ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I went back and read some of the threads on VOIP and CallVantage. Some problems noted, but I'm being optimistic and hoping some bugs have been worked out by now.
My ISP has been very reliable, and we do have our Pre-Pay cell phones as back up, so I got the ball rolling today.
I called cust service, and the nice lady seemed pretty well informed and helpful (I know, this is *before* we have service and need to call with a problem), but it gave me a glimmer of hope.
Surprisingly, our Cingular/AT&T pre-paid cell phones qualify us for the 'wireless customer' discount (they normally treat pre-paid as third class citizens). So unlimited local/LD is just $20/month, plus whatever taxes are tossed in (supposedly less than a land-line). $30 start-up fee, and $10 S&H for the box.
Process is supposed to be that they validate that they can port our number (AT&T currently, she checked to verify it should not be a problem anyhow), then send out the adapter, and we can start placing calls from the VOIP. We keep receiving calls on the land-line until the number is actually ported.
Fingers will be crossed. I hate messing with something that is used as much as the phone, but I also hate passing up ~ $150 savings and the extra features of VOIP. With all the area codes and cell phone prefixes in this areas, easy to get hit with a toll or LD charge. It will be nice to not even worry about that anymore. But will the new worries be worse? Time will tell.
If it goes well, I will next try to switch my FIL/MIL over, (that will be fun) they don't want to pay for LD, but then complain that they can't call these nearby numbers, and their cell battery is always dead....
I'll let people know how it goes. Any recent good/bad experiences with CallVantage VOIP?
-ERD50
My ISP has been very reliable, and we do have our Pre-Pay cell phones as back up, so I got the ball rolling today.
I called cust service, and the nice lady seemed pretty well informed and helpful (I know, this is *before* we have service and need to call with a problem), but it gave me a glimmer of hope.
Surprisingly, our Cingular/AT&T pre-paid cell phones qualify us for the 'wireless customer' discount (they normally treat pre-paid as third class citizens). So unlimited local/LD is just $20/month, plus whatever taxes are tossed in (supposedly less than a land-line). $30 start-up fee, and $10 S&H for the box.
Process is supposed to be that they validate that they can port our number (AT&T currently, she checked to verify it should not be a problem anyhow), then send out the adapter, and we can start placing calls from the VOIP. We keep receiving calls on the land-line until the number is actually ported.
Fingers will be crossed. I hate messing with something that is used as much as the phone, but I also hate passing up ~ $150 savings and the extra features of VOIP. With all the area codes and cell phone prefixes in this areas, easy to get hit with a toll or LD charge. It will be nice to not even worry about that anymore. But will the new worries be worse? Time will tell.
If it goes well, I will next try to switch my FIL/MIL over, (that will be fun) they don't want to pay for LD, but then complain that they can't call these nearby numbers, and their cell battery is always dead....
I'll let people know how it goes. Any recent good/bad experiences with CallVantage VOIP?
-ERD50