bellhater
Premium
join:2003-10-08
canada
1 edit |  Vonage failed in Newfoundland!
After so many promises broken by the heads up high in Vonage, I am breaking my silence and admitting that I have successfully convinced 7 retail outlets (big ones), in Newfoundland to pull all their Vonage inventory off their shelves. The reason you ask? When Vonage made their pitch to get into the Big retailers in Canada, they promised they would provide access to all areas the devices would be sold. They promised within 1 year, and that was over a year and half ago. I have talked to Managers at many local outlets that sold the device, and all except for 1 location have agreed to pull the equipment off their shelves and to store them out of site of the customers. They will not refuse the sale of the items if someone asks to make the purchase, however it is bad practice to sell a partial service. Though Vonage works from any location, the draw to use their device has been the ability to have a local access number or port the number you own to their service. Vonage personally wrote and described how they were working with local providers to obtain access to services in St. John's Newfoundland and that they would have an agreement in place by December 2008. This letter to me was a reply and was presented to me in e-mail form back in October 2007. It is now October 2009 over two years ago that e-mail was sent to me, and I was urged to hang in that it was coming soon.
I have waited long enough, I am mad that Vonage continues to fail in their promises to make progress, and I do not support the sale of their devices in areas that local access numbers are not available. If I wanted a cheap foreign exchange line fine, but who the hell wants a Halifax number for people in Newfoundland to call. Seriously.
Now that I have released this statement to the public board, I will be in constant contact with each retail location to ensure they do not act in any way nor offer to put this inventory back out in public view till Vonage offers the proper service for St Johns Newfoundland.
PS: Another item to mention, VONAGE, take the "NEW" tags off your VISUAL VOICEMAIL, its been new over a year!!! This is a poor example of PROGRESS! |
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PX Eliezer
Premium
join:2008-08-09
New Jersey
 ·Callcentric
·Optimum Voice
·callwithus
·voip.ms
| I am absolutely not a Vonage fan (even though I live near their HQ) but I am puzzled.
a) Are you a private citizen who has somehow embarked on this as a personal crusade?
b) Are there any VoIP providers that are currently providing DID's in Newfoundland? If not, does this not say that it is proving an insurmountable market to break into, perhaps because the local LEC's are not cooperative?! I am sure that Vonage would love to serve this market if it could. They are businessmen, after all, and don't want to chase away customers.
c) Being that you are from Florida (FL rather than NL) what's up with that?!
d) Observation: If anyone comes into stores here in New Jersey and demands that they take products off the shelves, that person would be arrested, or sent to hospital, or would go for a short ride with a guy named Vinnie.  |
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snolsen
join:2004-01-10
Hanford, CA | reply to bellhater
What is St Johns Newfoundland? This peep sounds like quite the crusader. Taking care of those poor Canadians. Maybe a Nobel is deserved. |
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bellhater
Premium
join:2003-10-08
canada
| Yes there are other companies that offer DIDs like Voxbone and others, but Vonage wishes not to venture into this area because they don't get along well with Rogers who owns those voip did's.
And yes I am a private citizen living in Newfoundland and I have a place in Orlando. I have loads of influence here in St. John's because of my position that I work here with the City. I don't like it when a company comes into my city saying they will offer something and then fail. I have been watching and waiting in disappointment to see Vonage come in with something new market for our city and they have failed us.
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strange_69
join:2001-08-07
Ridgecrest, CA
·Vonage
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to bellhater
Have you thought about bringing your massive power to bear on Rogers? Obviously they are the ones who are not playing nice here. Do you really think that Vonage would voluntarily turn down potential customers? I think that if you (or anyone else) were to look into the situation you would find that Vonage is trying to make progress and that Rogers is fighting them. I've seen things like this happen in the States. ISPs that also have a voip product blocking Vonage or POTS dragging their feet on porting phone numbers etc. Vonage then gets all of the blame even though they are doing everything that they can to make it work out. Just something to think about. BTW I have had nothing but good luck with Vonage, so maybe, some day if this network neutrality thing goes through Rogers and all of the other ISPs that are messing with Vonage will have to stop it and then you will get the service that you want. Good Luck
--
Vonage user since Mar 2004. |
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bellhater
Premium
join:2003-10-08
canada
| Here is the issue,
I have talked to the NOC on Kenmount Road where the VOIP services are coming from here in ST. John's and they said that they offered Vonage a very favorable rate and Vonage never came back to sign on. It was 22% cheaper than HALIFAX with STAR NET and BELL. So whats the excuse for Vonage now?
See they know that they don't have a market here.. Well they don't because no one wants outside of the province numbers. Newfoundlanders are like that, they want LOCAL. So they have to put the local numbers in FIRST before we bite here!!! Thats the mentality here!!!!!
So Vonage jump and get it done, I have done my research, you guys are dragging your feet when you should be running!!! |
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PX Eliezer
Premium
join:2008-08-09
New Jersey
·Callcentric
·Optimum Voice
·callwithus
·voip.ms
| First, I have never seen any proof that any Vonage execs read this forum.
