Vonage voice quality - anyone have experience?

[jlshelton]

I'm considering Vonage for home telephone service.
Have any of you been using Vonage, and willing to comment about voice quality and service reliability?
If you are using comparable services (8x8, Lingo, AT&T's new IP), I'd be curious about your experience, too.

Thank you.

 

[jgideon]

I emailed lingo's customer service address with some questions, and I never heard back. Not a good sign. I'm interested in other's opinions of vonage, too.

 

[OldPhoneGuy]

I've been using Vonage at home since last October. Only one service outage and that was a several days ago for a couple of hours. Vonage had some server problems. Service quality depends a lot on both how reliable your broadband carrier is and the speed of your broadband connection. My cable service has been rock solid lately with speeds of 256k up and three meg down so I haven't had any problems to speak of with voice quality.

 

[upstateny]

My experience with Vonage has been fair - off hours it is great - at 4 pm when the kids get off school and clog the internet it is poor - savings isn't all that great since the ILEC is now offering flat rate service for about $20 per month more with much greater reliability

 

[skip555]

I looked into it and couldnt get the link to work that told me weather I could port over my phone number

I figure if they cant get their website to work I'm not interested

 

[avayaconsultant]

Vonage is the most reliable and best priced service around. I have been on Vonage for almost a year and we have only been off once or twice. As well, the prices were just dropped to offer more competitive rates.

Chris Shelton
Innovative Technology Solutions

http://www.inntechsolutions.net

 

[luv2ski]

i have been using for about 3 months now only had 1 issue where call waiting was disabled reboot modem allwas fine..voice quailty is not a real issue the price was"1/2 of verizon" a real plus was portability of existing number probaly would not have switched if i could not keep number..if i lose power or my network"cable modem"i still have ability to recieve vm messages and i can twin to cell...just need to logon to vonage web site to set up

ONLY 21 WEEKS TILL SKI SEASON STARTS

 

[dnsb]

I have Vonage phone service and i tell you its great. I have 4 computers networked into my connection and 2 running with users most of the time and I have a web/email server running on this connection and its cable. It up to 3.00 dl and 256up. The quality is great. if i have someone on my ftp server downloading a big file i have a few times that it has broken up once or twice while talking. I have two lines with vonage and its never been a problem to have 2 users surf and have two voice lines in use on the system. It great so far!!

 

[senk1s]

any feedback on att call vantage?
any mor eon lingo?

looks like vonage is the way to go ...

 

[jgideon]

The people at ATT were a very hard sell (very very very pushy) when I called to ask questions. The service sounds nice, I'm just not willing to pay thier price for it, and a temporary discount for a short period when they require a term contract with cancellation penalties......

 

[surplus]

I've not had the good luck with Vonage. Strange problems, *69 returned an IP Address of one of their servers...*69 would give a call from 7-10 days ago. Voice quality is strange at times in the evening, wherein I can hear the caller in real time, however there is up to a 30 second delay in them hearing me. Makes it very difficult to order pizza, etc... Also had issues wherein anyone on the AT&T Network could not call my number. Many hours have been spent on the phone. I have a regular telco line in addition to the vonage lines. They are only used at this point for LD calls and incoming calls on the 800 number. I have been with them since day 1 I might add. I am running cable modem with 3mb down/256 up

 

[acewarlock]

For $14.99 a month and 400 anytime, anywhere in USA minutes sure beats my $30 a month and $.05 Ld from Qwest. Onyl time it was down was a cable cut everyone's service.

 

[Sooperbohl]

I have had Vonage for about 3 months now. This is on top of my Comcast Cable. I have experienced no delay, jitter or static. Cant beat the service in my opinion. Sorry Qwest!!!!

Soop

 

[senk1s]

i'd been with vonage for about 9 months ... i think 1 reboot of router ...other than it its great
its on comcast

 

[Dexman]

A former co-worker of mine just started using Vonage at his present employer. He called me last Thursday and asked how well the call sounded.

The quality of the voice transmission was "flat". (Think of a stereo system with the "treble" completely disabled). I asked him if he was calling from a cell phone, but he replied that he was using Vonage. I heard a low level white noise in the background even though the person was in a dead quiet room. The person's voice also experienced drop-offs several times during the course of our conversation.

A current co-worker of mine was working out of his house one evening and was on a conference call with someone who was using Vonage from home. My co-worker said that the quality of the Vonage caller was just plain awful (static, choppy transmission).

My own take on VOIP is that it's a tradeoff. You can realize savings over traditional TDM service, but you are very dependent on your Internet provider and the local power company.

There have been a few examples of people not being able to reach 911 services with VOIP telephone service, resulting in the death of an infant in FL and near deaths of adults in TX.

I've been thinking about trying VOIP, but recent Verizon DSL problems in eastern Massachusetts has me thinking twice about making a change.

I am fairly certain that VOIP will overtake traditional TDM service somewhere down the road. I'll think I'll hold off making a switch until voice quality, better reliability and total E911 coverage has been achieved.

 

[hbiss]

For $14.99 a month and 400 anytime, anywhere in USA minutes sure beats my $30 a month and $.05 Ld from Qwest.

Well don't forget that probably HALF your Qwest $30 bill is taxes, surcharges and other fees mandated by the govennment, charges that Vonage is not required to collect. That's why they can charge only $14.99.

How long do you think it will be before the government gets wise and they too will have to collect these fees?

Enjoy it while you can if you want, free lunches don't last forever.

-Hal

 

[Dexman]

The first bump in rates may come as soon as VOIP providers are forced to pay fees to LECs to access their 911 databases.

 

[edmhtel]

That 911 issue is very important! VoIP 911 Calls are usually routed to a general service number at a precinct, where the recipient has no idea who or where you are unless you are able to tell them. Newspapers in NYC recently reported calls going to a single line POTS phone in a precinct used by cops calling in sick - it's not even manned full time. If a guest or child calls 911 because you're down, it could cost time. If the last thing you can do is dial for yourself before passing out, you're out of luck. Just consider it before going strictly with an internet phone in the house. For my family, I decided 911 should be basic, intuitive, & automatic for every phone all the time.

 

[senk1s]

dexman is right - VoIP will NEVER reach the same Quality as a TDM circuit.
as Skype recently said ... VoIP is not for emergencies - by definition it is 'best effort'

the user has to decide on the importance and ofcourse pay for it ...

crude analogy(probably not a good one) if you want 60,000 mile warranty on the tires drive a passenger car, if it is ok to last a couple of hours you may drive a F1 race car

 

[ISDNman]

avayaconsultant (MIS) writes:
>>>13 Jul 04 23:41
Vonage is the most reliable and best priced service around. I have been on Vonage for almost a year and we have only been off once or twice. As well, the prices were just dropped to offer more competitive rates.

Chris Shelton
Innovative Technology Solutions

http://www.inntechsolutions.net<<<

I am glad Chris is happy, but I've had my wired service for *10 years* and have not been off "once or twice".

I guess people haver just come to expect garbage for service. The vast majority of cable companies wouldn't know good service (for TV, never mind data, telephony, or anything else) if it smacked them on the forehead.

And the point about taxes and regualtory fees is 100% right on. This will change but in the meanwhile everyone is going the "trendy" route.

I just don't se how 5 cents per minute is such a big deal fo rthe average consumer. Sure, if the wife and mother-in-law have to talk 5 hours every day it could add up.