 Review by UglyDork 
UPDATED: 227 days ago
member for 7.8 years, 3006 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Buffalo,Erie,NY
 $27 per month
 "Everything"
 "Nothing"
 "Works better than expected"
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Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
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6/19-I purchased Vonage online via Circuit City's site and setup in store pickup for that same day. Later that morning, picked up equipment.
I had already wired my phones/basement for Vonage. Unpacked equipment went to vonage.com/activate per the instructions. Activated product. While I was doing some last minute finishing work in the wiring, I connect to the box to my network per the instructions. It synced up almost instantly.
My setup is Cable Modem (Adelphia)-->Motorola-->NetGear Router-->PC's.
As soon as I noticed the MTA had sync, I placed a call and it worked perfectly.
No need to configure anything. Just activate product, connect to your network, reboot and you're done.
I have Adelphia's 3000/256 package. I set the call quality to the medium settings. I was downloading at 300+kbps while talking on the phone, no problems at all.
Vonage also has 7 digit dialing now which works great.
The Vonage web site is also very easy to use.
Once the service is working, you will need to log onto the Vonage site and active some of the options. I don't use the voice mail feature of Vonage as we use the family answering machine.
I did register for the 911 service.
Monday I am faxing in my line porting information so Vonage will transfer over my existing land line.
Currently, Vonage gives me a temp phone number. Verizon (land line) offers free call forwarding so I setup all calls coming into my land line to be forwarded to my temp Vonage #. That way, this enter transfer process is transparent to everyone. No need to inform people of my temp phone #.
Update - 10/31/2007
I've had Vonage for a few years now. Everything is going great. Sure I have the occasional outage, but when that happens Vonage automatically forwards all my home calls to my cell, so it's not a huge deal.
I recently changed from the unlimited plan to the 500 minute plan. I was looking at my usage minutes and noticed historically I never used 500 minutes a month, so it was an easy way to save some money.
I moved into a new house, service still works fine. I updated the 911 profile to reflect my new address, although I haven't tested it yet. We are an e911 area now too.
I have only 1 line, but I do occasionally connect a fax machine to it which works just fine as well.
My new ISP (Time Warner) now offers an IP phone, but price-wise it can’t compete. They try to sweeten the deal by offering a higher speed internet tier for free, but my current speeds are fine for my needs, so I’ll stick with Vonage…at least until they get run out of business by all the pending law suits! 
I still recommend the service to everyone who asks about it.
Update - 02/18/08
Shortly after moving into new house, the LAN ports my Linksys RT31P2 died which forced me to change my network config a little. The service is great though. Cheap price, reliable. I'm very satisfied with it. I did find a user selling a Motorola VT2442 on my local craigslist site that I may purchase.
Update - 08/22/08
Still working great. Wish it had a few more features such as call blocking. 911 works great, call quality and uptime are great. Price is great. I love it.
Update - 03/26/09
Still satisfied with the server, but am looking for cheaper alternatives. Not too happy with my new adapter because I can't specifiy 3rd party DNS. Not a deal breaker, but annoying.
Currently looking into switching to Ooma.
Overall I'm still happy with the service.
Followup comments:  Rob2647
join:2008-08-12
Rochester, MI | Good to hear I have Vonage too, for almost a year. Not a single outage on my end due to Vonage itself. If there is one, it's due to my problematic ISP | |
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