Vonage VoIP Service: Great Phone Service with Unlimited International Plans

Thinking of changing phone plans? You might want to consider Vonage VoIP as a great alternative. Vonage offers many different plans that run from the basic unlimited long distance in the US to many unlimited international calling plans that allow you to call almost every country in the world! This truly is a great service and can save you a ton of money if you call internationally often.

I started my Vonage service 6 months ago and I have to say I am thoroughly impressed. Their customer support was great; they sent me a free phone modem and got me all setup in about 5 days. Their support has been phenomenal, the service has almost never had problems and I can now call over 40 countries as often as I please for only $48 a month.

I bought the Vonage service because I was sick of Time Warner's cable phone not working, also Vonage offered an unlimited plan to call to Mexico, which my wife calls her mom and talks for hours now and it only costs me $48 a month instead of $5 per hour (phone card costs). I also get unlimited local calls and long distance calling to anywhere in the USA.

Bright spots to the service

As I mentioned I can call Mexico - Monterrey to be more specific and also a laundry list of other countries including Germany, Australia, Brazil, China (cell phones included), Japan, Russia, Thailand and many others all for one low price.

I can also call anywhere in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico and local calls are included in the price as well.

The price is unbeatable my plan is what they call the Enhanced World plan and its $39.99 a month plus taxes. I was paying about $50 a month with Time Warner Cable and they didn't offer any international calling.

You can keep probably keep your old phone number, they have an easy web interface that asks you some questions and lets you know if your old number would be able to be transferred to them. This is a nice feature since most people you want to call already know your number and it's a pain to change to a new one.

You get a free month of calls to test out the service and if you don't like it you can just cancel and never pay a dime. They give you one month to try Vonage because they know you are going to love it and stick with them after you have tried it.

Vonage will work with almost any phone; you don't have to buy anything special they even send you the high-speed phone modem when you sign up so you don't have to buy anything to get started.

Their service is amazing, I have had to call twice once to get the service and once for help setting up the device and both times they were great!

Great web interface that allows you to configure your services the way you like them to maximize your experience with Vonage.

Down Sides to the service

It uses your internet connection, which means if you have an unreliable ISP (Internet Service Provider) and your internet constantly goes down, you won't have a phone during that time. Also if your equipment fails (IE Router, Cable Modem, Wireless Router, etc...) again you will be without a home phone.

Bandwidth can be a problem as well...some ISP's don't offer unlimited bandwidth so it could cost you a lot if you talk a lot. I have unlimited bandwidth so I don't have to worry about this but it could pose a problem for some users.

If you are doing a lot on the internet you might lose call quality. I download a lot of movies from iTunes and this takes a lot of bandwidth which can cause lapses in the call quality, but a simple fix is to make sure you aren't doing too much heavy downloading while someone is on the phone. Not a big problem for me but some might see this as a negative.

Sometimes the High-speed Phone Modem needs to be rebooted. I have had the service for 6 months and this has only been a problem once. I didn't call tech support but my phone wouldn't get a dial tone, I simply unplugged the modem and then plugged it back in and it worked. Not sure if this will always fix the problem but I am sure the tech support team for Vonage can help with any serious issues.

Conclusion

I love Vonage, it suits all my needs and for a low price I get unlimited calling too many countries around the world. I love their web interface that allows me to update my services and change settings (like when I leave the house I can set it to forward calls to my cell phone) the way I want them to work. I can block numbers myself and don't have to worry about asking to be put on a no call list. In fact since I have had the service I don't think I have had one telemarketer call me, of course I switched my number so that probably helps.

Vonage is the best phone service I have ever had and it's cheap! I get all I want and more out of them and they are doing a great job of support and keeping me happy! Take a look at the plans and service and remember you can try it free for a month to see if you like it.

www.Vonage.com and http://www.vonage.com/intplans_details.php#commentForm for calling plans!