After getting phone bills for $80+ dollars for the last few months, I decided it was time to fix this. Hopefully you’re bill is not quite that high, but with frequent calls to Canada and across the US having an unlimited plan was necessary. Lots of people have been talking about Voice over IP (VoIP) and in particular Vonage. Now seemed like a good time to try it out.
Vonage has a trial period where you can return the device no questions asked if you do not like it. I believe it lasts 14 days and you have to stay under some number of minutes (a couple hundred). I placed my order for an unlimited US and Canada plan ($25/month), and received the starter kit after about a week. The signup fee plus equipment came to about $70. You may be able to get some kind of deal on the signup. Another incentive they give you is a free month if you are referred by someone.
Setup was a breeze. I received a Linksys Broadband Router that I simply plugged into my existing network and then plugged a phone into it. I was able to make calls in no time. The quality is great, absolutely no difference than a standard landline. I’ve heard of others having some trouble with quality, so it really comes down to how good your internet connection is. Luckily I have a very solid Comcast connection.
I’ve only run into one issue so far. For 911 dialing, they ask you to enter your address before activation. So far they have been unable to find my address. Living in a newer area seems to be the issue. Since we know we’re moving within a month, I don’t see this as a major issue.
My next project with my new VoIP connection is to get in hooked up into backup power. Most standard telephones do not go down when the power goes out, so I’d like to have the same thing with Vonage. This means my computer network + cable modem + VoIP box must all be on backup power supplies. Luckily I have 4 UPS’s laying around…
Going from $80+/month to $25/month is a huge savings. That’s $660/year.
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If you’re also looking for different deals other than Vonage, you can look at Packet8 (http://www.packet8.net) which I’ve used previously. It was slightly limited on the number of features they give you for free, but for $19.99 it was a good deal to call US and Canada unlimited.
Since I like getting the biggest bang for my buck, I’ve switched to BroadVoice (http://www.broadvoice.com) and they offer calling to 21 foreign countries including the US and Canada for $19.99. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but you can call the listed foreign countries they offer for unlimited at the flat rate fee. Most services will charge you like 2-5 cents a minute, but this service is free if your country is included. Amazing… and they offer a lot more online features than Packet8 did. You can check your voicemail by logging in online and listen to a streamed WMA file. Also, you get caller ID with name recognition which is slightly better since if someone new is calling you can see name or location they are calling from. Voice quality is decent, probably not as good as Vonage, but I’m a practical person, I can settle for calling Taiwan for a flat rate.
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[...] A couple months ago, I realized that I had not looked at our cell phone and landline plans to see if our usage matched our plans. Like I’ve talked about in a post on Vonage, we decided to go with Vonage mainly because we needed an inexpensive way to call Canada. [...]
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