VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

I am trying to understand a little more about using VONAGE. Do you keep your existing phone number when you drop EMABARQ? Do you need just one adapter for multiple phones?

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Go to vonage.com and see if the phone number will work when signing up. The web page will ask questions and continue to the point where you put in the number and the page will respond.

Also you need an adapter/modem with either one or 2 telephone outlet jacks, plus ethernet/router connections.

They also have a wireless that will also do the job.

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Don't drop embarq until you sign up for the new service. If you drop embarq first then that number is no longer yours. I got mad at Embarq so switched my number to a cell phone. When it switched I did not have to do anything. Embarg automatically canceled us and sent a refund.

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Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Handie:

What do you mean "talk anywhere" - doesn't vonage replace your landline phone in your house?

Are you referring to the ability to relocate the vonage modem equipment to another location (anywhere) and use it as a landline at second location?

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Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

We also have Vonage and love it. We pay $15/month for 500 outgoing minutes. Have never had the need to go over this. It is a good deal. We have been away for 2 weeks. I had my calls go to my email account. When I checked my email I could get my calls, return them, and take care of any pertinant business.

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:agree: We've had Vonage for two weeks and love the unlimited long distance feature for $25. Embarq doesn't offer unlimited calling to Canada. We have two wireless phones and can use them anywhere in the house, very convenient!

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Barefoot, Who did you get your internet service with? If it was Comcast, how happy are you with them? Thanks

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We have had Vonage for four months now and just love it. Its so economical, and works very very well, I love the unlimited calling and as I have family in England and friends in France and Germany, I love the fact that I can call all those countries, and other European countries, free as well. Its unbelievable. Yesterday I talked to my sister in London for over an hour, charge.....$0. Can't beat that!

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Thanks.. great info.. Do you pay any taxes on your service? :super:

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Someone from Vonage told me that you can have upto 4 cordless phones with a base unit and that as long as you use a Vonage wireless adapter/router hooked up to a wall jack and the base unit of the phone sytem hooked up to the adapter. This is with a comcast wireless modem.

That you don't need an Ethernet cable to be attached to the adapter. Does this make sense?

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Bubbalarry?
Although I have never done this, yes it sounds very doable to me. No rocket sceince needed to do this.
Handie :joke:

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LG??
The only tax I see on my vonage bill is $1.75, forgot what its called. A far cry from the taxes jammed down your throat by cell companies and land line companies. I have seen some as high as 25-30% taxed. I dumped Embarq, they were charging me $55 plus and I had to pay for toll calls. I bought a very nice camera "tracfone" for my renters with double minutes for lifetime. $20.00 goes a long way with "tracfone" and if my renters need more time they just boogie on over to Walgreens and purchase a new card. Tracfone charges the same whether its next door or 3000 miles away :bigthumbsup:
Call me cheap, scotch, jewish or whatever I call it frugal and I get more for less ;D
Handie :joke:

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Hey Handie, That's a great idea for the tracfone at the rental unit. I love it!!

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I'm with you Handi :joke:
We have Vonage here in NH and will have it when we move into house in Piedmont TV on the 15th. Great service and unbeatable price.
Tracfone is another no brainer. Good service 99% of the time, and so cheap. We used it in TV when we were househunting, never lost or dropped a call.
Perfect for us frugal New Englanders.
Cheers, see you all real soon,
Beady :hot: :2excited:

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Have had vonage for three years. Easy. We have 4 phones off of one line. Take it with us when we return north. Very happy with it.

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Bama

Vonage Phone: $25/mo including unlimited international.

Comcast Cable TV: $11/mo for 20 channels including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox.

Comcast Internet: $20/mo for six months (and then we'll be going back to Toronto).
($20 to install and activate). Technician came to house and brought modem and activated it. We added wireless router, now we can use laptop anywhere in house.

So far we're as happy as clams. (Two whole weeks experience). To us great value and great service!! But then we're drinking the Village water and we all know that the developers put something special in the water!

Happy in TV
Barefoot

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Can Vonage work if you want Direct TV (or Dish) with TIVO which requires a phone connection? Gotta have my TIVO!

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chckinca...

Negative on Dish/Vonage. Vonage is a VOIP (voice over internet protocal) service that requires and ALWAYS ON internet connection (broadband cable only). The faster your connection the better, but very acceptable with Comcast standard service.

One thing though, I have noticed some issues sending faxes...receive is OK. When sending I find occasional problems with the faxes handshaking and making their connection. Not sure why this is. No problems receiving.

So many great features that you can control online instantly such as simultaneous ring (home & cel), multiple virtual phone numbers ( 1 in NH, 1 in FL, 1 in CA) all ringing on one line, email voicemail and many more. All this and no taxes for $24.95. As they say in the ads..."So what are you waiting for, order todaY!"

I know of people that have tried this with Verizon DSL with no luck. Reason, Verizon ( Bellsouth I believe) "hangup" your connection after a certain idle time. We also had a problem with DSL with a remote web cam for this reason.

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

I never did TiVo with DTV or Dish but when I had both I never ever connected. I know if your paying for PPV its a must. So I went to Free to Air (FTA) the receivers are called and they use the same antenna as DISH. Besides Echostar I also can record all the channels including Canadian. Like Nimic 1,2, & 3 Sats 82 & 91 and Echostar 7 & 8,X for the US channels.

I get all the HD Channels too.

