VoIP Telephone Services: Vonage Vs Sunrocket

I have used Vonage and Sunrocket both VoIP telephone services for more than two years each. Both have few good and bad features. This article will help you to understand the differences. This is also true that always you can expect few changes and offers which can make a lot of differences too.

Price - For any phone company the cost is an important factor. Sunrocket is having three basic call plans - Unlimited Annual Plan of $199 per year, Unlimited Monthly Plan of $24.95 per month and Limited Monthly Plan of $9.95 per month. Vonage has two plans for residential customers - Residential Premium Unlimited plan of $24.99 per month and Residential Basic 500 Minutes plan of $14.99 per month. Comparing all these plans the unlimited annual plan from Sunrocket is undoubtedly the best plan. If you take Sunrocket unlimited annual plan the cost for each month is coming around $17, which is a very good price per current market scenario. You can get a comparative study of costs of all major VoIP telephone service providers here.

Bonus Offer - Sunrocket is providing three months free for unlimited annual plan, which means you can enjoy unlimited calling service for 15 months for $199. As per this plan the monthly cost for your phone will be less than $14.00. Currently Vonage is offering one month free for new customer and with unlimited premium plan. Here it looks like Sunrocket offer is more attractive. Sometimes Sunrocket offers a free phone hand set when order for new connection. Sunrocket is also offering $3 free international call credit on each month for their annual plan.

Other Initial Charges - Initially Sunrocket was not taking any initial activation charge, but very recently they have applied a $29.95 one-time activation charge with all new orders. For Vonage the one-time activation charge is about $35. For both of them the basic phone adaptor is free with new connection. Generally a phone adaptor costs around $30. Both these two companies charge $9.99 as shipping charge.

Voice Quality - For almost all VoIP services the voice quality can be considered as same. I have used Vonage and Sunrocket both for years and I realized that Sunrocket voice quality is little lower than Vonage. Initially I faced lots of problems with Sunrocket voice quality. Later that has been fixed with the help of their customer service. Voice quality for Vonage was simply superb.

Features - There are few differences in features offered by these two telephone service providers. For both of them the basic features like voicemail, call forwarding, call waiting, 3-way calling and caller id are already included. Both has few features which are specifically belongs to one company. Sunrocket has distinctive ring, contacts, speed dial etc.

Similarly Vonage has Softphone by which you can call through your PC. Wherever you go you just take your PC and connect the softphone to your PC and start calling. All calls will be charged as if you are using your Vonage account. Vonage has yet another useful feature called 'Network Availably Number'. This feature enables your service to transfer your call to another number when your network has any problem. This is very useful when you have problem with your Internet connection. If you give your cell number as 'Network Availability Number', this service will forward your call to your cell if there is any problem with your Internet connection.

Sunrocket has a good and useful feature called 'Contact'. You can create an online telephone address book at Sunrocket member's website. Sometimes I found this is very useful to organize all your contacts.

Vonage has virtual number concept. You can get a second line with any area code you prefer. Suppose your child is studying to some other state and he has only local call free. You can take an additional line from Vonage with his area code and he can cell you as if he is calling to a local number. Vonage recently extended this service outside of US also and now you can get a number of UK, so that your relatives residing in UK can call you with local phone call charges.

Sunrocket is proving signature number in free when you take annual connection. Signature number is yet another number attached to your service and you can use it as second phone number and can be assigned to your partner. You can select two different ring tones for your primary number and signature number so that you can easily distinguish the call. You can also have different web account for signature number so that your partner can access and manage that number independently.

Referral Program - Both has referral program. For Vonage you can get two months free service if you refer a friend and for Sunrocket you can get $25 gift card for your each referral.