Gather Little by Little

I am surprised by the number of people that still use standard phone service. Digital phone service has been around for about 5 years and in my opinion offers the best rates for residential and commercial phone service.

Digital phone service is phone service provided over your high-speed internet connection. When you sign-up with a digital phone service provider, you receive a special router that plugs into your DSL or cable modem. The router allows you to plug-in standard phones and use them just like you normally would. The router converts to analog voice signal to a digital signal and transfers it over the internet to your digital phone provider who then transfers it to the persons phone service you are talking to. The person you are talking to doesn’t require digital phone service to talk to you.

We’ve been Vonage customers for almost 2 years now and really have no complaints. We had some issues with call clarity for a while, and even today every once in a while there is a delay;however, given the dramatic price difference we can’t complain. We have the residential basic plan which offers 500 minutes of call time and unlimited long distance for 14.99 a month. They also have a premium residential plan which offers unlimited call time and unlimited long distance for $24.99.

Since we live in a small suburban town, we had a local phone provider and where paying upwards of $80 – $100 per month for phone service. This was primarily due to the local phone provider charging long distance to call into the main city we are near. Switching to Vonage resulted in a $65/month savings. Over the past 2 years that works out to be more than $1500!

Digital Phone Service also offers some unique features:

• Call history accessible from the internet
• Call forwarding to multiple phone numbers
• Voicemail that is accessible from the internet (and yes you can even listen to it)
• Call forwarding in the event your internet connection is down. We have ours sent to our cell phones
• Standard features like conference calling, caller-id, call waiting, etc.
• The ability to place calls from your computer AND carry your number around with you.
• Wi-fi enabled phones
• Virtual phone numbers and dedicated fax lines.
• The ability for your family and friends to call a local Vonage number, and then enter your number so they won’t have to pay long distance!

Other digital phone service providers include:

• Most cable companies (We have Time Warner)
• Verizon
• Skype
• AT&T
• Vonics
• VoicePulse
• And many others

One concern I frequently hear about digital phone service is regarding 911 service. While the 911 service isn’t up to par across the board with standard phone service, my experience with it has been good. We have used 911 at least 2 or 3 times since switching to Vonage. We were routed to our local 911 service the same as we were in the past with standard phone service. We were also routed with E911, which means the 911 operator had our address and phone number when he/she received the call. Where you live and the service available will determine how your 911 calls are handled.

If you haven’t tried digital phone service or have been considering it, I highly recommend it. We left our standard phone service in place and used Vonage for a few months before finally switching 100%.

If you are interested in signing up with Vonage let me know and I’ll email you a referral and we’ll both get 2 months free.

Note: This is not a paid posting. I am in no way affiliated with Vonage nor am I making any money from this posting. I am just a satisfied Vonage customer and believe you might be as well.