I don’t talk much about technology, but I must sing the praises of Vonage. It really works. Sign up. But before you do, tell me, ’cause I get a free month if I recommend you. Vonage, if you don’t know, is hooking your phone up through broadband. Unlimited local and long distance for $25 a month. Two very minor catches. The quality, I would say, is only 93% that of a regular land line. And, once in a blue moon, you will make an outgoing call and you’ll hear a fast busy signal. Hang up and count to ten and redial and it should go through. It has only happened three times. One of those three times I actually had to count to fifteen. But other than that, Vonage is a dream.
But something that has begun to suck lately is Netflix. Imagine that! Me, the one who used to sing Netflix’s praises like Paul on the road to Damascus. But three times in the last month Netflix has sent me cracked, unusable DVDs. Just now, as I was all excited to watch Disc 2 of Season 3 of the West Wing (yes, yes, I am back to that bit of liberal fantasy) I opened the envelope and the disc actually came apart in my hand. Grumble! I may just have to. . . .read!?!?!?
Before everyone rushes out to sign up … I had a pretty lame experience with Vonage. It just didn’t work about 25% of the time. People would call and get a busy signal when I wasn’t using the phone. I would try to call and get a busy signal. When I did get through, my voice would sound like a muffled/staticky vocoder. This wasn’t all the time, but often enough that it was maddening. I suspect a lot has to do with web traffic at a given time — this happened much more on the weekends.
And the customer service was bad. One guy, literally, saying stuff like, “Dude, I can’t believe your phone isn’t working. Maybe you should, like, turn it on and off again just to see what happens.”
I wanted this to work very badly — mainly to save a truckload of money on calls — but it just didn’t happen for me.
Odd — my experience so far has been really good. But, yes, the customer service probably does suck. My only experience was the day I first got the hardware and (like a putz) had plugged it in wrong. I called their helpline and waited on hold forever. In the time it took for someone to pick up I realized my own mistake and hung up. So, I never actually spoke to anyone.
I’ve been contemplating an internet phone ever since you first got one Jordan – but there’s one thing that holds me back. Am I completely paranoid because I don’t want a new fangled internet phone that won’t work in a blackout/terrorist attack?
If you are concerned about a terrorist attack, then yes. If you are concerned about a blackout/Time Warner outage, then no. But that’s why you have a cell phone. And — be honest — are your phone calls THAT important?