UKVoIPTalk.com

Hi all, a friend of mine was thinking of getting Vonage to replace his
normal Telewest service.
I've done a bit of Googling, but wonder whether anyone has any comments,
good or bad.
Thanks,
John

"John Orrett" <johnorrett@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in
message
news:yM2sh.96882$MO2.12247@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk[color=blue]
> Hi all, a friend of mine was thinking of getting Vonage
> to replace his normal Telewest service.
> I've done a bit of Googling, but wonder whether anyone
> has any comments, good or bad.
> Thanks,
> John[/color]

Ok if you're going to make the number of calls required to justify the
rather high monthly charge. Otherwise there are a lot of cheaper
alternatives.

Ivor

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:25:02 GMT, John Orrett
<johnorrett@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Hi all, a friend of mine was thinking of getting Vonage to replace his
>normal Telewest service.
>I've done a bit of Googling, but wonder whether anyone has any comments,
>good or bad.
>Thanks,
>John[/color]
Vonage is nothing short of excellent John some people here will say it
is expensive but anyone who says 28PENCE a day is expencive are tight
wads .
I have just closed my Vonage account and will be closing my other VOIP
accounts shortly only because I had a BT line re connected today ,I am
after getting shut of my Blueyonder broadband account and see no point
in having VOIP and also a BT line .
There are also people here who are very much anti Vonage take no
notice of them .

Thus spaketh John Orrett:[color=blue]
> Hi all, a friend of mine was thinking of getting Vonage to replace his
> normal Telewest service.
> I've done a bit of Googling, but wonder whether anyone has any
> comments, good or bad.
> Thanks,
> John[/color]

Vonage is fine if you make enough calls, as it's not cheap,

There are plenty of other good VoIP providers out there, that I'd
consider first, but it all depends on the number of calls made.

Vonage like to advertise some free features, yet most of these are
features of VoIP and you get them free anyway.


--
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On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:17:22 GMT, [email]N.Dexter@preston.no-ip.co.uk[/email] wrote:
[color=blue]
>On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:25:02 GMT, John Orrett
><johnorrett@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>Hi all, a friend of mine was thinking of getting Vonage to replace his
>>normal Telewest service.
>>I've done a bit of Googling, but wonder whether anyone has any comments,
>>good or bad.
>>Thanks,
>>John[/color]
>Vonage is nothing short of excellent John some people here will say it
>is expensive but anyone who says 28PENCE a day is expencive are tight
>wads .
>I have just closed my Vonage account and will be closing my other VOIP
>accounts shortly only because I had a BT line re connected today ,I am
>after getting shut of my Blueyonder broadband account and see no point
>in having VOIP and also a BT line .
>There are also people here who are very much anti Vonage take no
>notice of them .[/color]
I'm not anti-Vonage but I am anti-wasteMoney. I like to get a similar
service for the best price I can get.
Vonage is 799p/month.
I pay 2p/call with the provider I use. Same cost to anywhere in Europe
or the US.
So, for me, I'd have to be making at least 400 calls/month to make
Vonage viable.
Alternatively, with voip.co.uk, there is a UK pack deal where you pay
£2/month for inclusive UK off-peak calls and 2p/call (UK) at peak
time.
Having said all that, if your friend is totally non-technical then he
may be better of with Vonage. Even so, voip.co.uk do sell ready set up
devices that may well just need plugging in.
..
Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:36:38 GMT, Brian A
<no_spam_bca1000@hotmail.com> wrote:

[color=blue]
>I'm not anti-Vonage but I am anti-wasteMoney.[/color]

It's really a matter of personal preferences Brian as to what one
considers wasting money less than 28p a day is not worth bothering
about, there are people who will go out tonight and swill pint after
pint of beer down their throats costing what is now over two quid a
pint or something , now that is what I consider to be a total waste of
money .
[color=blue]
>I pay 2p/call with the provider I use. Same cost to anywhere in Europe
>or the US.[/color]

Are you saying I could call Belgium using my voip uk account for 2 p a
minute ? .
[color=blue]
>Having said all that, if your friend is totally non-technical then he
>may be better of with Vonage. Even so, voip.co.uk do sell ready set up
>devices that may well just need plugging in.[/color]

So do Vonage but I had to make a few set up alterations before it
would work, another thing regarding Vonage they do supply everything
regarding hardware that you need for FREE including a 4 port router .

