Vonage is a service that allows you to make telephone calls over your broadband connection. If your skeptical because you remember the old days of making internet calls from your pc with a microphone or headset, keep reading. Vonage is a slicker system. The way Vonage works (the non-magical part anyways) is this: You purchase a Vonage adapter (usually made by linksys) from a retail store such as Circuit City, Best Buy, or Wal-Mart. I paid ~$60 for mine which after a $60 mail in rebate was free. The adapter is a small box approx 4†square maybe 1†thick with a power plug, an ethernet port, and 2 phone jacks. You plug the ethernet port into your broadband router and a telephone into the phone jack. You then either call Vonage or go to vonage.com to activate your adapter. You will need to provide a credit/debit card to bill the service to and the number (mac address) off of the bottom of your adapter. Within a few seconds of activating your account, the magic part happens and you have a dial tone. There is no noticeable delay when talking on the vonage line and the quality is great.
I’ve had my Vonage line since July 2005. In Mt. Zion, my bill for regular phone service was more than $50 every month regardless of how little I used the phone. I pay $26.53 per month for the $14.99 Vonage package plus $4.99 for a toll-free number. All Vonage packages are loaded with features such as call forwarding, caller id, voice mail, bandwidth saver, and call waiting, that you can manage via their website. Another very powerful feature called Network Availability number allows you to forward calls to another number (in my case a cellphone) in the event that your internet connection is broken. So there is never any danger of missing a call.
The Vonage adapter very portable in the sense that you can unplug it and take it anywhere that has broadband. For instance, I can take my adapter to the office, plug it in to a network port, and my calls come there.
Vonage is not immune to communication taxes – my bill in July of this year was $22.95 and is presently $26.53:
My control panel at vonage.com looks like this:
In conclusion, the advantage of the Vonage service is it’s flexibility. If you need to be able to control your telephonic destiny, Vonage is a good way to go.
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