Phone Services

[Peter W. Bennett]

Anyone using vonage, ring central or the one offered by Costco?
pros
cons
thanks,
pb

[kluce]

Originally Posted by pbennett1

Anyone using vonage, ring central or the one offered by Costco?
pros
cons
thanks,
pb

I would rate Vonage a B-.

Once in a while there isn't a good connection. If that was corrected, I would give them an A+. Features are great, never had a problem with customer service and the price is just fine.

Magic Jack was a disappointment. Once is a while there is a bad connection, every time you make a call, Magic Jack shows up on the computer screen plus I can't use the fax machine with it. But mostly there is no local number for this area.

[kluce]

You got me thinking about other phone services.

So far I do like Ring Central. The reviews are good and the price is not bad.

I'm going to look into it a bit more but I think I'm going to give them a try.


I'm surprised that nobody else has responded to your question.

[Bob Elliott]

What you need to remember is if you are using the cable company coaxial and a competing service, they may not care to much about your issues.

[kluce]

Originally Posted by belliott

What you need to remember is if you are using the cable company coaxial and a competing service, they may not care to much about your issues.

I agree. On Monday (if I have time), I'm also going to be looking into AT&T service since I already have the internet through them.

For what I'm going to be doing in the near future, Ring Central sounds interesting but after looking at some other reviews, I'm questioning how good they are. I think that 30 day trial will help determine the direction I'll be going in.

I was told by a few people that AT&T wants to get rid of land line phones and focus on the VoIP part. With everyone using cell phones plus the use of the internet to make phone calls, I can see why.

Note: Parents have VoIP phone service from AT&T for 5 months now and are very happy with them. They went and bought cordless phones for the first time. Their almost 80 and they are amusing.

[Joe Funderburk, CMI]

I read something good about Ooma. http://www.ooma.com/

In a nutshell, Ooma is a device that connects to your high-speed Internet and your home phone and allows you to make calls at no charge. It does other things as well, but you can get rid of your phone bill. It will take about 10 months to pay for itself.

[Humberto Carvajal]

I use Phone Power. They are Voip and in my opinion better than Vonage. Cheaper anyhow. No quality issues either. At least I have none.

Bert

[kweiss]

Last year I dropped my business land line that was costing $90 per month and ported the number to an additional line on my cell plan for $9.99 per month. With taxes and fees it ends up being about $25 per month but still much better than the land line.

I simply forwarded the business cell to my personal cell number so I only have to carry one around.

The only positive I feel I lost was the free yellow page listing, but I feel those are dying out anyways and only got one or two calls a year I could attribute to that listing.

[kluce]

Ok, I just set up my account with RingCentral VoIP service about 2 hour ago.

First I want to mention that the sales person on the phone was great. She walked me through the whole process and showed me the basics after I logged in. After an hour after talking to the sales person, another person called confirming the equipment ordered and that the mailing address is correct. So when it comes to the customer service, I'll give them an A+ at this time.

I did order their phones since I read that the phone is really needed for quality sound. They informed me that the phones will take 3 to 5 business days since I went with the cheapest shipping cost (around 18 dollars). Once I get the phones, I will be able to make outgoing calls. For now, I have directed my incoming calls to my cell phone. I had a few people call me on the local number RingCentral gave me and no problems with sound or anything else (time will tell).

Included in the VoIP package for $49.99 a month, I get one local number, one 800 number for voice calls and one 800 number for faxes.

I've already set up my answering greeting with a pre-recorded greeting (professional sounding but limiting on the greeting options) and setup the times when my office is open. So when 6 pm comes around, the phone will ring two times only and then go to the message saying we are closed and leave a message (again, professional sounding).

Regarding the fax, I had my wife send me a fax and it worked as well as it should. The fax is sent to my email account in PDF format. While I'm not looking at using the fax too often, it is nice to have just in case, plus it's included in the price.

Besides customer service, I can't even come close to rating this company/service yet. Once I try out the service with the phones, I'll write an update.

[rbero]

I have had ooma for a bit and it works great plus no phone bills

[kluce]

Originally Posted by kluce

Ok, I just set up my account with RingCentral VoIP service about 2 hour ago.

First I want to mention that the sales person on the phone was great. She walked me through the whole process and showed me the basics after I logged in. After an hour after talking to the sales person, another person called confirming the equipment ordered and that the mailing address is correct. So when it comes to the customer service, I'll give them an A+ at this time.

I did order their phones since I read that the phone is really needed for quality sound. They informed me that the phones will take 3 to 5 business days since I went with the cheapest shipping cost (around 18 dollars). Once I get the phones, I will be able to make outgoing calls. For now, I have directed my incoming calls to my cell phone. I had a few people call me on the local number RingCentral gave me and no problems with sound or anything else (time will tell).

Included in the VoIP package for $49.99 a month, I get one local number, one 800 number for voice calls and one 800 number for faxes.

I've already set up my answering greeting with a pre-recorded greeting (professional sounding but limiting on the greeting options) and setup the times when my office is open. So when 6 pm comes around, the phone will ring two times only and then go to the message saying we are closed and leave a message (again, professional sounding).

Regarding the fax, I had my wife send me a fax and it worked as well as it should. The fax is sent to my email account in PDF format. While I'm not looking at using the fax too often, it is nice to have just in case, plus it's included in the price.

Besides customer service, I can't even come close to rating this company/service yet. Once I try out the service with the phones, I'll write an update.

Ok. I got the phones two days after ordering. Plugged them in and started setting up all the options.

First I have to say is that I have the slowest DSL At&t offers and the quality of sound from RingCentral is great, I mean wow. I have not experience any problems -so far- that I have experienced with Vonage. When it comes to RingCentral, while I am impressed with all the options, and I mean a lot of options, understanding how to set up those options up does require a learning curve. I had to call customer service twice so they can show me how to do certain things. This is frustrating until you know how to do it, then it seems easy when applying it to other options.

At this time I would rate customer service an A. Quality of calls an A+ so far. The options for setting up an A. Understanding how to set up the options a C+.

I tested Vonage and RingCentral at the same time. The sound quality is what surprised me. While Vonage sounded good when everything is working properly, RingCentral just sounds great (I think it's the phones from RingCentral).

I still would rate Vonage a B- because of the poor connections (which others might not be experience). Again, if that could be corrected I would still give them an A+ (before I wanted more options). If you are looking at something professional and willing to pay a little more, so far I'm happy with RingCentral.

I pay 31 something a month (after taxes) for one phone line with Vonage. With RingCentral I pay 54 something a month (after taxes) but it comes with a local number, toll free number for talking and a toll free number for faxing.

Unless I experience something else, I'm going to leave it off here.

[Larry D. Kage]

Helpful info, thanks.

[Larry J. Michael]

Not sure what you are gonna use it for, but check out Google Voice