Question About Vonage

I'm looking to get away from instant messaging and getting a dedicated
residential VOIP service and Vonage is probably the one I'll go for.

My question is about international call charges. Is this paid in arrears or
in advance and if it is in arrears is there an advance payment option, i.e.
PAYG

Thanks

 

Anthony Thornton explained :

Have you looked at www.voip.co.uk cheaper than Vonage, depends whether
you want inclusive daytime calls.

 

Arrrears, you register a credit card with your account. Don't think there is
an advance payment option.

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No paid in arrears but if it is mainly international calls you are
making why not go for sip discount or one of the other offering from
the same group.

 

I looked at voip.co.uk but I don't really understand how to set it up. The
Vonage web site is easier to understand for a newbie like myself. I don't
have a router but an NTL 250 modem connected to the Ethernet port.
Information from both Vonage and NTL says that all I do is whack a router
between the modem and my Ethernet port, plug in a regular telephone and go.
The other consideration is start up costs: With Vonage it's £37 which
includes the Motorola router.

 

Plus of course the 7.99 delivery charge on top and a further 7.00 to
return it by RM recorded Delivery if you leave before 12 months are
up, I am not having a go at Vonage far from it just the opposite in
fact mainly pointing out the costs which they don't tell you about .

 

Whether www.voip.co.uk is cheaper or not depends on the customer's
profile of calling. There are other considerations too, like whether
the customer wants a straightforward "plug in and go" or likes to play
with lots of adapter settings.

If your name is "Ivor" then undoubtedly Sipgate is the only viable
option. If your name is "Dexter" then Vonage comes out on top. You
cannot simply make a blanket statement suggesting one or other without
knowing more.

 

Please don't put words into my mouth, I have never said that. I use
Sipgate, true; I recommend them, again true. I also use other systems,
notably Gradwell and FWD, so Sipgate are by no means my only option.
However, due to their pricing and practice of locking equipment, it is
also true I wouldn't use Vonage. However if it works for you, who am I to
stop you..?!

Indeed.

Ivor

 

A mention was made about voip.co.uk earlier in this thread. I do
recognise that one of THE main selling points of Vonage is that it is,
apparently, plug and play. People also look at the apparently smaller,
initial cash layout - though Dexter has pointed out that it isn't as
small as it seems.
Am I not right though that most of the 'main' UK players sell ATAs
ready configured for their service if you buy from them, but with the
advantage that the ATAs are not locked ?
By the 'main' players, with no 'line rental', I am referring to
voip.co.uk, voiptalk.org and voipfone.co.uk.
Presumably, if you buy from one of these VSPs the only problem you
might encounter is that you may have to forward ports in your router,
or set up DMZ. Further, I think al these VSPs would offer some email
support to get you up and running. If you are totally non-tech then,
yes, go for Vonage but you will pay more in the long run unless you
make heavy use of your phone. Further, I am well aware that there are
many people who really don't care too much at all about their on-going
expenditure so Vonage, for them, is the best to go for.
Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.

 

Anthony Thornton laid this down on his screen :

You do not have to set it up, the box they send you is already
configured, you just plug it into your modem, plug your router into the
voip box and plug a phone into the voip box. Support is very good as
well.

With Vonage remember that supoport is in the US, some departments are
only available 1pm-11pm our time.

 

Brian A has brought this to us :

With voip.co.uk the adaptor sits between the cable modem and the router
so there are no DMZ or port forwarding issues.

 

Mind don't my PAP2 is pluged into a port on the router so is the
vonage ATA I have no issus with making or receiving calls and nither
is DMZ employed this is used for our mail server .

 

....if you're using cable, that is. In most cases with DSL, the modem is
built into the router, so some level of reconfiguration may be necessary. I
imagine some ATAs can reconfigure your router using UPnP, but whether or
not they should be trusted to is another matter!

 

Support has never been an issue for me!

 

Agreed you need to be careful of the costs. When I joined, I seem to
remember there was even a £25 disconnection fee! If you want an out of the
box medium cost solution though, I would go for Vonage. Tech support is
very good (especially in comparison with NTL), and provided your broadband
connection is reliable, the service is MUCH BETTER than NTL, and cheaper to
boot. You can get cheaper solutions but it depends on what you want.

Vonage don't do number portability, but then if your number was originally
an NTL number, you will not be able to port it out to VoIP in any case.

If you don't want to replace your landline completely, then you may want to
consider a different VoIP operator, as you are then free to choose the
equipment, which could have PSTN pass through. Ditto if you want the
freedom to move operators or use multiple operators in the future.

 

There is nothing special about NTL numbers. VoIP operators can port
these numbers to themselves, as long as they (or their supplier) has a
porting arrangement with NTL.

 

What did Vonage say when you asked them this question?

 

And that's the problem - at the moment they are not obliged to by Ofcom. As
at 2 months ago, all the companies I tried could not do it (but could for
local BT numbers).

 

No operator is obliged to port-in, that is correct. NTL are required to
port-out, though.

It comes down to whether the VoIP operator (or their provider) wants to
put the effort into setting up a porting agreement with NTL.

 

To put it another way: do you or does anyone else know of any VoIP operators
where there is such an agreement?

If there are none then I guess it doesn't matter what the reason is. If
there are some then I suspect there are some people on this will be
interested.