Internet Phone Service

MikePA · Jun 13, 2003

I just came across this service and thought it was worth sharing. I haven't signed up yet, but I am seriously thinking about it. I am not affiliated with the company, etc. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

If you have;

(1) Broadband connection and
(2) More than $26 or $40 in monthly long distance charges or
(3) Have a business toll free number,

you should investigate Vonage.

For $26/month (500 nationwide LD minutes per month) or $40/month (unlimited LD) they send you a device (Cisco ATA-186) that 'translates' digital into analog and vice versa. One side of this device plugs into a router, any standard phone plugs into the other side. You use the Internet to make all your calls. According to reports I have read, the sound quality is at least as good as a standard phone line. Internet phones got a bad reputation for sound quality when they used dial up lines. A broadband connection solves this problem.

The really neat thing about this service is that you can pick any phone number, in any area code you want (as long as it's not being used by someone else). This lets you do the following. Say your parents live in area code 412 and you live in area code 717. You pick a phone number with area code 412 and, poof, they call a local number to talk to you. For $5.00 per month each, you can have as many virtual phone numbers you want. This would allow small businesses, who have toll free numbers, to replace them with a local number in every area code they serve.

This information is kept in the ATA-186, so you can take it with you on trips. Any place you can get a broadband connection, you can make toll free calls, even overseas.

This service would eliminate the time restrictions most cellular services place on their free nights and weekend plans as well as allow you to use a standard phone.

heehaw · Jun 13, 2003

have you looked at the programs MCI and SWB are offering?? $50. a month for unlimited ld and your local phone service too......i have some family members that hooked up on the mci plan and love it...saving them about $75-$100 a month over what they where paying....
heehaw

MikePA · Jun 13, 2003

have you looked at... 
I haven't, but I will. Almost all of our ld charges are within the same area code. We live in an area where there are three phone systems and everyone my wife and kids want to talk to live in one of the other phone system areas.

shado · Jun 13, 2003

Naw, just another gadget that really does'nt sink in how much it really costs unless you look at it from a yearly prospective. You can do the same thing with each party having a computer, a software program does all that translation from voice to bits, no need for a seperate device. And with what a basic computer costs these days, even from a retailer, you can finance the thing AT NO INTEREST for up to two years (someplaces). So grandma, who still does not know how to program the VCR, can use the computer to store all those recipes & print them out for friends & relatives, while laughing at all the webcam shots of the grandkids messy faces. I took the big leap & went full celluar for my phone service, I can call ANYBODY (USA) with no toll charges, unlimited nights & weekends, multi-state roaming coverage, voice mail, 24 hour unlimited family talk, 500 shared minutes, etc., for $30 a phone (and that's with the TAX included). When I kept having trouble with my landline & finally made the decision to cut-the-cord, the phone company wanted to backtrack & 'stick-it-to-me' with past service call charges, when it was THEIR buried phone line that was causing all the trouble. And they wonder why landline phone customers are starting to disappear.
J.W.

r0GuE · Jun 17, 2003

Typically these things work fairly well when new, but when they get enough users on the portal out of the IP network and to the PSTN (public switched telephone network) then people get blocked calls and very poor service. I am watching this one though. My company is looking at doing a similar offering but we are not yet sure if there is market for it. People will tolerate poor service if it is cheap enough, but they will NOT tolerate sporatic outages with voice. You'd really like to have 911 work when you need it.
A dual offering is really the best of both worlds.

AndyM · Jul 4, 2003

( have you looked at the programs MCI and SWB are offering?? $50. a month for unlimited ld and your local phone service too...... )

I would very much like to have this service, but it's not offered in my town. Sprint is my LOCAL phone service, and it appears to be the only option. It's terrible! If I didn't need dial-up for the computer, I'd only keep a cell phone as my home phone service.

DavidJ · Jul 5, 2003

Get one of those multi thousand minute plans and a cellular/PCS modem if your service is strong enough and then you could drop your land line /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif