An Honest Review of Vonage: A feature-rich, World-ready VoIP With more players jumping into the already populated space ofVoice over the Internet Protocol (VoIP), the perceptive user hasthat much more choice. Vonage is a leading player in thismarketplace with over a million subscribers worldwide in a shortlifespan of three years. However, there is a set of negativestoo, so wait until you reach the end of this review before youdecide to switch from your traditional landline service toVonage telephony.
What is Vonage and how does it differ from your landlineconnection? For a start, you must have a broadband connection,preferably cable-based; a dial-up is no good. When you callVonage customer service for a connection, Vonage sends you atiny box, which you have to plug to your telephone and yourcable modem or DSL. You are now set to start a Vonageconversation. With a Vonage connection, you have access to yourtelephone through your computer and the broadband connection.The other big difference from a traditional phone service iscost effectiveness; with a Vonage, you can cut your telephonebill significantly, and converse worldwide by buying localtelephone numbers from Vonage.
Vonage offers a set of four monthly packages for all calls inthe US, Canada, and Puerto Rico: a premium unlimited offer atUS$24.99, a basic plan of 500 minutes at US$14.99, asmall-business unlimited package at US$49.99, and a basicsmall-business offer of 1500 minutes at US$39.99. For calls fromthe US to other world destinations, there is a nominalper-minute rate applicable, which is well below what you wouldpay to your landline service provider. For example, for aminute's call to Mumbai (India), you need to pay only US$0.17;for a call to the UK, it is as low as US$0.04 per minute. TheVonage Website lists the charges applicable to each city on
itsnetwork. Perhaps the best part of Vonage is that you can carryyour US telephone number to any part of the world with broadbandconnectivity, and call the US at local call rates. For anyreason, if you are dissatisfied with Vonage services, you canopt for the 14-day (or 30-day for some packages) money-backoffer. This trial period is enough time to try out the excellentfeatures that you get with Vonage:
* An unlisted telephone number
* Call waiting, callerID
* Call forwarding, 7-digit dialing (rather than area code+number used in many markets, including Lingo)
* An innovative voicemail feature
* Repeat dial
* Dynamic periodic feature updates
However, Vonage is not all positives. Its founding premise is abit wobbly; your connection is afloat only as long as yourbroadband connection is. Any Internet outage and Vonage willcease to function. Call quality is also dependent on the speedof your broadband. Then there is the question of availability ofa local number for your city; Vonage may not have your citylisted, so you should confirm this with Vonage customer supportbefore deciding on the service. Vonage is facing sterncompetition from AT&T and Verizon, and users have preferred thecall quality of AT&T to that of Vonage. Vonage is also not thecheapest VoIP service around in the marketplace.
However, Vonage is a winner on features. If you have adependable broadband connection, need to make frequentinternational calls, and travel to world destinations but needto stay in touch with the US, Vonage is for you.
About the author:
Hamesh Brown enjoys writing about VoIP. For more information,see this
Vonage review.
