 Review by Dogfather 
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 1.5 years, 684 visits, last login: 137 days ago
 Corona,Riverside,CA
 $29 per month
 about 20 days
 "Reliable, excellent call quality"
 "Price, lack of features"
 "A true alternative to POTS, but expensive compared to crap VoIP providers"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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After the nightmares known as Vonage and ViaTalk I wanted to find a reliable alternative to Verizon POTS. I looked to my cable company Time Warner for their triple play deal. Having 3 services, CATV, HSI and VoIP gives me a $15 discount off all three plus they had a base $99 promo for 12 months.
I signed up for the unlimited California plan which gives me basic features like call forwarding, caller ID etc, plus unlimited calling in California and cheap LD to the rest of the country for $30/mo retail, this is before the bundling discounts or other promotions.
Web-site (1): The website has no little information on the California Unlimited plan and no way to order online. I had to call to order. If not for a much earlier visit to the web-site when it was listed, I would have no idea the plan even existed. That combined with ZERO online features like call-logging, number blocking, etc, the web-site score gets a big fat 1.
Ease of Install (5): Cause I didn't have to install it. The installer just swaps out the cable modem for their combined cable modem, ATA, UPS setup. Took less than 30 minutes to do everything.
Call quality (5): Easily rivals or is superior to POTS and is FAR better than the utter crap call quality I saw with Vonage and ViaTalk that sounded like I was using 2 cans and string.
Reliability (5): For the short time I've had it I haven't had any calls not complete or any call drop. This is a radical change from Vonage and ViaTalk that would ROUTINELY drop calls or fail to complete calls when dialed. The ATA has a built in battery provided better potential reliability compared to competitors. Also they don't use the public internet to complete calls, making ISP performance moot when it comes to call quality.
Tech support (-): No score, haven't needed to call them yet.
Value (3): Turns out you get what you pay for. For a few bucks less you can go with a crap provider like Vonage or ViaTalk and have constantly dropped calls and crappy service. Or for a few bucks cheaper than POTS you can get near POTS reliability with more features. But unlike the crap VoIP providers like ViaTalk, Time Warner VoIP doesn't offer other features like call logging, individual number blocking, custom caller ID and some other features. I'm willing to overlook that and instead prefer to have a service that actually WORKS.
If price is your only concern there are certainly cheaper VoIP providers, but if you need reliability and call quality as well, cable VoIP is a decent alternative to trusty POTS.
Followup comments:  
alpo41
@rr.com
| been with Vonage I have been with Vonage for 3 years now and I am please with the service. The voice is the same as with a reg phone and the only time I lost using the phone was when my cable went down. Vonage then sends the calls to my cell phone what could be better then that, and I only pay $15.00 a month for 500 minutes and I can call anywhere my bill with Verison was $32. Per month and that was only local call I love the money I’m saving | |
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Dogfather
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: been with Vonage Vonage sucks ass. It's overpriced, unreliable and when you try and cancel their horrid retention agents are aggressive and extremely rude. | |
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Aris
@rr.com
| Re: been with Vonage I'm sure some people have had bad experiences with Vonage; there's no service or product that can be universally liked, and with all the troubles and growing pains Vonage has had to go through over the last few years, I'm not surprised at lapses in customer service, and I don't doubt that their agents are trying mightily -- and perhaps too aggressively -- often to retain customers.
That said, the raw hatred expressed every time someone feels compelled to state that "Vonage sucks ass!" makes little sense to me. At least,it totally contradicts my own experience with Vonage.
I have been with Vonage for three years, and I have two lines. Voice quality is as good as any I've had with landlines; the price is incredible, especially since I make lots of international calls; I love getting voicemail as an audio file in my e-mail; I love being able to have one of my numbers ring my cell phone at the same time; I love having a record of who called me and which numbers I have called. I have had occasional problems with the line going dead, but it seems that most of the time the problem is with my Roadrunner connection, and not with Vonage, and rebooting the modem does the trick. When I have called Vonage they answered the phone and I got instant help. My monthly invoice is clear and itemized. All in all I've been very happy and have stayed with them despite the frequent breathless announcements in the press that Vonage is dying.
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Dogfather
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA
 ·Cox HSI
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Cox VOIP
·ViaTalk
·RoadRunner Cable
 ·MegaPath
·Verizon west (ex G..
·Time Warner VOIP
3 edits | Re: been with Vonage AND THEY SUCKED Then register and review them instead of kissing their ass and making excuses for their beyond horrid service in my Time Warner review.
Vonage sucks. They're completely unreliable with calls not coming in, not completing and when it actually did work the call quality is horrible. And no, it's wasn't my connection 'cause I NEVER have any problems with BroadVoice Business Unlimited which I use in my home office on the same HSI service. Vonage was way overpriced, outright lied about their unlimited service being unlimited and their billing always messed up. Their E-911 didn't go to a safety call center, it went to the off hours number of our local Sheriff. Bitchen, when I called to test their horrible E-911, I was met with a recording that the office was closed and if this was an emergency, hang up and dial 9-1-1. Classic Vonage. And when you would dare try and call the dopes at Vonage to fix their huge mess, it was an all day adventure as their customer service is horrible, on hold times extremely long and when you try avoiding calling them they rarely reply to email and when they do, it's from a script that clearly indicated they didn't even bother reading the 2 sentence question I sent. Call quality and reliability nightmares are never resolved because their tech support agents are completely inept (and that is when you can even understand those outsourced idiots). If it's anything other than unplug and plug back in the ATA, they're completely lost. Then when you've finally had enough of their overpriced junkfee filled crapola and try to cancel, their retention agents are rude extremely abusive.
I've had quite a few VOIP provides over the years with both my homes, their home offices and my business (including Broadvoice, ViaTalk, VoicePulse, Vonage, Cox and Time Warner) and never have I had telephony (or any other service for that matter) that was as bad as Vonage. There is no one in the industry as bad at providing a service as they are. They truly are the "Internet Phone Company" 'cause everything that the phone company does wrong, like horrible customer service and endless junk fees, Vonage does 10X worse. And being overpriced would be tolerable (like it is with Cox and Time Warner) but the service itself was beyond bad and in the case of Vonage E911 life threatening.
So don't bother trolling in here with your stories of Vonage greatness. I have first hand experience in the nightmare known as Vonage. | |
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SatisfiedHere
@sky.com
| Re: been with Vonage AND THEY SUCKED I've had Vonage for 2.5 years and had one outage that I noticed. I carry the ATA with me when I travel and have used the service in several countries other than the US. Apparently I'm one of the few to whom they provide this level of service. Obviously I am less worried about E911 but am required by law to pay for it anyway. Should I be denouncing Vonage since they are obliged to collect the fee?
Mind you, I've never tried to use it on a cable connection that offers an alternative service. Might be different under those conditions.
Dave Beck
Currently sitting in London with my Vonage line. | |
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