I blogged about my Vonage service back in May 2003 and I have become totally addicted to it. I am now working at home quite a bit and it has become much more integrated into my home. I have it hooked up to an el-cheepo cordless phone and a Plantronics vista headset. The headset lets me talk while I'm at my computer hands-free and the cordless phone lets me walk around the house.
I've been using Vonage for awhile now and it is as clear as can be on my el-cheepo ADSL service in the backwaters of Chiba. Don't believe any of the carrier FUD about latency or quality of service. It works. So for $.39.99/month, I can call anywhere in North America with unlimited minutes walking around my house in Japan with a cordless phone.
The Vonage Terms of Service say:
1.3.2 Use of Service and Device by Customers Outside the United States: While we encourage use of the Service within the United States to other countries, Vonage does not presently offer or support the Service to customers located in other countries. If you remove the Device to a country other than the United States and use the Service from there, you do so at your own risk, including the risk that such activity violates local laws in the country where you do so. You are liable for any and all use of the Service and/or Device by any person making use of the Service or Device provided to you.
So if you live outside the US (which is the most useful application of this setup), you will have to have an address in the US to buy the Vonage box and you will have to be prepared for your local telephone carrier to come break down your door for the illegal trafficking of bits.
I use Packet8 in Japan without problems. It's basically the same as Vonage. They were willing to ship outside the US when I signed up (about 6 months ago) but I'm not sure if they're still doing it.
Speaking of laws, however, make sure you don't bring one of these boxes to somewhere that it's illegal. Cambodia's one example (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3081093.stm) where the people were fined for not using government phone lines.
Posted by: Chris Yu | January 03, 2004 at 10:59 AM
The gateway services like Vonage and Packet8 are great, but I really think they will be leap-frogged by services that provide presence information.
At this point I would love to have a bluetooth remote headphone so I could use iChat AV around the house away from my Mac. A central feature would be a small display with some sort of selection device that would give me a remote buddy list.
When I'm closer to the Mac, I'm finding iChat AV is much richer than Vonage - for the important folks on my buddy list. My international long distance bill has gone from $150 a month to nearly nothing.
What to do about the issue where I want to talk to someone not on my buddy list? That's what the cellphone and/or Vonage is for.
Posted by: steve | January 03, 2004 at 03:45 PM
Steve, I'm a recent convert to the Mac platform, so I'm especially enamored of iChatAV and the ability to do videophone communication via the Mac. While I agree with you that the timeframe for the gateway services may be short, currently they provide a key service that cannot be matched by SIP, nor iChat, nor Skype- which is the ability to call your grandmother or the local pizza joint, or whomever you want who doesn't happen to have a PC with broadband and a headset, etc. etc.
Sure, we can all talk about what we want to have for a future service, but Vonage and Packet8, and the other gateway services are providing that service (VoIP to the PSTN, public switched telephone network) NOW in a most disruptive fashion.
Posted by: gen kanai | January 05, 2004 at 11:25 AM
Hi!
How would you compare Vonage to Skype ? I've been using it for over a month, placing calls from Paris to South America, the US, Greece, Madrid almost on daily basis. Great sound, no problem whatsoever, and I haven't paid a dime.
Posted by: Rodrigo Sepulveda | May 04, 2004 at 03:52 PM
Whereas I tried to use Vonage.com, Vonage could not port my number after 3 months of trying. I now rep for National Telecom. I will be selling DSL service plus a WiFi VoIP SIP Phone that you can take anywhere worldwide and make/receive calls from any WiFi network to any phone number that you want. Stay tuned for details!!! Jonathan Price
Posted by: Jonathan Price | May 08, 2004 at 08:38 PM
I signed up with Vonage Service about 2 years ago. I have not really had any problems with the service at all. There have been times (very few) that the service was choppy. I can say I have never lost my service, had a call drop or anything else disruptive happen.
The price is fine, although international rates could be a lot better. They seem to be spending more cash on TV ads then they are adding new services. They charge for a softphone with is bullshit. There is no cell bridge, nice feature I wish they would get. I guess my only complaint is they seem to have lost there cutting edge....which is what lured me to them in the first place. However, I haven't found a good replacement as of yet, so I won't try and fix what isn't broken.
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