wisewol

Hi
Have been here in Florida for just about 10 months now and still loving it. We are using Brighthouse currently for all our internet, TV and phone but saw an advert last night about Vonage. Does anyone have any experience of them ? seemed quite a good deal but usually there are catches. most interested in the calling the UK bit within the monthly price as still finding the calls home a little expensive and really cant be bothered with using a phone card all the time.

If anyone has any advice on either Vonage or any better way to call the UK it woud be much apprecated.

I am already looking into skype

Tracym

Customer service absolutely sucks. But other than that, the phone service works fine.

Only catch to the UK is - mobile phones are not free, nor are "special" numbers. Be careful not to get caught out on that one.

Of course, if the internet/power goes down, so does your phone. But most folks have a mobile for backup.

shorrock

I use callcentric with success. However if you are a non tech person vonage is the way to go. If you have lots of friends calling you from the UK, most VoIP providers will supply you with local numbers in the country you want.

I have numbers in Ireland, UK, Australia and the US. There are also some other ways for your friends to call you for the price of a local call which doesn't require you to pay for a local number.

I would suggest that you do an analysis of your calls and see if it is worth it. a lot of the cable/telcos have some fantastic deals that may be better for you. Just because it's VoIP doesn't mean it's cheaper. However when I pay AU$0.08 for untimed calls to australia and AU$0.12 per min to AU mobiles I'm happy with it.

I also suggest that if you do go VoIP that you have a mobile/cell for 911 service. VoIP 911 is slightly different and given you are using your internet for calls could be unpredictable.

I'd say my VoIP uptime is about 95% of the time which is less than the normal phone line.

lansbury

If you want to go down that route look at other VoIP providers. Vonage isn't the cheapest by any means.

I use VoIP and my monthly bill is around $13.50 and that is with paying an extra $1.95 a month for a second number which is a UK one.

Kate2112

We use Vonage its works perfectly fine. Calls are never dropped as they were when we used Lingo. We also pay for a UK phone number $5 per month but it means that our UK friends and Family can call us and pay no more than a local UK call. When we are in the UK we can have our calls forward to a UK number just by going online and setting it up. All round I would recommend it.

neil

Never had problems with Lingo in the 3+ years we've had it (except when we first got it the box stopped working after a few weeks, but they replaced it quickly with no hassle).

Dan725

I seem to be getting deja-vu with this thread... But as usual, I'l also say Lingo is great, it only dropped the odd call when i got it 4 years ago, but nowadays is pretty much flawless.

A tad cheaper than vonage, and you can call far more countries (landlines)around the world for nowt.

neil

Perhaps this forum should have a search function built into it?

Bob

have a search, it's come up a fair bit, especially over the last month.

Patrick Hasler

I have heard some really bad reports about Vonage

From having no service for months to still having to subscribe to the phone company to keep the high speed internet line required anyway

It's quite logical really .. Vonage uses your existing lines, rented from either the phone company or the cable company, so yu have to stil pay them for something.

Tracym

You have to keep a high-speed internet connection (DSL, Cable, or probably satellite).

But you don't have to keep regular phone company lines.

Patrick Hasler

Yeah ... but our DSL comes along the phone lines my sweet

Tracym

Right my love.

You pay for the two separately then if you have DSL? I haven't had DSL... With the cable, I of course could drop the phone line. Sorry, I thought you were saying one always had to keep the regular phone line...

Perhaps I sholud go look for some more coffee. Or is it too early for the champagne?

Tracym

Oh yes - and Happy New Year

Steerpike

I have vonage at home, but be aware it does not give cheap rates to UK cell phones (as pointed out by others).

I also use a calling card for calling UK on my cell phone. The card I use offers 'PIN-less' service; meaning, you don't have to enter any codes/pins/etc - you just dial an access number, then enter the number you wish to call. They use callerID to figure out who you are. I speed-dial the whole thing so I just press one button to talk to my mum, etc.

With all VOIP services, be aware that you are dependent on your internet connection, and, look into what the 911 services are - this is an area that is changing and may now be 'better', but in the past, if you placed a 911 call from a voip phone they may not know where you are.