| Author | Message | ||
     peteglider Citizen Username: Peteglider Post Number: 2160 Registered: 8-2002 |
ok, so their latest offer is pretty attractive -- 19.99/month for 6 months, then 24.99 AND Cnet and ZDnet rate them highly. BUT the customer reviews are horrible! Anyone local, with Cablevision, use Vonage? Thanks -- Pete | ||
| Arsenal Citizen Username: Arsenal Post Number: 105 Registered: 8-2004 |
I have used Vonage for over a year, with Comcast, and happy with the service they have provided. Is the voice quality the same as with a landline, no, but the differance is minimal. Plus you can't beat the price they offer. Only issues we have had is when we lose the internet we lose our phone, but that's what the old cell phone is for. Real easy to install. | ||
| Earlster Supporter Username: Earlster Post Number: 1600 Registered: 8-2003  |
We have it with Comcast and I works great. Never had to call customer service once, so I don't know if they are good or bad. | ||
| mbb Citizen Username: Mbb Post Number: 30 Registered: 4-2006 |
What would you do if the power was out and you needed to make a call? | ||
| Dave Supporter Username: Dave  Post Number: 10600 Registered: 4-1997  |
The vicious spammers will never get a dime from me. I loathe Vonage more than Verizon. I hope they die a horrific ugly death with their entrails spread across a lonely interstate highway. I'm definitely with Ligeti on this one. Abandon digital telephony. Alexander Graham Bell is still the superior scientist. Pay the additional $10 and retain your human voice. | ||
| Glock 17 Citizen Username: Glock17 Post Number: 1827 Registered: 7-2005  |
If you have cablevision why not get optimum voice? I've heard pretty good things about that. | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 3800 Registered: 5-2004  |
Because cable is not as reliable as phone lines. If your cable TV goes down, so does your phone, How do you call cablevision or comcast to let them know? And if your power goes out, so does your phone. Nothing wrong with it as a second line, but I wouldn;t do it for my only phone line in my house. | ||
| Glock 17 Citizen Username: Glock17 Post Number: 1829 Registered: 7-2005 |
cell phone | ||
| Bailey Citizen Username: Baileymac Post Number: 443 Registered: 3-2005 |
Glock's right of course. Who doesn't have a cell phone these days? Of course, I have Verizon Wireless service, and can't use my phone in Maplewood Center, so if you live where you can't get cell service, stick with a Verizon landline. Dave, don't you think that Verizon must use all sorts of technology to get our voices across the country or across the world? I'd bet our voices are digitized and converted all the time. Just a guess. | ||
| mbb Citizen Username: Mbb Post Number: 32 Registered: 4-2006 |
Glock17, Yes, you can use your cell phone if its battery does not run out on you -- that is, if the power outage is short. If or when the cell phone needs recharging, you are out of luck. Also, if the cellular base station -- the radio system your cell phone talks to -- is affected by the power outage, no cellular calls could be made. [Remember what happened to some cell phone users on 9/11? They could not use their phones.] Power outages do not affect conventional phone service (e.g. Verizon). The network that is used for that service is very reliable; it is powered independently of the electric power system. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15456 Registered: 1-2003  |
Verizon is pulling its copper cables out to sell them. They are replacing the cables with fiber. They will be going back 100 years and putting a UPS in your home because they can't send power through a fiber cable. All this gives us lots of new possibilities, but the price is reliability. Soon landlines will be as unreliable as cell phones and VOIP service. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. | ||
| mbb Citizen Username: Mbb Post Number: 33 Registered: 4-2006 |
Consumer willingness to pay is the most effective form of resistance. If users switch to Vonage, or other VoIP service providers, because they can save some money ($10-$20 a month), then they do not seem to value the reliability of the conventional phone system that much. This does not communicate to Verizon that the public would resist the removal of copper cables. | ||
| flugermongers Citizen Username: Flugermongers Post Number: 736 Registered: 5-2001  |
Cell phones often go out or have service interuptions during black outs. I refuse to get these digital phones. You always need a real landline in case of emergency. During the big black out of '03 (which I know, didn't touch Maplewood, with the exception of a few brown outs, but we have had our share of outages/fires/etc.), I would not have known where my brother was if it weren't for his landline. He got through once or twice on his cell, but the lines were way abstructed, yes, I said way abstructed, by the power outage, and by people trying to make ten million calls. Plus, it ran out of battery soon enough. I have a cordless plugged into my landline, but I always have a non-electricity-requiring phone by as well, because even if you have the landline service - if you've got the cordless, you're screwed as well. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15460 Registered: 1-2003 |
