On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Daniel Fussell <[email protected]> wrote: > I've been watching my Vonage bill creep up to my old Qweerst bill, and > it's starting to bug me. > > Thoughts? Opinions? Snide and/or snarky remarks?
I was in the same situation 3 years ago. I started with the $14.99/month plan in 2005 and by my last bill in 2009 I was paying about $23/month. My solution was to buy an Ooma. You have to buy the device (about $200) and then the only monthly fees you pay are the mandated state and federal fees. They have a calculator at https://go.ooma.com/tax_calculator so you can see what the fees are for your zip code. I was fortunate enough to buy my device before they started charging the the fees and, to their credit, they kept the service completely free for those of us who joined before the fees were required. The service with Ooma has been pretty good. I've had 2 outages that I was aware of in the 3 years I've used the service. I don't remember for sure, but I don't believe neither outage lasted very long (maybe a few hours). The call quality varies but overall I've been pleased. I will occasionally hear an echo or experience a ~1 second delay in my conversations but I have never been able to decide if it is the fault of Ooma, my internet connection, or the line of the person I am talking to. I miss a few of the features that Vonage offered as part of their plans (like call forwarding) but I've found using Google Voice in conjunction with Ooma to be an adequate solution for my needs. If you want a more integrated experience, Ooma does offer a $10/month plan called "Ooma Premier" which adds several features. I've never used it so I can't speak to its value. Good luck finding an alternative to the ever-creeping costs of Vonage! -Chris /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