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Captain, I think what Chuck was wanting to know was can the TIVO receiver communicate via Vonage telephone line with directv so that it can download programming and channel guides. The receiver will make a phone call in the middle of the night to download. I too must have my TIVO. I also like the idea of VONAGE, but i cannot give up my TIVO Thanks Bama

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Just Beware of the possibility that Vonage could ............ go away. :dontknow:

http://www.news.com/Vonage-sued-for-...3-6092374.html


Vonage sued for patent infringement--again

Vonage is once again in the legal hot seat, having been sued by yet another company for allegedly infringing on patents.

Patent-holding company Klausner Technologies said Monday it filed suit against Vonage in federal court in the eastern district of Texas. Klausner claims that Vonage, which sells Internet voice calling service, is infringing on patents being used as part of its voice mail service. Klausner is seeking damages and royalties worth about $180 million.

Vonage is already being sued by two large phone companies for supposedly infringing on patents. Last year, a subsidiary of Sprint-Nextel filed suit against Vonage. Then, in June, Verizon Communications filed suit against the company, claiming it had infringed on seven patents that describe technology for completing phone calls between voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) users and people using phones on the traditional public switched network.
Separately, Vonage said Monday that it has bought three patents from Digital Packet Licensing for an undisclosed amount. Vonage said the patents will help it in its fight against the Sprint and Verizon litigation. Companies such as Motorola, Time Warner and Qwest Communications are already licensing technology from Digital Packet on these VoIP patents. As a result of acquiring the VoIP patents, Vonage also assumes ownership and control over these agreements.

"We're committed to developing, acquiring and protecting the root technologies that are at the heart of our business," Michael Tribolet, president of Vonage America, said in a statement. "The acquisition of these patents is part of Vonage's strategic plan to further develop our core technology and build on our innovative, affordable and feature-rich phone service. Vonage's strategic plan also includes a concerted effort to grow, create and acquire other significant intellectual property portfolios."

The latest lawsuit has comes as Vonage tries to recover from a disappointing stock market debut. The company lost nearly 30 percent of its value in the first week of trading. The Internet telephony provider has also been gearing up to defend itself against several investor lawsuits. Shareholders allege that the company misled them and created artificial demand for the stock.

Klausner, a privately held company that controls several patents for voice over IP technology, settled a lawsuit earlier this year with Time Warner for using its technology in AOL voice mail. Under the settlement, Klausner granted a license to AOL to use the patent. Financial terms were not disclosed.

:cop:

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Have had Vonage for the last 3 years at my MD residence. Verizon is the land-line provider in my area and I had nothing but grief with them. ComCast is the internet connection

I disconnected Verizon Land-Lline at the outside connection box, and now use the internal house phone wiring for my extension phones.

Be sure to pay attention to how to rig it up for "911" calls!

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

To hook up the whole house on Vonage do I need to run a modular cord from the Vonage modem back to the telephone box outside of the house which means fishing the cord up through the wall to the attic down the conduit to the outside box. Or is there a way to use the existing wiring to the outside box? Thanks.

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Trichard, you don't need to run cords and hook up wiring with Vonage. We have the main phone connected to the Vonage modem on our high speed cable internet on the computer. We then have three more phones throughout the house that are part of the "system" we bought. The three other portable phone that don't need to be connected to anything but the electrical outlet on the wall. I did it myself, and even amazed my husband because it was so easy and done in 15 minutes to 1/2 an hour. Its the ebst thing ever when it comes to phones.

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I sure hope Vonage doesn't :dontknow: go away!!! We've had Vonage since October, $25 for unlimited long distance to U.S. AND Canada. As Ouma said, main portable phone connected to Vonage and then other portable phones. I was skeptical that anything so reasonable could actually do the job. I think we can somehow take it back to Canada with us in the Spring and use it there. Haven't figured that part of it out yet. We love Vonage. lovehorse
Yeah I know, what does that smiley have to do with phone service, nothing, but I like it. lovehorse

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

Vonage isn't the only fish in the sea. There are many other companies offering VOIP telephone service. I have used Via:talk for three years here in MI. I plant to bring it with me to TV in January. Here is a website that lists the top ten VOIP providers. http://www.top10voipproviders.com/to...rs_residential.

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Moving Update:

Moved in from NH on Nov 16th. Plugged the Vonage box in to the cable and PRESTO! Phone service with our old NH number as well as Florida number we had assigned as well. While moving, we forwarded calls to the celphones. How can you beat this?

VOIP FOREVER!

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Watch out for ViaTalk. I've had them for over a year. I prepaid for two years of service at $9.95 per month for 500 minutes. It's a great value and has all the features of Vonage. However, their customer service is terrible. It takes them up to a month to respond to service tickets and there have been many complaints about waiting hours for phone support.

Re: VONAGE Internet Phone Service
 

This has been a very interesting string but, confusing to me.
Do you have to have cable for this to work? right now i have ATT phone & dsl. Our Television is still good old antenna as we don't spend much time watching the tube.
would vonage work for me in California. When we get to TV will have cable or dish then.
:dontknow:

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Diskman, you don't need cable. As long as you have high speed internet, cable or dsl, Vonage will work.

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ouma1938
thanks for your response :2cool:

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So if you have DSL service you can get Vonage. Right now I have DSL through ATT. The only way I can get it is if I have a phone line also. I understand having cable internet and Vonage. You do not have to have a phone line through the cable co. Will embarq provide you with DSL and no phone number, allowing me to get a phone through Vonage. Otherwise I don't need two phone lines. I could not stand double the sales and charity calls that I get now. I am gonna have to pick a service in the next few weeks. Moving permanently is fast approaching.