Right, and you're screwed immediately, not just after the handset's battery dies, because the base station needs power all the time. Maplewood was certainly hit by the blackout of 2003. OK, half of it, but I live in the half that was hit. mbb, I don't believe people understand all the risks they are undertaking. Providers don't list all the risks, and if they did, the consumers wouldn't understand them. Bailey, yes, traditional phone companies sometimes digitize the transmission, but that doesn't mean they are prey to the problems of cell phones and VOIP. I guess you know that, and so does Dave and you were taking issue with the implication that digital transmission is categorically less reliable, and I agree. | ||
| Bailey Citizen Username: Baileymac Post Number: 455 Registered: 3-2005 |
but.. but.. isn't digitizing our voices practice for the eventual transporters that will digitize first things and eventually people? I think we need to let them screw up that whole process and learn from their mistakes, so that eventually we'll have the Verizon Transporter! Beam me up, Verizon! (sorry, i had to get up way too early this morning to take my kids to the airport. I'm punchy). | ||
| HKing Citizen Username: Hking Post Number: 41 Registered: 4-2006 |
I use packet 8 at $19.99 a month over my comcast internet service. I also retain a verizon line that is pretty basic at $18.99 a month. The verizon is for the alarm and serves as 911 back-up in case of power outage. I can also use the verizon line to call into conference calls (Toll Free #) when there is a power outage or if there is a problem with my comcast or packet 8 service. I do not have long distance (or even local LD) on my verizon line. I'm on the phone almost all day (work from home) and call long distance a high percentage of the time. It's just easier for me to do the all in one price thing. Quality is not the best sometimes. And, I do experience some dropped calls (rarely but it does happen). The VOIP thing just isn't as good as good old POTS service. However, I'm fine with some minor unreliability. Nice thing about VOIP is that it's not subject to all the same regulatory fees. So, not only is the base price cheaper but there's not a lot of other crap tacked on. I work for a telco (glamourous job of building billing systems) and happen to know that there are some changes afoot for how billing is done for phone numbers vs. bandwidth/capacity. We have VOIP providers as customers. Pricing is being restructured to be more based on using phone numbers as we see the number pool dwindle.. Traditionally, the capacity or bandwidth is the main cost and the numbers are cheap. With VOIP, the telco has to start charging more for the use of the number......I don't know that it will go a long way to evening out pricing between VOIP and plain old telephone service. | ||
| mbb Citizen Username: Mbb Post Number: 34 Registered: 4-2006 |
If people continue to switch from conventional phone service to VoIP, the subscriber cost for conventional phone service will have to increase. This is because the fixed cost of operating the conventional network would be supported by fewer subscribers. So it is very important for the telephone companies, such as Verizon, to educate the public on the advantages and disadvantages of the various technologies. Otherwise, we might lose a very desirable telephone service option because people did not recognize its value. Digitized voice is used in almost all telecommunications today, including conventional telephone sevice. The difference between conventional phone service and VoIP has to do with the way pathways are set up for the transmission of digitized voice. "Circuit switching", which is used in conventional telephony and today's cellular, gives more consistent voice quality than "packet switching", which is used in VoIP. The lower reliability seen in cell/VoIP/cordless phones in the face of power outages is not related to the above, of course. | ||
| Earlster Supporter Username: Earlster Post Number: 1604 Registered: 8-2003 |
