if it is not going to be used all that much - $14.99 + fee's per month .. (i assume you don't want to get locked into a long-term contract.

I moved form Vonage to Sunrocket a few years ago - again zero problems .. unfortunately - they went bust .. so last year i moved to Viatalk ... which for the most part has been working - however its been MUCH more spotty and troublesome than any other VOIP service i have ever had over the past 4-5 years.

I'm now mainly using a pay as you go provider .... callwithus.com or future-nine.com and viatalk as a backup (as it is not exactly reliable for me)

If i were you - i would stump the few dollars extra for vonage .. it just plain works - its solid - its idiot proof - the control panel is much better than any other out there - and for a new VOIP user its probably all you could ever need. ... if you can find someone on here to give you a referal - you should be able to get your first two months free ...

Xfer of the phone number will probably take a couple of weeks ... make sure you don;t turn off your old service until the xfer has gone through completely.

Yes Bittorent use will effect call quality - unless you have a decent router that does QOS and prioritizes your voice traffic - you may have to limit your upload/download speeds at times when you may be expecting calls - else your call quality can get very choppy ...

**ramy** · #4 (**permalink**) 07-08-2008, 08:08 AM

I have Packet8 and it is good for me.

yourbeliefs · #5 (**permalink**) 07-08-2008, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jokeworm

Speed should be fine for VOIP.

I had Vonage for quite a while .. zero issues whatsoever .. might be worth getting the "500 min" plan if it is not going to be used all that much - $14.99 + fee's per month .. (i assume you don't want to get locked into a long-term contract.

I moved form Vonage to Sunrocket a few years ago - again zero problems .. unfortunately - they went bust .. so last year i moved to Viatalk ... which for the most part has been working - however its been MUCH more spotty and troublesome than any other VOIP service i have ever had over the past 4-5 years.

I'm now mainly using a pay as you go provider .... callwithus.com or future-nine.com and viatalk as a backup (as it is not exactly reliable for me)

If i were you - i would stump the few dollars extra for vonage .. it just plain works - its solid - its idiot proof - the control panel is much better than any other out there - and for a new VOIP user its probably all you could ever need. ... if you can find someone on here to give you a referal - you should be able to get your first two months free ...

Xfer of the phone number will probably take a couple of weeks ... make sure you don;t turn off your old service until the xfer has gone through completely.

Yes Bittorent use will effect call quality - unless you have a decent router that does QOS and prioritizes your voice traffic - you may have to limit your upload/download speeds at times when you may be expecting calls - else your call quality can get very choppy ...

Yeah my router is rather old. I think it's a WRT54G (or whatever the popular Linksys router is) version 2 or 3, and I had to use a modified firmware in order to get it to download BT stuff without taking major nosedives in speed.

Neutron · #6 (**permalink**) 07-08-2008, 01:48 PM

We just reordered Vonage after not having it for 2 years. When we had it before we had it for 3 years. It's pretty dang reliable, and if it goes out you have the option to have those calls forwarded to another number automatically.

**ramy** · #7 (**permalink**) 07-08-2008, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neutron

We just reordered Vonage after not having it for 2 years. When we had it before we had it for 3 years. It's pretty dang reliable, and if it goes out you have the option to have those calls forwarded to another number automatically.

I have mine ring at the same time on my cell phone.

Don Landis · #8 (**permalink**) 07-09-2008, 02:01 AM

Thanks ramy. I need to tell my sister that. She switched to Vonage last year and since, I can never reach her. Everytime the local cable company loses internet for them her phone is unreachable. IT happens way too often. In some areas, VOIP is just a terrible option due to the BB internet reliability.
Personally, I would never use it. Instead I shut off my landline in January with ATT and switched the number to my cell phone. My cell service is as reliable as a landline here and I don't miss the landline one bit.
This year we have had 5 outages of cable modem service and it was back on in a few hours. However, if I had the cable phone service I would have had no phone during that time and would need the cell phone anyway. If I do need a special phone service beyond what the cell can do, I have used skype which worked well.

charper1 · #9 (**permalink**) 07-09-2008, 05:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramy

I have Packet8 and it is good for me.

I used to have Packet8 (aka 8x8) and if anything ever goes wrong between me and ViaTalk I would go back to Packet* (so also recommended)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramy

I have mine ring at the same time on my cell phone.

Ditto this as well.

JAG72 · #10 (**permalink**) 07-09-2008, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yourbeliefs

The Pro internet speed is about 280-300 kb/s down and about 40-60 kb/s up..

Your download speeds should be fine but I would be a little concerned going VOIP with only 40-60 upload speed. Follow this link to test you Internet connection.

How Can I Test My Internet Connection? - VoIP Internet Phone Support: Vonage – A Better Way to Phone for Less