Dumping Vonage for Skype...and Comcast Digital Voice
I noted a few weeks ago that I was considering dropping Vonage for Skype. Today, I pulled the trigger. After several weeks with no Vonage, I've been much happier. Skype actually works most of the time. Vonage? Almost never (at least during this past year - it used to be much better).
So, today I canceled my Vonage account. So that I have a "real" phone service I also signed up for Comcast's Digital Voice service. I'll give that a spin for a few weeks to see if it's solid. If not, I'll dump it for Qwest (POTS line). I'll continue to use Skype for international calls (once or twice each day) and when convenient, which turns out to be quite often as I like keeping my phone/laptop tightly integrated.
Bye! Bye! Vonage!! I had a year or two of pleasant service from you, but far too many headaches this past year to continue shelling out $60-70/month. It might be Comcast's fault for throttling down my bandwidth used for Vonage, but guess what? I don't have the same problem with my Skype service.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
In fact I'm in the same boat except I don't need the Comcast voice at all. All you need is:
SkypeIN to get a local (or how many "local" numbers you need in how many local areas you might want :)) number:
http://www.skype.com/products/skypein/
And a SkypeOUT UNLIMITED:
http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/
Yes those prices might seem a tad high but remember you are paying them (if you chose to get the best deal) ONCE A YEAR, and that's it! Beats the whatever you pay a month now!
Also just a tad of advice avoid the WiFi Skype phones they are just not worth it (been there done that!) but I STRONGLY recomend this Skype phone that uses DECT for the wireless part, and not only that it can be used as a dual phone as it also has a "normal" phone jack, you can set it up to use both or just Skype if you so chose to.
Also it allows you to chose your local area code so that you can dial locally without having to dial it each time.
Shortly to anyone "unexpecting" it works and looks like a normal phone, on and yes it does NOT require your PC to be on, nor does it require a computer only an ethernet hookup.
http://share.skype.com/sites/skypegear/2006/10/skypegear_roadtest_philips_voi.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/oct/25/ebay.hacking
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10472007
http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?
type=technologyNews&storyID=2007-10-25T003831Z_01_N24160249_RTRIDS
T_0_TECH-VONAGE-HACKERS-COL.XML&archived=False
SO this is nothing special to eBay or Skype, it's as I've always said if ONE HUMAN
made it why wouldn't ANOTHER HUMAN be able to "un-do" it?
- VOIP service only as reliable as your ISP service.
- by ecsk2 October 26, 2007 8:17 AM PDT
- The VOIP services are just as stable or reliable as your ISP is, as that is the
- Reply to this comment
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(5 Comments)weakest link, hence the Comcast VOIP service won't be any different than your
SkypeIN/SkypeOUT, I can confirm that this Philips Skype phone is the most
stable solution I've ever had for VOIP, and have tried all kinds of setups. I've
never had any issues with SkypeIN / SkypeOUT for the past years that hasn't
been ISP related. Also you can (just as on most other VOIP services) set your
Skype account to fwd to another number (for instance a mobile number) when/if
your ISP has an outage or you're not at the VOIP "landline" location.