Today actually marks a full 30 days of Vonage use here at the Meister House, and things are actually going pretty well. For the first twenty-one days, only one telephone in the house was connected up to Vonage, mainly due to the tunaround time to keep your existing number caused by telephone companies doing their best to not let another customer make the switch to VoIP technology.
Once our existing telephone number was switched over, I simply disconnected outside telephone company connection connection, allowing the internal house wiring to be used as a simple network. This allows us to simply connect the Vonage router to one telephone outlet and use any other outlet normally with our existing telephones.
Judging the difference in quality between Vonage and a regular telephone line is difficult in the case of the Meister House. The local area has long been plagued with poor telephone lines, which are often full of static as water and snow seep into the outdoors equipment. Additionally, most long-distance calls made with the new service have been to cell phones that are on the other side of the country. However, I haven’t come across anything in terms of sound quality to persuade me that the monthly $24.99 unlimited calls plan is overpriced.
One of the free features that I’ve really come to like is the ability to have a copy of any incoming voicemail messages you have sent to you as an email attachment. I also suspect that we’ll get around to using other features like SimulRing and repeat dialing as we get used to the service.
Overall, I have to say that I’m happy with the service from Vonage, and it’s certainly cheaper than many other “all-you-can-eat” long-distance plans available from regular telephone service providers.