Vonage DigitalVoice Service

The Vonage DigitalVoice Service package contains everything you need to quickly and easily install a phone line in your home. In a matter of minutes, your Vonage DigitalVoice phone can be up and running, and you can be making and receiving calls over your broadband connection to and from your friends, business associates, and faraway relatives. It's easy: just plug the included phone adapter into your high-speed Internet connection and plug your telephone into the adapter.

Enjoy the conveniences of a standard telephone service with none of the hassles. With Vonage DigitalVoice, you can talk all you want to anywhere in the country for one flat monthly subscription fee. Plus, you can make international calls at a low per-minute rate. Another bonus is that a U.S. call to Canada is treated like a domestic long distance call rather than an international one. Vonage also supports short-form emergency 911 services, where available.

Unlike other Internet telephone service providers, Vonage does not require access numbers, account numbers, or PINs to make a simple phone call. Instead, you just dial your party's phone number on an ordinary telephone keypad. Also, if you purchase DigitalVoice from Amazon.com, the box includes a special URL that lets you register for service without a setup fee, plus you get two months of free calling. Switching your current local phone service to Vonage is a snap. You can even choose any area code you want, subject to availability.

Terms and Conditions
Buying this item signifies agreement to sign up for service with Vonage and to pay a monthly subscription fee after the initial promotional period has ended. For details about how the service works and for complete terms and conditions, visit www.vonage.com. For technical assistance, call 1-866-293-5676.

Vonage just hit 40,000 subscribers on 8/4/03. At the moment they're adding 1500+ subscribers per week! Speculation is that they'll have over 100k subs by year-end. The feature set offered from Vonage is very similar to that of your current phone provider and they're adding more all of the time, only cheaper.

The only voice features I see missing from the Vonage service over what could be purchased from my old provider (Qwest) are:
1) Name+Number CID (Vonage only offers number Caller ID)
2) Privacy+ (Your "We don't accept solicitations or unidentified callers...")

What Vonage already has that Qwest wouldn't give me at any price:

1) Call Transfer... You can't get that unless you have a business line and then it'll cost ya
2) Near-real-time call logging and account monitoring
3) Voicemail that will e-mail/page you
4) The ability to retrieve voicemail from a remote location without making a LD call
5) Caller ID embedded into the voicemail
6) Automatic Credit Card billing
7) Free credits for for signing up friends and family!
8) The ability to take my phone with me when I travel, all you need is a broadband connection!
9) Really cheap 8xx number for toll-free dialing
10) Free long distance
11) Having an unlisted/unpublished number for free (Qwest charges a monthly fee for unlisted/unpublished service)
12) Keeping my number. (I transfered my number from Qwest to Vonage and now I'll never lose my telephone number when I move.)

There are lots of other really cool features that Vonage offers that I could drone on about, but I only have 1000 words here!


Don't Be Scared By The Internet Aspect Of This - It Works   September 15, 2003
Wayne Schulz (Glastonbury, CT USA)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

The toughest thing about setting up Vonage is taking the twistie ties off the cabling. Everything self installs. You plug the included hardware into your Internet connection and it self installs. No CD to load. No commands to type on your computer at all.

People who I've called cannot tell the difference between a normal phone line and Vonage. The sound quality is identical. In the 1,000 minutes or so that I've used Vonage I have not experienced any echoes or other problems. And I have easily been able to simultaneously use my DSL service to browse the Internet and download files -- while holding a conversation via Vonage.

If there is any downside to this service it seems to be on the incoming call side. While I've only used my Vonage for outgoing calls - I have read a few messages from users that have switched their phone service over entirely to Vonage and they sporadically seem to have issues with callers getting busy signals or out of service messages. While these are understandable with any new service the bigger concern is that contacting technical support is not as fast as with the local phone company (this seems to be the one area the telephone company still has an advantage with).


Vonage Service   March 12, 2003
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I ordered the phone last week and it arrived yesterday. The Cisco box was small and I simply plugged it in, picked up the phone, and there was a dial tone. It sounds clearer then the regular phone service. You do have to dial 1+area code even for local calls, and your name will not show up (your number will) on other people's caller ID, it says vonage on it. But when you get unlimited phone and voice mail for $ its worth it. The caller ID light also comes on on my Panasonic telephone when there is voice mail -- cool. This is no gizmo that will disappoint you, its the real deal and works great. The web based control panel is cool too. You can see an online log of incoming and outgoing calls, as wel as check your voice mail.


On an Island off Nova Scotia, a Phone like the Next Room   June 27, 2003
Jefferson Harkins (FL, VI, NS)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I spend the summer on an island a mile off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. We have an undersea electrical cable, but no phone service. Last year I established a wireless high-speed internet connection that works well. Our phone service was an "industrial grade cordless phone" that worked okay, but had frequent dropped calls.

I bought the Vonage phone service and brought it to the island this summer. I connected the "modem-like device" to my Apple Airport ethernet connector, and about 10 seconds later the light on the device went out, meaning I had service.

I got a dial tone and called my office. They said I sounded like I was in the next room. In fact, I had to turn DOWN the volume on the phone, because they were so loud and clear. Then my partner called his parents in VA. They said he sounded like he was in the next room. (We need more metaphors here.)

In short, the service works as advertised, does so with no problem and with elegance (like Apple products, it just works). Highly reccommended from the middle of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada. If it can work for me on this crazy internet setup, it can work for you.


It works   March 9, 2003
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

I have been using Vonage for over a month now. It is easy to set up and configure and the sound quality is generally excellent. There could be a problem for some people who have insufficient upload speed, but with my DSL it works essentially flawlessly. I am using a Sony phone with 4 wireless remote phones in various places in the house and find that I get excellent coverage. There could be a problem if you use a firewall program such as ZoneAlarm integrated with your Linksys router, but a conventionally installed firewall should not cause any problems.

In short, it works and there have been no signficant problems.