I’ve been happily using AT&T CallVantage as my VOIP home phone service provider for several years now and have actually been quite impressed with them. Sure, I’ve had the usual VOIP issues - the power goes out, I lose my service, and occasionally I lose my internet connection. Neither one is a big deal, I have my cell phone for backup. Overall, the Callvantage VOIP has been great. The sound quality has been excellent, and the I have only rarely (like one call in a thousand) experienced a garbled transmission.
So what’s the problem? Well, I, like presumably every other AT&T customer, got the letter this spring that they are discontinuing their service offering. Bummer - they get a product right and they decide to drop it. Soooo - I spent part of this weekend figuring out who to switch to. Yes, it is already July, but reviewing VOIP providers ranks right up there with reading income tax instructions, it will drive you batty.
Guess what? There are a ton of web sites that claim to review VOIP providers. Lots of them give 5 star reviews to companies I’ve never heard of (all of which they appear to link as an affiliate). At first, it is tempting to pick one of these, but then upon reading further, it seems like they all have unhappy customers, too (it always seems to be dropped calls and/or rude tech support that can’t help them).
Nonetheless, I was tempted. There was one company that offers 2 years for $199 - a great savings. Yet my wife reminded me, what we really want is a reliable carrier that provides consistent high quality calls. She also mentioned “that Sun-something company… that went out of business for perhaps offering their services too cheap, leaving people hanging without being able to easily transfer their phone number”. Okay, that is a good point - we don’t want to lose our number (gosh, how would the telemarketers find us?) .
So, I picked presumably the biggest (best?) alternate carrier, Vonage. I had to remind myself that my real criteria is hassle-free, quality VOIP phone service. We’re already saving half over a traditional telephone carrier - saving more would be great, but not if it brings on more headaches (life is waaayyy too short to be spent talking on the phone to the phone company).
Did we make the right choice? I have no idea yet. Truthfully, Vonage has no shortage of complaints online, but they are bigger, so they have more people to complain, right? The neighbors have Vonage, and they’re happy with it, so we’re hoping for the same. Vonage is about the same price as our Callvantage - if the call quality matches it and outages are as rare, then we’ll be happy.
I haven’t found any special deals on the service. I would have thought there might be more. I did find an offer toward two months of free service (after signing up without one) - here’s the link:
Tags: VOIP
Hey. I came across your blog because I’m in the same position - CallVantage user having to switch. And I’ve come to the same conclusion for the same reason. Vonage seems like the easiest, safest choice. Hopefully it will work out well for both of us and be as good as CallVantage. Like you said, someone finally gets the service right and then they drop it. Figures haha.