Making the VOIP Leap

I tried Vonage a few months back, using a free trial. In the end, however, it ended up being cheaper to just get unlimited long distance service through my telephone provider. The service was not bad and the call quality was great. Some things have changed since then with my monthly bill, and I've been thinking of reevaluating the decision to ditch Vonage. For one thing, I no longer have unlimited long distance and probably spend at least the same amount on local phone service and calling cards as the monthly Vonage fee. Plus, the last time I talked to them, they offered me three months free.

One of the biggest reservations I've had up until now is the ability to make phone calls in the event of a power or network outage. This has been the last remaining hangup (no pun intended) in eliminating traditional home telephone service. But there have been several issues that have made me rethink my logic behind this.

First of all, I am probably using a form of VOIP now that may or may not continue to work when the power goes out. Considering I have "digital telephone," that's probably corporatespeak for VOIP. Second, my issue of not being able to make calls when the power goes out is irrelevant because I no longer have a non-AC powered telephone. If the power goes out, I'm already unable to make calls. Third, I cannot remember the last time I was without power, let alone out of power and desperately needed to make a telephone call. Of course, now that I've said it, that situation will arise immediately upon disconnecting phone service. And (knock on wood) the internet service I have is amazingly reliable, I can only recollect one brief outage in the past year.

So, I am going to take the leap and see what happens. I know that others have done this and probably have had no issues, but it's hard to let go of the landline. For those of you in a similar situation, I'll keep this update if I have any issues. The only suggestion I have if you switch to Vonage is to call during their normal business hours. If you call after hours, you are routed to their call center in India. However, during normal business hours, you get their staff in New Jersey. Believe me, the difference is worth the wait.