I ordered Vonage yesterday, and got a notice that the hardware should arrive on Thursday. For the unaware, Vonage is a VoIP product, that requires about 90Kbps for perfectly clear calls. One of the unique features is that it uses your normal phone handset to make the calls, you don’t have to use your computer to do so.
I hope to chronical the process of getting it, installing it, and setting things up. Ordering was quite easy. I asked them to move my existing phone number to the new phone network, and I have to fill out a piece of paper and fax it in with a phone bill.
We’ll see how the rest goes.
I ran across the fact that they’re selling full Vonage kits in Best Buy (and maybe Circuit City?) now….
Interesting stuff – I’ll be looking forward to hearing how it works for you!
Topher, I plan on ordering my Vonage service in September. I have used VoIP for more than a year on a softswitch on my Laptop. Works well, but can have hiccups now and then. With all the WiFi Hotspots popping up in my neck of the woods, it is nice to have a softswitch available. Hmmm I wonder if Vonage will have a softswitch available for my laptop too.
I’ve had Vonage myself for about 3 months now. Lately, it’s been obvious that the service is suffering from some growing pains (especially due to their rollout in CC and Best Buy), but overall I’ve been very pleased with the featureset and the cost of the service. One thing I would definitely recommend is putting the Telephone Adapter behind a router that supports packet prioritizing/QoS. Even though the adapter itself could be used as a QoS Router, it’s a poor implementation. I use an old pc running Devil Linux with a modified WonderShaper script. No matter how many torrents I have running now, I never get a hiccup in any of my phone calls.