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Vonage gets a thumbs up

So far I'm pleased with my switch to Vonage for VOIP phone service. Then quality has been good and the price reasonable, I get much better features and I didn't have to buy new phones.

Yes, I know a bit of a gap in reporting.

For those who might be scared of not having a way of calling 911 when the power is out — what I did was leave most of my phones still connected to the Bell South POTS line. I can't make a regular call now that I don't have service, but you can still make a 911 call — the same deal offered to folks who have a cell phone without a service provider. So the no 911 scare tactic falls flat, at least for me.

Note that there is an option when hooking everything up to connect Vonage directly into the house phone wiring, replacing the local POTS directly. I don't recommend that just for the 911 issue, also with my older house wiring and phones I had trouble getting everything to work correctly when I plugged the service directly into the house wiring.

Vonage has a pretty good website and great reporting, you can go to the website to see all of your all calls out and any calls in that you might have missed. You can also access your voicemail from the website. The voicemail is part of even the very basic package, which is something that cell-phone folks have picked up on but not the Bells, or at least not as far as I've seen.

Last but not least, changing my phone number without telling anyone is a great way to stop telemarketing calls. I also won't be in any directory and my exchange doesn't match were I live — so hopefully the peace and quiet will last.