Wrestling with Vonage »
I recently decided to add a second line to my Vonage service. It was amazingly painless. Less than 30 minutes after ordering on the web site, I saw the second light flicker on my phone adapter and the service was active. Sweetness indeed. They even had a number in a local Charlotte exchange.
So then I decided it was time for me to switch my home number (Bellsouth) to Vonage. Seems painless enough, right? The guy had told me to just download a form and send it in. Easy as pie. Except... the form doesn't have a spot to indicate which line to switch. And I didn't want to switch my newly minted Charlotte number, which not only is in a local exchange, it's actually a heck of a lot nicer (easier to remember) than the other one.
That lead me to call Vonage. I would very much like to not do that again. The service is great. The lady I got on the phone was very nice. But it was a long call. Nearly an hour, with the first 15 minutes or so spent on hold. Once I got Sharon on the phone, it was a task explaining what I wanted to do. You'd think it would be simple.
Not if you talked to Sharon. After maybe 30 minutes of back-and-forth with her on getting a new line activated or not, getting another adapter or not, I finally stumbled across a "change your number" page at the actual customer service site. It's on the "billing" page, if you're having trouble finding it. Over there on the right.
I filled in the fields, it assigned me a temporary virtual number, which will be decommissioned once the transfer goes through, and we were done. Well, there was a $10.29 charge for doing it, but that's really not too bad. I would have liked to not have that charge, but I'm not going to spend another hour on hold to try and get it from them.
As before, if you're thinking about trying Vonage, let me know. I'll be happy to call you, or give you my number so you can call me, and that way you'll be able to check it out. Then if you like it and want to give it a go, I'll send you a referral, which will generate me a cool two months worth of credit if you sign up. It's kinda like sending something from my wish list, but you don't actually have to part with any money (other than the money for the service, which you would spend anyway)!
Comments (4)
I love my Vonage. I've had it for a year and a half, and no problems. Love it!
Then I got a thing in the mail from my cable company the other day, announcing their telephone service. It's only $10 MORE than Vonage! Oh, yeah, I'll jump right on that. *lol* But if nothing else, them entering the broadband telephony field means it's in their best interest that my cable modem service remain uninterrupted. So that's something. :)
Posted by Iki on March 8, 2005 8:57 AM
While it is true that they have every motivation to keep the service running, it's also true that they now have the ability to improve their own service at the expense of others. Cringely had a nice writeup about this just last week.
In essence, the broadband providers don't do anything to harm the other services directly - they just put in place features to help their own services, and in so doing they end up affecting those other services in detrimental ways.
To the best of my knowledge this hasn't happened yet - but it seems to make perfect sense...
Posted by Chad Everett on March 8, 2005 4:23 PM
I actually REALLY DISLIKE Vonage. I purchased Vonage, to be able to work from home.
Their employees all seem to be computers. They say they would "love" to help you and they don't seem to know how. They ask you all kinds of questions, that has nothing to do with the change you want to make.
I have had Vonage for about two months, going on three. The first two months the line was so choppy that you were not able to understand the person you were calling. I called several times, each time lasted about an hour. They asked if they could call me on another line, since the line I was calling from was so choppy. (Their line!) I have used over four hours of my cell phone minutes.
Finally, I went to cancel with them, since they were of no help. I was promised that the problem will be fixed within 24 hours and to please wait. Since this did not work, I called again and let them know I wanted to cancel. Again, they promised me help and to wait a couple of days.
By this time I was so fed up I didn't care what promises they would tell me, I just wanted to cancel. They said there will be fees, since I called ONE day after their 60 day money back guarentee.
I am not happy with Vonage and HIGHLY recommend that if you are interested to look into other companies.
Posted by Sarahi on February 11, 2008 1:17 PM
Hi Sarahi -
I'm sorry that you're not having good luck! In my experience (admittedly, somewhat limited), Vonage is usually of poor quality when your connection is too. In other words, as my main connection goes, so does my Vonage connection.
I've now had Vonage for going on three years, and overall, it has been a very positive experience. You may also want to try a different adapter. We recently switched to the DLink VTA-VR, and it actually seemed to improve things (you'll need another router with this, however).
Good luck, whichever way you go!
Posted by Chad Everett on February 11, 2008 1:31 PM