Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

Hi - I've just had the email stating that Vonage is taking over
Freetalk, and that existing freetalk subscribers need to register with
Vonage to continue usage after September 2006. What the mail doesn't
make clear, and its not that easy to spot on their web site either, is
that you will need to take out a 12 month contract with Vonage. If you
cancel within 99 days you need to pay a rebate on the new adapter they
sent you, and a 23.99 disconnection fee. If you cancel before the year
is up (i.e. before next September) but after 99 days, you will still
need to pay the 23.99 disconnection fee. I still have 5 months
remaining on my Freetalk account, but in order to use it I will HAVE to
take out a new contract with Vonage and commit myself for another year.

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

"dv" <dvisor@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1156892283.652871.285640@74g2000cwt.googlegro ups.com...
> Hi - I've just had the email stating that Vonage is taking over
> Freetalk, and that existing freetalk subscribers need to register with
> Vonage to continue usage after September 2006. What the mail doesn't
> make clear, and its not that easy to spot on their web site either, is
> that you will need to take out a 12 month contract with Vonage. If you
> cancel within 99 days you need to pay a rebate on the new adapter they
> sent you, and a 23.99 disconnection fee. If you cancel before the year
> is up (i.e. before next September) but after 99 days, you will still
> need to pay the 23.99 disconnection fee. I still have 5 months
> remaining on my Freetalk account, but in order to use it I will HAVE to
> take out a new contract with Vonage and commit myself for another year.


Hi dv
I am in the same boat as you but didn't realise you will be signing up to a
new 12 month contract with Vonage. That is not what I want. I recently
ditched a Vonage account due to poor call quality and certainly do not wish
to be back with Vonage! I will call the number supplied in the email I
received and see what my options are.
Fred.

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:16:57 GMT, "Fred" <frednospam@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>"dv" <dvisor@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>news:1156892283.652871.285640@74g2000cwt.googlegr oups.com...
>> Hi - I've just had the email stating that Vonage is taking over
>> Freetalk, and that existing freetalk subscribers need to register with
>> Vonage to continue usage after September 2006. What the mail doesn't
>> make clear, and its not that easy to spot on their web site either, is
>> that you will need to take out a 12 month contract with Vonage. If you
>> cancel within 99 days you need to pay a rebate on the new adapter they
>> sent you, and a 23.99 disconnection fee. If you cancel before the year
>> is up (i.e. before next September) but after 99 days, you will still
>> need to pay the 23.99 disconnection fee. I still have 5 months
>> remaining on my Freetalk account, but in order to use it I will HAVE to
>> take out a new contract with Vonage and commit myself for another year.
>
>
>Hi dv
>I am in the same boat as you but didn't realise you will be signing up to a
>new 12 month contract with Vonage. That is not what I want. I recently
>ditched a Vonage account due to poor call quality and certainly do not wish
>to be back with Vonage! I will call the number supplied in the email I
>received and see what my options are.
>Fred.
IMO you are better off without being tied to one operator. Get your
own ATA, set it up with the providers of your choice, connect it up to
your house phones and you are away. If you don't like a provider then
go for another.
If you want to use an ATA with both voip and your standard telephone
landline then choose something like the very flexible linksys/Sipura
SPA-3000.
If you need 2 lines: The less flexible SPA-1001 (2 lines to one set of
handsets) or the PAP2 (2 seperate lines). Don't buy a second hand
PAP2, as they are often ex Vonage, or any locked device. If you have a
Vonage ATA that belongs to you then you could try unlocking it.
Ask on here how to do that - it can be risky but if it is yours and
locked to vonage you have nothing to lose.
However, if you do a 'factory reset' it will, afaik, revert back to
Vonage.
You might also look at the Fritzbox - I am not an expert on these so I
can't comment with any authority.

Check out prices on
www.broadbandstuff.co.uk

Operators providing a reliable service include:
www.voip.co.uk
www.voipfone.co.uk
www.voiptalk.org


Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:16:57 GMT, "Fred" <frednospam@hotmail.com>
wrote:


>I am in the same boat as you but didn't realise you will be signing up to a
>new 12 month contract with Vonage. I will call the number supplied in the email I
>received and see what my options are.
Well Fred my two freetalk accounts ended on Sunday and I signed up
with Vonage again last night via the phone six months at 5.99 then
full amount thereafter ,no activation fee, 8.99 shipping charges .
Are you sure it was Vonage giving you poor call quality and not
somthing out of Vonage control beause I never had a single problem
with them last time .

