Anyone recommend good residential VOIP provider?

[Brian Elfert]

Centurylink/Qwest just notified me that my Broadband Voice (VOIP) will be terminated on Dec 30th. This is the second time I have had residential VOIP canceled. I had AT&T Callvantage and AT&T shut down the service a few years back.

Can anyone recommend another residential VOIP provider that is good? I don't want Magic Jack or someone who charges a one time or small yearly fee. Comcast is too expensive and Qwest/Centurylink wants $40 a month for a land line. It would cost me three times what VOIP costs to get a cell phone. My employer provides my cell phone.

[Peter Elliott]

Ooma... been with them for 6 months.. good connection, excellent online interface. I like a few features like blocking numbers, if internet goes out calls routed to my cell phone. voice mails sent via email as mp3 file. 911 call from home automatically txt my wife/me immediately. Plus a bunch more.

I opted for the free port over to my current number. That took about 4weeks which can be common no matter who you choose.

I took the premier plan because I like all the features it came with. It's about $10 a month and the basic is $5 month.

It does have E911 and that was important to me.

Ooma has a box attached to your internet service. Watch for sales on black friday or that weekend. You should be able to find a deal.

-Peter

[Curt Harms]

We had Vonage as a second line for a while. No issues with the service but after the initial "bargain rate" it went to $25/mo. I image if we had kept it I could have gotten the monthly rate down by threatening to leave. One caveat with VoIP is they may or may not work with fax if that matters to you. I had to set the fax machine to its most basic setting and sending was still not perfect. I only sent a few faxes/yr. so that wasn't an issue for me.

[Brian Elfert]

$25 a month is still at least $10 a month less than Qwest/Centurylink charges for a land line with caller ID and voicemail. Vonage may be one of the few choices left for a full service VOIP provider. Magicjack and such are a neat idea, but how can they survive long term with such low rates?

[Matt Meiser]

A number of my coworkers use Vonage and are happy with them.,

Another option if you have good Verizon coverage is a Verizon Home Phone Connect which is $20 (plus tax, fees, taxes on fees and tax fees.)

[Brian Elfert]

Another option if you have good Verizon coverage is a Verizon Home Phone Connect which is $20 (plus tax, fees, taxes on fees and tax fees.)

This device is essentially a cell phone isn't mobile. I find it interesting that they can charge $20 a month for unlimited calling with this device yet a normal cell phone they charge nearly four times the price. The lack of caller name on caller ID is probably a killer for me. 90% of the incoming calls at home are telemarketers. I do make a fair number of outgoing calls.

[Peter Elliott]

Did you check into Ooma. when I compared it to Vonage, Ooma was a better deal, equipment and services. Plus online reviews I found were very good.

[Dan Hintz]

http://www.dyntechsolutions.com/

I've used them for my business line for a year now, and just switched over my home phone a week ago. The available features are pretty far-reaching. I especially like the whitelist/blacklist, so I can block spammers and never hear a single ring.

Tell Michael I sent you...

[Brian Elfert]

It looks like only J&R will have a Black Friday special on Ooma. Best Buy is currently selling Ooma for the same price as J&R will be.

I'm a little hesitant on services like Ooma as they have no ongoing revenue stream to keep the service going. I guess they do have Premier customers who pay monthly, but they seem to depend mostly on continuing sales of their hardware.

I'm starting to think that going to a cell phone and dropping the land line might make sense even if will cost more. I need to go through my call logs with my current VOIP provider to see how many minutes I use. I tend to call a lot on weekends when calls are free anyhow.

[Matt Meiser]

Cell phones don't do name lookup on caller ID either unless the name is in your address book, at least none I've had.

We are probably going to do that on our home land line though. We use it less and less but don't want to give up the number. Instead, I think we are going to get a basic flip-phone, add it as a 3rd line on our cell plan, and eventually migrate that towards being my daughter's cell phone number.

[Brian Elfert]

I would just get rid of my land line all together if I went cell phone only. I get very few telemarketers on my cell phone. I'm not sure why cell phones don't have caller name display anyhow.

[ankit shah]

i am using altaworx for my voip services. i think its a good voip service providers.

[Ole Anderson]

I complained to Comcast about how high my bills were for Internet and digital cable TV. All they could do is offer me a bundle, which gave me the same cable services I had before, plus VOIP, for less than I had currently been paying. Service has been excellent and I kept my old number. In effect it was free as no other package was cheaper. When I am out of town, I set turn off my recorder and my calls are transcribed and sent to my email along with the voice file. Works for me. Frontier also serves this area, but I am afraid to change. I haven't seen them stringing fiber, so I don't know what level of service they offer. Can't imagine it is better than the 20 mbps I am currently getting from Comcast.

Now if I could just get them to stop the robocalls/telemarketers/fundraisers/etc. Seems like that is 90% of my calls. Thank goodness for free caller ID. Just can't give up the land line yet until I can save money doing it. Someday.

[Brian Elfert]

I started this thread over a year ago. I ultimately went with OOMA. It seems to work just fine. The total cost with the hardware and the $40 porting fee was around $225. It costs me around $4 a month. By now I've probably paid off the initial costs with the savings over Qwest Broadband Voice.

The hardware has come down in price in the past year. It was $100 around Black Friday. I'm trying to convince my parents to change as they are paying Comcast at least $20 a month for their phone line.

[Myk Rian]

I would just get rid of my land line all together if I went cell phone only. I get very few telemarketers on my cell phone. I'm not sure why cell phones don't have caller name display anyhow.

We dumped the landline because the only calls we got were political, and jink calls. (I guess polit. calls are junk calls too).