[email]N.Dexter@preston.no-ip.co.uk[/email] wrote:[color=blue]
> On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:36:38 GMT, Brian A
> <no_spam_bca1000@hotmail.com> wrote:[/color]
<snip>[color=blue]
>
> So do Vonage but I had to make a few set up alterations before it
> would work, another thing regarding Vonage they do supply everything
> regarding hardware that you need for FREE including a 4 port router .[/color]

Thanks for the feedback guys, it's much appreciated. I *think* at the
moment that my friend has a package that allows free calls to any 01 or
02 prefix etc, but pays for the rest. He would be calling Spain on the
odd occasion also.
At present he has a Netgear wired router anyway, which I set up for him.
He's thinking of going wireless, but would the Vonage need a CAT5 hard
wired to work?
I'll also check out voip.co.uk.
I'm fine when it comes to computers, just not on phones :-)
Regards,
John

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:01:00 GMT, John Orrett
<johnorrett@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:


[color=blue]
>He's thinking of going wireless, but would the Vonage need a CAT5 hard
>wired to work?[/color]

Yes unless he buys one of the Vonage wireless phones which are
expensive but wireless routers do have four Ethernet ports well our
Linksys has anyway .

--

"John Orrett" <johnorrett@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:yM2sh.96882$MO2.12247@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...[color=blue]
> Hi all, a friend of mine was thinking of getting Vonage to replace his
> normal Telewest service.
> I've done a bit of Googling, but wonder whether anyone has any comments,
> good or bad.
> Thanks,
> John[/color]

Vonage is a great service generally with good support - good for first steps
into voip. For more technically savvy users, there are better, and cheaper
options out there but it does depend what you want. It is an out-of-the-box
solution that does what it says on the tin, so I won't repeat the positive
aspects which you will find on the website (the "SimulRing" and network
availability number features were particularly useful). My criticisms are:

The Linksys unit I had did not reconnect if it lost the registration with
the Vonage servers, meaning unnecessary downtime.
Cost is not cheap in voip terms (monthly cost and international/mobile call
costs)
Rolling credit card authority for payment.
Caller display not displayed correctly for forwarded calls.

These do not really overshadow the positive points of the service, if you
are a novice user.

"John Orrett" <johnorrett@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:gP6sh.99060$MO2.78939@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...[color=blue]
> [email]N.Dexter@preston.no-ip.co.uk[/email] wrote:[color=green]
>> On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:36:38 GMT, Brian A
>> <no_spam_bca1000@hotmail.com> wrote:[/color]
> <snip>[color=green]
>>
>> So do Vonage but I had to make a few set up alterations before it
>> would work, another thing regarding Vonage they do supply everything
>> regarding hardware that you need for FREE including a 4 port router .[/color]
>
> Thanks for the feedback guys, it's much appreciated. I *think* at the
> moment that my friend has a package that allows free calls to any 01 or 02
> prefix etc, but pays for the rest. He would be calling Spain on the odd
> occasion also.[/color]
Something like voipcheap.com as a second service will give you good rates[color=blue]
> At present he has a Netgear wired router anyway, which I set up for him.
> He's thinking of going wireless, but would the Vonage need a CAT5 hard
> wired to work?[/color]
Depends on the box that comes with it. Mine needed Cat5 connection but they
also do a WiFi phone. Don't think they do WLAN routers.[color=blue]
> I'll also check out voip.co.uk.
> I'm fine when it comes to computers, just not on phones :-)[/color]

If you are fine with principles of networking, I would suggest avoiding
Vonage and going for a decent ATA/router and cheaper provider. I can
recommend the FritzBox 7050 which would give you WLAN and router in one and
also multiple inbound and outbound phone accounts for using least cost
routing. The initial outlay is higher - first year costs can be the same as
Vonage, but second year onwards will be cheaper. I guess you probably
already know, but you need to ensure that voice passes as few routers on
your internal network as possible, and avoid non-QoS routers between your
ATA and the internet.