Kevin: Yeah, the problem was that I didn’t have old messages set to go to that folder. I had them set to get deleted. Ugh.

Everyone: Thanks very much for the tips on Vonage. The feature set is definitely compelling enough for me to use it. My main question is quality. If it’s cell-phone quality, then it’s a no-go. If it proves as reliable, crystal-clear, and delay-free as a land line, then I’m all for it. From what I can tell, a lot of that seems to depend on how good your internet connection is. I’m getting 7 megabit DSL installed so hopefully that will render quality a non-issue.

THINGS YOU NEEEEED TO KNOW ABOUT VONAGE!

I have used them for a few years. For the mosty part I have been happy with their service, HOWEVER, they left me without a phone for almost a month! I found out the hard way recently that they have THE WORST support that you will ever find.

I feel horrible that I recommended their service to so many of my friends.

If you plan on never having a problem, especially with bad hardware, then Vonage is great. But for me support and a billing department that doesn’t LIE is equally important.

I’m currently looking into Packet8 and some other VOIP providers.

Collin

For most outbound calls there is a little fuzzines in the sound that clears up in a few seconds then the quality is great both ways.

On a few inbound calls I will hear some weird sound and need to call the person back to clear it up. They never hear it on their side.

I recommend you shop around a bit. This is a young technology and is certainly worth it in LD savings but don’t expect to never have a few glitches.

I signed up for vonage and ported over my 212 number and never looked back. I have referred the service to some family members and the 2 free months service is definetley worth the referrals. A lot of people on forums and even in your comments suggest customer service “sucks” but I have found that if you email them or call the response is slow but usually you can figure out the problem.

Quality has never been a factor except for once when 2 computers were on my wifi network downloading at the same time – I noticed some quality degradation, but the other person could not tell. I have a cable connection with Time Warner cable and a family member has Cable with Road Runner – both provide crystal clear sound.

In my case they gave me a linksys VOIP box capable of connecting to my Linksys wifi box with no problems and even has capabilities to add another line (voice or fax) I would check which hardware you will be sent as this may also be a factor in your decision.

Also – just so I dont sound selfish – you might as well signup for Vonage under SOMEONES affiliate link because its free for you and great for them. (Let me know if you need help finding one;)

Eric, True that they are slow. I don’t want to get into great detail but their support is more then slow. Contacting them online will never get a response. Maybe it did once but last month I never heard back after emailing 3 different departments several times.

When I did call them, they charged my card $99 without telling me about it! My call got disconnected before a resolution was made so I had to wait another hour to get someone on the phone again. I found out that it’s a big game where you never know who you are going to get. The best you could hope for is someone in the NJ main support center but they have hundreds of less then adequately trained Indian staffers that you often get sent to. I was told lies by at least 3 different people who claimed to have spoken with superiors about the charge on my card being removed but I am sure that none of them ever did. The billing department gave me trouble about getting my money back even after the defective hardware was sent out.. AND I was lied to about the new hardware going out next day air. THEN I was lied to about getting full credit for the month for both of my phone lines. (First there was no mention of it put on my account and then only 1 line was credited to my account)

They waited until the defective hardware was recieved, it went out ground and they didn’t show it received in their records even after UPS showed it was signed for. They waited 2 days then sent out the new hardware through the USPS!!

It was almost 3 full weeks of being without a phone. I spoke with at least 15 different people, if not more. During that time there was only 1 person in NJ who has been there long enough to know their systems. And as nice as they guy was, he was the last one who told me that a full credit for the month would be added to my account. I was charged 2 days later, for $25 and change.

I am using Vonage for now and the service is currently working fine. I have lost all faith in their customer service and supprt though.

(I like your work.) Was vectored to your site via Google when trying to resolve a multiple router issue with … Vonage.

So here’s my two cents about Vonage. In general, the service is average (3 on a 1 to 5), better than Cellular, but not as good as dialup. I currently have 4 vonage lines on 3 different routers and am pushing the limits I think. The FAX service is pretty spotty and I frequently have to try mutiple times to get it to work – this is a known issue.

If you just want to set up 1 or 2 business lines and you can put the Vonage router right behind your cable/dsl router, you should be fine. I’d be sure you had avreliable uplink speed of 256K, more if you need to put files while talking. For the arrangement above I have 6mb down and 756 up. I never get the 6 (more like 2.5 – bastards) but usually get 800 up.

You may want to check out Speakeasy.net. They are out of Seattle, have great quality and customer service, but don’t support faxes ( … probably because it doesn’t work reliably) I am thinking of switching my service over to them (because of the multiple router issue).

Scott

PS – Love the picture of gasworks. Am living in San Diego now, but was born and raised in Seattle and miss it frequently.