Why not write to someone like Marc Lefar, their CEO, at their world headquarters here in Holmdel, New Jersey.
Second, although it would be nice for Newfoundlanders to have Vonage, why are you placing all your hopes on one company?
Why not write to the folks who run Voip.MS which is a rapidly growing Canadian Voip provider based in Montreal.
And CallCentric, a very good Voip company based in New York with a smart management team. CallCentric offers DID's in many places, so maybe they'd consider adding Canada's 10th province. They recently did a major expansion into Canada.
There is MUCH more to VoIP than Vonage. |
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nonymous
join:2003-09-08
Glendale, AZ
| reply to bellhater
I may sort of get what you are saying. Correct me if wrong.
Someone walks into a local retailer and sees a Vonage box. Thinks Vonage is large and is selling it locally so must have local numbers. Buy the Vonage equipment then goes home to activate it then there are no local numbers.
So it is not that you really care if Vonage is there or not. Just that if they are selling in local retail stores it is implying they are locally available? Sort of deceptive. So either remove the devices from the shelves or maybe put up a big warning there are no local numbers available so buy it if you do not care about having a local number? |
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La Luna
Surviving Ashraful
Premium
join:2001-07-12
Warwick, NY
clubs:
 ·Optimum Online
·Vonage
1 edit | reply to bellhater
Maybe it isn't worth it to Vonage to try and provide (fight for) local numbers if there aren't enough customers in that area to warrant it. And now there never will be because one person apparently runs the show and made the decision for everyone? 
There's got to be more to this than just a lack of "local numbers", that's ridiculous. |
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prestonlewis
Premium,MVM
join:2003-04-13
Sacramento, CA
·VoiceStick
1 edit | reply to bellhater
said by bellhater  :Well they don't because no one wants outside of the province numbers. Newfoundlanders are like that, they want LOCAL. So they have to put the local numbers in FIRST before we bite here!!! If I were in Newfoundland, I'd be pretty pissed off at some local guy who writes about knowing what I want & like.
Just my opinion.
Just what do you do in "linguistics" anyway? |
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N9MD
Premium
join:2005-10-08
Wayne, NJ
·VOIPo
·ViaTalk
·PHONE POWER
·Callcentric
1 edit | said by prestonlewis :If I were in Newfoundland, I'd be pretty pissed off at some local guy who writes about knowing what I want & like. Just maybe, you are missing the OP's point. He seems to be acting altruistically rather than out of spite ... (1) by investigating the reasons for no DID availability in NF and (2) by communicating with Vonage to try to remedy the situation; and (3) by alerting retailers to the problem of no DID availability in NF.
If you read recent posts about MagicJack, NetTalk, Voxox, SipGate ... you will note that the complaint of "no local DIDs" is mentioned again and again. Put yourself in a Newfoundlander's shoes. You hear about a less expensive US telephone provider (Vonage) that has a large presence throughout the US --- and learn that this provider also markets its product in Canada. So you hoof it over to a local retail outlet in St. Johns and buy the adapter. Upon setting it up, you discover that there are no available DIDs in your rate center ... and worse, there are no available DIDs your entire province --- a province in Canada equating to a state in the US.
So now, all of your family, friends and colleagues who live in St. Johns (and in the entire Province of Newfoundland) must dial a long distance DID to reach you. The OP specifically mentioned that the DID supplied by Vonage was in Halifax ... which is in another province --- Nova Scotia.
How would any of us feel if we lived in Sacramento CA and our VoIP provider could only offer DIDs in Portland OR?!
[Hmmm! Sounds familiar: MagicJack, NetTalk, Voxox, SipGate.]
Preston ... do you truly feel that JSB825's fellow citizens would be irked by his sincere efforts to alert them to what many would think is an unfair marketing practice? If I lived in St. Johns, I for one would be delighted if the local electronics dealer would at least post a disclaimer by the Vonage packages informing potential customers that local DIDs are not available. |
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Toollio
join:2003-11-17
Brazil/Cda
2 edits | I don't know why anyone in Canada would want Vonage, in any event. Their pricing is absurdly high relative to their services in other countries (even with the Canadian dollar near parity with the U.S. dollar). They don't offer any of the attractive calling plans available from Vonage elsewhere--such as the world plan in the U.S. And they aren't even competitive on features.
I've been a customer for five years and am about to abandon Vonage. I have already purchased a calling plan that gives me more than 60 countries and a DID for about what I pay for Vonage Canada's U.S-Canada calling plan. And with that plan I can get many more VOIP features and more flexibility with a SIP-based provider.
If you can find a DID in Newfoundland elsewhere, just give up on the Vonage idea.
I know Nfld DIDs are not easy to find. But they seem to be offered in Saint Johns by www.phonext.com and www.voipvoip.com among others. |
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