Phone options

[drewan]

We confirmed last night that our cell phones won't work in the new house. The seller, who also has Cingular, told us that there appears to be a several block dead zone in that area for Cingular service.

Now I'm looking at home phone solutions. Vonage looks pretty good, and cheaper than the Digital Phone service from Time Warner.

Those of you that use Vonage... how do you like it? Any comments or suggestions?

Edit: Oh cool... just found a possible way to use my Windows Mobile 2005 device as a soft phone with Vonage. This solution uses software from SJ Labs.. Oh... wait... it appears that they don't have a version for WM 2005 yet, just 2002 or 2003. But the next version whould have 2005.

Second Edit: Ah... it appears they have the WM 5 client in public beta right now. Here is the info.

Comments

[randomcub.livejournal.com]

I like vonage ok, but they have a dead spot at MY house.

You should have friends with various cel carriers come over and test the coverage in your house.

[drewan.livejournal.com]

Vonage is a Voice over IP solution (VoIP). It works using your own home's internet connection. So I'm not clear how your house would have a dead spot with vonage.

[randomcub.livejournal.com]

Ooohh, ok. Never mind. We also have vonage but I saw the V and immediately my brain went "Verizon!"

[drewan.livejournal.com]

Not that you're blond or anything.

[randomcub.livejournal.com]

As if!

[laurel]

I loved Vonage when I had it (when I was in South Dakota, mostly); Shaun's had service even longer than I have.

The only problem I had was when I moved up here, I couldn't get my Vonage to work reliably with Kevin's DSL so I ended up giving it up reluctantly. I could've been more vigilant in working with support to figure it out, but since we both have cell phones and Kevin has a land line, I didn't bother.

I had no problems with use with my cable modem; I suspect the problems here might've had something to do with the rather old DSL router and tech Kevin still uses.

Anyhoo. If you have any specific questions re Vonage, let me know. And hey, I can refer you to them and get you a free month or something IIRC (or Shaun could, I suspect).

Oh yeah-- obviously the Vonage phone doesn't work when your internet connection is down. So I liked having my cell phone as backup, though honestly-- I never had any problems.

[sctmpls.livejournal.com]

I have Vonage with a road runner cable modem and I've never had a problem. I love it. The only thing I would say negative about Vonage is that Erik was having probelms with it for a bit and the tech suppport was in India and was VERY frustrating.

If you decide to go with Vonage, send me your e-mail address. If I refer a friend, I get two months free and you get your first month free.

[dracut.livejournal.com]

My vonage experience is pretty good unless I happen to be getting a few episodes of the new Doctor Who or something. Then I may need to pause my download otherwise the person on the other end can get a little bit of a choppy reception.

Damn asynchronous bandwidth...