Finding a New VoIP Provider
Posted on September 27, 2007 by Eric
Filed Under Household
It sounds like Vonage is going through some rough times right now. We’ve been using Vonage for, I think, a couple of years now. We’ve been really happy with the service, and have two lines with them. One is our normal home line, and the other line Melissa uses for some of her charity work.
Some people have suggested we just drop the home phone altogether and go purely with cell phones. I don’t like that idea as much. For me, my cell phone has always been more about giving me convenience to call people when I’m out, and not for the convenience of getting a hold of me. I’m selective about who I give my cell phone number to, but I don’t mind giving out my home phone number. I guess it’s more of a habit than anything else. Having separate home and cellular numbers just fits the way I want to live.
If you haven’t heard about Vonage’s latest trouble, several months back, Vonage lost a battle with Verizon over some patents. It was unclear at that time what would happen to them. There was talk that after the KSR vs. Teleflex Supreme Court case that Vonage might have a chance in appeals. I’m not sure everything is over yet, but at least for now, hope for Vonage may be slim after the appeals court has ruled for Verizon again, and this is just after Vonage lost a different case with Sprint.
Right now, I’m unsure of Vonage’s future, and I would really like to keep my phone number. I’m debating tonight whether or not I should switch. If I switch now, I have this theory that it will be easier than if I wait and Vonage is forced into raising prices or runs into even further troubles.
So, last night I started researching possible replacement providers. I didn’t realize how much things had changed. I had some friends who were trying to talk me into switching to SunRocket, but they are in bad shape right now too. I’ve got a couple of friends who have now mentioned CallCentric as an option. I like this one. It only costs $1.95 for a phone number, and it’s $0.015 for incoming minutes. Outgoing minutes are only $0.0198 / min (1.98 cents / minute). Seeing as how we only use at most a couple hundred of minutes on the home phone, this is only going to cost $1.95 + (200 minutes * $0.0198 = 3.96) = 5.91 a month. This sounds good to me! The only issue again is longevity. It’s not clear to me how long they’ll be around.
I was checking on some more providers, like Packet8. One reason I like them is a blurb on their about page :
Packet8 Internet phone service was introduced in 2002 by publicly traded 8×8, Inc. (Nasdaq: EGHT), a 20 year old telecommunications company with more than 68 multimedia and VoIP technology patents.
I’m not 100% sure what this will mean in a patent battle, but at least they might have a way to counter-sue.
We have Time Warner in my area, and they offer Digital Phone service, but it starts at $39.95 and that doesn’t include voicemail (that’s $3.95 extra). I always felt Vonage cost a little more than I wanted to spend. I can’t imagine spending more – especially when I get less for my money.
Another service I found intriguing was ViaTalk. It’s $199.95 if you prepay for a year, and you get two lines! That sounds like a pretty darn good deal. Plus, I might even be able to use my existing Linksys phone connector.
If anyone out there has some suggestions, I’m interested in hearing them. Leave a comment to the post if you’d like, or send us something via the Contact page.
For the immediate future, I’m sticking with Vonage as I continue to research what else is out there.
Image Source: spierzchala
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Sunrocket isn’t an option for you any more, because they went out of business in July. Sunrocket had over 200,000 customers, and it caused quite a stir as companies like Vonage and Packet8 scrambled to get as many of SunRocket’s customers as possible.
The thing that made it really bad was that SunRocket just shut it’s doors and walked away without telling their customers. Hopefully, if Vonage needs to shut down, they will take the time to tell their customers well in advance, and try to sell their customers to competing VoIP companies. This would slow down the process and make the transition easier on the customers and service providers alike.
As a matter of fact, Packet8 announced yesterday that they are going to start moving 12,000 customers to their service from another VoIP provider who is either going out of business or just getting out of the VoIP game. The press release said that they would try to moving them over a 3 month period, which should make it a pretty smooth transition compared to what happened after SunRocket just walked away.
Thanks for posting the information on Callcentric Eric, I hadn’t heard much about them before, but if they are offering a phone number for $1.99, I need to learn more so I can tell my readers.
Greg
Greg – Thanks for the comment!
I heard about SunRocket (and had seen they were a goner from their website), but hadn’t heard that things had ended so abruptly. That’s unfortunate, and a bit scary to think about with this Vonage situation.
I’m really thinking about CallCentric. The chance to reduce my phone bill to 6 dollars just sounds too good to be true. I’m still in the process of doing research though.
Eric