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

"Brian A" <no_spam_bca1000@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:i0kaf2djsmut4plqp056q6tbaeol84aqjc@4ax.com

[snip]
..
> You might also look at the Fritzbox - I am not an expert
> on these so I can't comment with any authority.

Two phone ports on most models (three on the top of the range WLAN7050)
and capacity for up to 10 SIP accounts. Also a POTS line port, which will
work with either plain old POTS or ISDN.

Not cheap but well worth the money IMHO. Not as user-configurable as the
Sipura range but very good just the same.

www.avm.de/en for info.

Ivor

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

<m.Dexter@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:i7laf2t0daha4j4e6c2n3if596l4o6708d@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:16:57 GMT, "Fred" <frednospam@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>I am in the same boat as you but didn't realise you will be signing up to
>>a
>>new 12 month contract with Vonage. I will call the number supplied in
>>the email I
>>received and see what my options are.
> Well Fred my two freetalk accounts ended on Sunday and I signed up
> with Vonage again last night via the phone six months at 5.99 then
> full amount thereafter ,no activation fee, 8.99 shipping charges .
> Are you sure it was Vonage giving you poor call quality and not
> somthing out of Vonage control beause I never had a single problem
> with them last time .

Hi M.Dexter
Believe me I tried everything to get Vonage to work correctly as it was
being used by my family for outgoing calls and i was becoming embarrassed at
he call drop outs/crackling/popping that was happening. I was advised by
Vonage to contact my ISP-Blueyonder as the technical people at Vonage
believed there is a poor connection issue followimng some ping tests.
However, on contacting my ISP support there was nothing wrong with my
connection following several further tests. Meanwhile my Freetalk adaptor
which was connected to the same router as the Vonage adaptor continued to
work perfectly!! I then decided to ditch Vonage last week but keep the
Freetalk line operational.

I have just called the freephone number provided by Freetalk regarding this
changeover and all you receive is a sales pitch by Vonage to switch over to
them! I am not impressed with Freetalk at all as I had been contacting them
repeatedly about the failure to receive my invoice notifications via email.
What makes me even more mad is that despite phoning them and gettijng a full
voicemail box message and emailing them and getting no response, they
miraculously manage to email me successfully when they decide to ditch all
their customers! Time to contact Ofcom I feel.
Fred.

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:16:57 GMT, "Fred" <frednospam@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>"dv" <dvisor@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>news:1156892283.652871.285640@74g2000cwt.googlegr oups.com...
>> Hi - I've just had the email stating that Vonage is taking over
>> Freetalk, and that existing freetalk subscribers need to register with
>> Vonage to continue usage after September 2006. What the mail doesn't
>> make clear, and its not that easy to spot on their web site either, is
>> that you will need to take out a 12 month contract with Vonage. If you
>> cancel within 99 days you need to pay a rebate on the new adapter they
>> sent you, and a 23.99 disconnection fee. If you cancel before the year
>> is up (i.e. before next September) but after 99 days, you will still
>> need to pay the 23.99 disconnection fee. I still have 5 months
>> remaining on my Freetalk account, but in order to use it I will HAVE to
>> take out a new contract with Vonage and commit myself for another year.
>
>
>Hi dv
>I am in the same boat as you but didn't realise you will be signing up to a
>new 12 month contract with Vonage. That is not what I want. I recently
>ditched a Vonage account due to poor call quality and certainly do not wish
>to be back with Vonage! I will call the number supplied in the email I
>received and see what my options are.
>Fred.
>

You're not really committing to a 12 month contract, you just have to
finish off your current contract and pay a disconnection fee if you
want to end it at that point.... which I suppose is the same thing as
commiting to a 12 month contract. At least it is only £23.99 though,
they could have made you pay off the rest of the monthly charges too.

It's a shame really that Freetalk wil lbe no more as I liked Freetalk,
despite their billing dates being completely inconsistent.

However, I think I will go ahead and give Vonage a try.

I have looked at Vonage in the past and they certainly seem better
value for money that they used to be. And most call rate seem to be
the same as Freetalk was.

And they seem to offer a decent amount of features.

I don't think I use the phone enough to justify the expense and effort
of buying my own ATA and configuring multiple accounts with different
providers. I just want something that is a cheaper subsitute for a
landline and Vonage seem to be able to offer this.

