Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)In fairness, I am a new Vonage customer, having signed up April 27, 2009. Within 48 hours after signing up, I received this new adapter (paid $9 and change for it - was a Vonage deal) and hooked it up to an ethernet switch. Hooked up a corded phone to the device, and had dial tone. I kept this hook-up for 3 weeks, making LOTS of phonecalls and sending faxes to be sure I was ready to say bye-bye to my Verizon landline ($42 a month and never touch the phone for an outgoing call because of the costs involved). I have a networked setup: Modem --> Wired Router --> Ethernet Switch --> Vonage adapter. (I also have a wireless access point connected to my wired router,just to be precise.)
There are 3 PCs hard-wired and 1 wireless laptop. My cable provider is Cablevision (Optimum Online) at 10Mbps down and 3Mbps up.
Service is great. You could not tell between Vonage or the landline. The only issue I had was with faxing via my Canon MP780 all-in-one (outgoing faxes would not complete), and that wound up being just a matter of shutting down and re-starting my Canon. If you have this issue, please do not make yourself crazy changing your fax baud rates or ECM to off until you shut down your fax, remove all cables, replace cables and restart your fax. When I changed my baud rate from 33000 to 9600 because of many, many threads on the net, my fax capability was completely crippled. Now, it works great. And I don't have a dedicated fax line, it's done through my regular voice VOIP line.
After the 3 weeks, we cancelled the landline, disconnected the incoming Telco lines from the house, and then plugged the Vonage adapter into our phone jacks which back-feeds the signal through all of the phone jacks.
I have spoken to customer service for matters relating to my office (which also uses Vonage on 3 lines) and customer service has always been helpful and polite and there pretty much without a wait. Nice to have them available 24 hours, 7 days a week, if you did need them (better have a cell phone too though -- duh!)
I also have the line split and going to my Dish Network ViP722 DVR, which enables the ViP722's on-screen caller id. (So it is compatible--could not confirm this prior to trying it myself.)
As for complaints from others about bad sound quality, please realize that the service will be as good as your internet connection. If you don't have a stable, strong connection -- do not bother with VOIP. And, DSL filters can interfere with the signal, so read up on that. And never, ever plug these adapters into telephone jacks that still have Telco lines connected to them outside -- you can short out your equipment.
I got the $9.95 a month for 3 months deal, and thereafter it will be $24.99 (approx. $32 with tax). I did not port my home telephone number because the Vonage site informed me it was not available, but I was able to search through loads of telephone numbers and pick one that was memorable. Yes, I am in it for 2 years or I will fax a $39.99 disconnect fee. But, as far as I concerned, Verizon violated me for years with its fees and nickel-and-diming for every feature and call. I have to say that I wanted to try Vonage when it first came out, but was hesitant. Since my office has had it for over 2 years now, I decided to just do it myself.
Besides the many features listed on the website, you have access to alpha features like Vonage Fax (free outgoing faxes through your PC) and Vonage Talk.
Also, others here have complained that your trial starts as soon as you order, even though you don't have your adapter yet -- but you immediately can make calls through your computer with a headset. They assign a temporary number if you are porting your own, and the service and online features are instantly accessible.
And, as for the disconnect fee of $39.95, it's still less than what your cell phone provider would charge, so what's the big deal? You can't have everything.
Oh, the adapter...forgot what I was reviewing! The adapter is great. You have an orange backlit screen that shows the date and whether you have missed calls. It has built in caller-id, and you can initiate a call-back right from the adapter itself (your home phone will ring to tell you it's calling the number back). It has some other features too, like calling weather and traffic for free, and you can call your voicemail too.
Highly recommended. If you want to try it, try to do so without porting your number (check if you can port it free after you're sure it works well for you.) Try it risk-free (but keep an eye on the calendar!).
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