If people had never switched from bradcast to cable TV, we would still have to live with less then 50 channels of TV. I'm not sure if your agrument is for or against VOIP service. I have to say that my Vonage over Comcast has a better uptime then my landline. For the occasional power outage I'm using a UPS for my cable modem, router and VOIP adapter. That is good for 95% of all power outages. At least in Maplewood, the Verizon landline service is so fragile that we loose our landline service quite frequently, while cable never seems go down. As far as sound quality goes, I have to say that VOIP is almost as good as a good landline, however our landline has so much static that quite often I choose the VOIP line over the landline. And as far as cost goes, we are using a flat $40 a month service for our landline, that after all the surgarges, fees and taxes costs us almost $65 a month. I might really switch to all VOIP soon, which costs me <$30 total for an unlimited line, and oversees calls are cheaper to boot. | ||
| flugermongers Citizen Username: Flugermongers Post Number: 741 Registered: 5-2001 |
LOL! I have channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 25, 52, 68 and any other UHF/VHF channels I might be forgetting. | ||
| flugermongers Citizen Username: Flugermongers Post Number: 742 Registered: 5-2001 |
In all seriousness, more channels is not a good argument, Earlster, as you're not gaining anything here, you're losing a real landline. | ||
| Earlster Supporter Username: Earlster Post Number: 1609 Registered: 8-2003 |
Yes, I'm losing a landline, but at the same time I'm gaining $35 a month. And my grand parents lost a horse and buggy and got a car. Sometimes it's time to move on and leave the old stuff behind.  | ||
| Monster© Supporter Username: Monster Post Number: 4732 Registered: 7-2002  |
see my SunRocket thread, I made the switch away from Verizon yesterday. | ||
| flugermongers Citizen Username: Flugermongers Post Number: 743 Registered: 5-2001 |
cars are argulably more effecient than horse/buggy - digital phones aren't. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15508 Registered: 1-2003 |
Ah, but it's all about how you measure efficiency. Cars probably take less time in care and feeding, but they require more fuel per passenger mile. Then again, can you even compare them, since you can't even go 70 mph in a buggy? I'd have to say that by most metrics, VOIP phones are more efficient. The cost is a good indicator. But convenience is another thing which is harder to measure. | ||
| mbb Citizen Username: Mbb Post Number: 36 Registered: 4-2006 |
Earlster, My argument is neither for nor against VoIP. VoIP, as a technology, is the future because of the variety of services it can be combined with. As offered to residential users today, VoIP is simply a cheaper alternative to conventional telephone service, with some limitations. One limitation is the vulnerability to power outages. It is true that one can buy UPS. Most residential users switching to VoIP, however, are not aware of the need for power backup. When taking the cost of UPS into account, I would venture to say that the cost of covering for an extensive power outage might well exceed the savings from switching to VoIP telephone service. Another limitations is the lack of 911 location finding. That is, unlike conventional telephone service where an emergency operator can find the address of your phone if someone uses it to dial '911' [and will respond accordingly], some VoIP service providers do not offer this emergency feature. | ||
| Stevef Citizen Username: Stevef Post Number: 222 Registered: 5-2005  |
The best cell phone I've ever owned was an analog phone. My current cell phone is garbage compared to it. I hate talking on it. I typically use it to take a message and call a person back on a land line. The telcom industry is run by whores. No, wait. They're worse than whores. So for the most part is the ISP industry, but at least there are a few who don't fear charging more and offering better service, like Speakeasy DSL. I am open to any provider who still offers analog service at a premium. Where are they? | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15515 Registered: 1-2003 |
VOIP providers now must, by law, provide locating 911 service now. Vonage now offers enhanced 911 service to 85% of its customers, where, among other things, the customer's location is revealed to the dispatcher instantly. And when you move your Vonage phone and remember to register your location, the dispatcher is aware of where you are right away. This requirement raises the price of entry into this field. I don't think we'll see so many newcomers any more. | ||
| Earlster Supporter Username: Earlster Post Number: 1610 Registered: 8-2003 |
Stevef, as will all whores, you get what you pay for. As we are looking to pay less and less for our various communication needs we can't get the Heidi Fleiss quality and will have to do with the crack whore from around the corner. | ||
| mbb Citizen Username: Mbb Post Number: 38 Registered: 4-2006 |
Yes, there is a federal requirement for all VoIP and cellular service providers to offer 911 service to all customers. However, the dealine keeps getting extended. The last deadline for 911 compliance by VoIP SPs was extended last December because several could not, and did not, meet it. It is unclear how long it will take for all of them to comply. It may be years... |