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

Dave wrote:

> You're not really committing to a 12 month contract, you just have to
> finish off your current contract and pay a disconnection fee if you
> want to end it at that point.... which I suppose is the same thing as
> commiting to a 12 month contract. At least it is only £23.99 though,
> they could have made you pay off the rest of the monthly charges too.
>
> It's a shame really that Freetalk wil lbe no more as I liked Freetalk,
> despite their billing dates being completely inconsistent.
>
> However, I think I will go ahead and give Vonage a try.
>
> I have looked at Vonage in the past and they certainly seem better
> value for money that they used to be. And most call rate seem to be
> the same as Freetalk was.
>
> And they seem to offer a decent amount of features.
>
> I don't think I use the phone enough to justify the expense and effort
> of buying my own ATA and configuring multiple accounts with different
> providers. I just want something that is a cheaper subsitute for a
> landline and Vonage seem to be able to offer this.

I think there's a matter of principle here. I paid 79.99 for a year's
worth of service. After 7 months I find that in order to use the
remaining 5 months that I have already paid for (which is worth about
33.00) I have to commit myself to a year of Vonage or pay 23.99
disconnection when the 5 months are up.

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

On 31 Aug 2006 01:22:20 -0700, "dv" <dvisor@googlemail.com> wrote:

>
>Dave wrote:
>
>> You're not really committing to a 12 month contract, you just have to
>> finish off your current contract and pay a disconnection fee if you
>> want to end it at that point.... which I suppose is the same thing as
>> commiting to a 12 month contract. At least it is only £23.99 though,
>> they could have made you pay off the rest of the monthly charges too.
>>
>> It's a shame really that Freetalk wil lbe no more as I liked Freetalk,
>> despite their billing dates being completely inconsistent.
>>
>> However, I think I will go ahead and give Vonage a try.
>>
>> I have looked at Vonage in the past and they certainly seem better
>> value for money that they used to be. And most call rate seem to be
>> the same as Freetalk was.
>>
>> And they seem to offer a decent amount of features.
>>
>> I don't think I use the phone enough to justify the expense and effort
>> of buying my own ATA and configuring multiple accounts with different
>> providers. I just want something that is a cheaper subsitute for a
>> landline and Vonage seem to be able to offer this.
>
>I think there's a matter of principle here. I paid 79.99 for a year's
>worth of service. After 7 months I find that in order to use the
>remaining 5 months that I have already paid for (which is worth about
>33.00) I have to commit myself to a year of Vonage or pay 23.99
>disconnection when the 5 months are up.

Unfortunately it's a fact of life that companies go out of
business/get taken over which is why I would never pay for a year's
service for anything upfront.

Anyway, it says on the FAQ page "From your second month onwards Vonage
will credit £7.99 to your account for the remainder of your freetalk
contract"

Surely this means they are going to credit your account with £31.96
which will be enough to cover the cancellation fee?

Re: Freetalk taken over by Vonage
 

On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:50:05 GMT, Dave <weirdoboy@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 31 Aug 2006 01:22:20 -0700, "dv" <dvisor@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Dave wrote:
>>
>>> You're not really committing to a 12 month contract, you just have to
>>> finish off your current contract and pay a disconnection fee if you
>>> want to end it at that point.... which I suppose is the same thing as
>>> commiting to a 12 month contract. At least it is only £23.99 though,
>>> they could have made you pay off the rest of the monthly charges too.
>>>
>>> It's a shame really that Freetalk wil lbe no more as I liked Freetalk,
>>> despite their billing dates being completely inconsistent.
>>>
>>> However, I think I will go ahead and give Vonage a try.
>>>
>>> I have looked at Vonage in the past and they certainly seem better
>>> value for money that they used to be. And most call rate seem to be
>>> the same as Freetalk was.
>>>
>>> And they seem to offer a decent amount of features.
>>>
>>> I don't think I use the phone enough to justify the expense and effort
>>> of buying my own ATA and configuring multiple accounts with different
>>> providers. I just want something that is a cheaper subsitute for a
>>> landline and Vonage seem to be able to offer this.
>>
>>I think there's a matter of principle here. I paid 79.99 for a year's
>>worth of service. After 7 months I find that in order to use the
>>remaining 5 months that I have already paid for (which is worth about
>>33.00) I have to commit myself to a year of Vonage or pay 23.99
>>disconnection when the 5 months are up.
>
>Unfortunately it's a fact of life that companies go out of
>business/get taken over which is why I would never pay for a year's
>service for anything upfront.
>
>Anyway, it says on the FAQ page "From your second month onwards Vonage
>will credit £7.99 to your account for the remainder of your freetalk
>contract"
>
>Surely this means they are going to credit your account with £31.96
>which will be enough to cover the cancellation fee?

Sorry, just ignore that, I misunderstood what they were going to do.
They are going to credit the £7.99 to cover the rental each month,
that's all.