Jahntassa
What, I can have feathers
join:2006-04-14
Conyers, GA | 'Special Rate'?
Just got an email from Vonage about a 'special 20% savings' if I did an annual plan vs. monthly. $239.99/year vs $299.88/yr.
Is this really 'special', or what? |
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Erg is anon
@cogentco.com | thats the regualr annual prepay plan and its $239.99 + taxes |
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mecha50
join:2004-06-11
Daly City, CA | reply to Jahntassa
It's like paying $19.95 / month if you opted to be under the annual plan.
In addition to Erg's reply, you will also be paying the fees (911, state, FCC fees, etc.) in an annual basis. |
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NumberStruck
join:2007-08-01
Johnson City, NY
| said by mecha50  :It's like paying $19.95 / month if you opted to be under the annual plan. In addition to Erg's reply, you will also be paying the fees (911, state, FCC fees, etc.) in an annual basis. Those really add up. My final cost for the $239.99 annual plan was $318.32! about 33% in taxes and other 'gotchas'!!! I still ended up saving about $6/month compared to the monthly plan, but 80 bucks in taxes was shocking. |
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Enlightener
join:2006-01-28
Cedar Park, TX
 ·AT&T U-Verse
edit:
June 12th, @09:28AM
| I was thinking about switching to the 1 year plan but I saw some verbage that really annoyed me. I'd quote it but Vonage's support site is down. It basically said something to the effect of `although you are prepaying for the year, we may charge you additional tax/fees every month`.
Huh?
I love how these `non-tax/unfee's` can be adjusted and billed to you monthly, even if you are under contract. Seems like Vonage is starting to be a bit like the phone company. |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Castle Rock, CO
| said by Enlightener :Seems like Vonage is starting to be a bit like the phone company. "The phone company" is one of the most financially stable companies around. It creates hundreds of thousands of jobs for US citizens, is a tremendous supporter of charitable causes, generates tons of tax revenues for local governments, and is a positive contributor to millions of retirement plans. By contrast, Vonage is close to going bust.
Discussion topic: If you were running Vonage, and were attempting to assure its long term viability, would you continue to do what you had been doing (which wasn't working so well balance sheet wise), or would you instead try to be more like "the phone company"? |
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Mediocrates
join:2008-05-27
Raleigh, NC
 ·Vonage
·AT&T CallVantage
| reply to Jahntassa
Well that depends. Phone companies rely on legislated tariffs that guaranty an RoR on their investment. This is what allows them to have investment horizons that sometimes extend 100 years. After all, it was just recently that telcos stopped recovering for DTMF which was originally tariff'd in 1962. And just last year or the year before Congress finally compelled the end of a tax that was originally collected in 1899 to pay for the Spanish American War.
I'm the biggest hater of junk fees, garbage taxes, tax surchases, taxes on top of taxes but at the end of the day the key business driver that telcos have for breaking up their charges this way is that, not to put too fine a point on it, so they can lie to you about the rates.
That 46.95 or 49.95 monthly is really about 76 dollars. That 'one size fits all' rate doesn't include a 20% adder on top of that which includes a lot of murky garbage you ASSUME is a tax beyond their control, but often it's not. But if the telco wasn't able to disaggregate all that junk they'd be forced to advertise what the real rate to you is, and that's not pretty. |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Castle Rock, CO
| said by Mediocrates : But if the telco wasn't able to disaggregate all that junk they'd be forced to advertise what the real rate to you is, and that's not pretty. So if you were the boss of Vonage -- and had to find a way to reduce churn and increase revenues -- what would you do: announce a rate increase or add on junk fees? |
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Mediocrates
join:2008-05-27
Raleigh, NC | reply to Jahntassa
Again that depends. Some people like rebates some people like a lower up front price. Me? Not a big fan of rebates be they for cars, hardware or telco services. |
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Enlightener
join:2006-01-28
Cedar Park, TX
·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to RockyBB
If I was in charge...
Everyone hates junk fees, so stop being chicken about shunning them.
Sell theproduct on value added features and stop trying to be bargain basement pricing.
They've done a great job of showing how the phone company charges for extra features where Vonage is included. Extended that to the billing side.
Personally, I'd pay $40/flat instead of $25 + junk = $32. I'd pay a little more if visual voice mail was flat rate priced. |
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