First off, let me state that nothing is ever perfect, no really. Moving on… To keep Ma Bell or to switch to some flavor of broadband VoIP service, that is the question. On the one hand Ma Bell has had several dozen decades to work out the kinks and their service is pretty much bulletproof. Yes, they’re inflexible, unresponsive and pricey but their service is usually the last to fail (if ever - unless you’re in a horror flick and being chased by some stalker with a huge knife) and the first to recover. Vonage (as with other VoIP vendors) has had only a few years to start figuring out what the the kinks are let alone work them out. I don’t know about you but my broadband service drops when it only looks like bad weather outside and when it does drop it can be out for days even if Comcast is “working on it”…
Ok, so for the people who absolutely, 100% all the time, must have some sort of service (and there legitimately are those people out there), stay clear of these new startups and stick with wired service. No offense but these services aren’t really targeted to you anyway.
However, if you don’t live and die on the fact that your home phone might or might not ring or if you feel that having a cell phone more than makes up for a temporary loss in your home phone service, please do look closer into these services, they might be exactly what your looking for!
We’ve now been running a VoIP replacement service (Vonage) for a few months and I’d have to say that for the most part, we’re pretty damn happy. We’re saving over 50% from our old service, get free long distance and a handfull of other services to boot. One of the helpful services that comes along free is “Service Forwarding”. If (when) my broadband does drop, Vonage will forward all incoming calls to a number of my choosing. I simply put in my cell number and bingo, no missed calls. I was able to port my old phone number with little or no problems, have free voicemail and the networked phone adapter was literally plug and play. It really couldn’t have been easier to order, install and configure. Heck, even adding a secondary line for faxes was a snap using their web dashboard interface.
Here’s where this type of service geeks out. Most companies (including Vonage) offer virtual phone numbers for your account. Their virtual because they only truly existing within their system but can be located (local access) anywhere that they service. That’s the US, Canada, Mexico, parts of Europe etc. People dial your “local” virtual number and it rings at your desk - WAY COOL! Have friends or family all across the globe? No problem, get virtual numbers that are local to them and it won’t cost them long distance charges to call you. Same with their business accounts, have “virtual” offices in any city you want! Hell, you can even get 800 numbers. And remember, with no long distance charges on YOUR account, you can call anyone, at anytime at no additional charges! The only downside that I’ve come across is that when you do this trick for your business, you can only call out from your first, real number. So, if you wanted someone to think you had an office in Vegas, because you setup a virtual number, you better think of a reason why all of your calls come from Cornfritter Iowa.
As I’ve said before, we’ve had this service (Vonage) for a few months and it’s generally worked great and we’re pretty happy. The sound quality is excellent, we haven’t experienced any of those annoying digital drop out effects “yet” ( echoing, reverb, ghosting, etc…), we’re saving money and it does what they said it would do.
Let’s not forget the 911 service. That’s been big in the news for a while. Because there are no more “local” phone exchanges for your 911 call to be routed from, all calls start out at your VoIP’s main processing center and then is routed to a “local” authority. Although they have a section on their site to input all of your essentials (name, address, township, etc.), I’m not sure I’ll be reaching for my home phone in an emergency.
The Downside
So why isn’t Broadband VoIP service for everyone? Because it’s new… Because it relies on umpteen layers of technology that no single entity controls… Because everyone has a different X or a different Y piece of hardware in the mix… Did I mention their still new??
My friend called my cell the other day. He tried calling my house but couldn’t get through. I checked from my cell and kept getting a stupid message saying I should “try again later”. Deeerrrrrr, no? Checked all the cables, reset the devices, power cycled everything. Nothing. HEY! ISN’T MY CELL SUPPOSED TO RING IF MY SERVICE GOES DOWN??!??!!. Yeah, that ONLY works if MY broadband goes down, NOT THEIRS!!! After several attempts at trying to reach someone to find out what was going on I was told THE DAY AFTER, that their techs had “identified a problem and have moved to correct said problem”. Geee, I feel all better now..
So yeah, they are new, their technology is NOT bullet proof, good luck trying to get someone to talk to and when something does go wrong, there about a dozen steps YOU need to go through before THEY will even consider it a problem.
In all honesty, I don’t really use my wired phone much at all anyway. Most everyone that needs to get a hold of me has my cell number and they usually use that first anyway. In the couple of months we’ve had the service it’s only been a problem once (that we’re aware of anyway), it costs us about 50% less than we’ve been paying, we kept our number and the level of service is pretty much what we expected.
All in all Broadband VoIP is not that bad, it has some very nice features, it’s much cheaper than the phone company and if you don’t absolutely have to rely on your phone service (e.g. if you feel warm and fuzy using your cell in case your land line is not working), by all means go out and get that new Vonage (Verizon, Comcast, Snip or whatever) account you’ve been looking at. As good as it is now, it’s going to get better and if you can advantage of some their more special features, all the better…
This assumes of course that they actually survive after Verizon’s lawsuit… 