March 15, 2004
Vonage
We received our Vonage box today. Our long distance bill can be quite high between my calls to friends and Marlene's calls to Canada. We usually end up spending around 60 dollars a month. I had seen an article on the Colonel's site on Vonage. I kind of brushed it off because the last time I had checked they did not offer service to Canada. Well now they do and their long distance plans included Canada at the same rates.
We signed up for the 500 minute plan at $14.95 per month and 3.9 cents per minute past that amount. That is a 35 dollar a month savings after taxes. I still have the Bell South basic line if the Vonage does not work out. We also have two cell phones. We will pull the Bell South line if it works well enough.
The setup was pretty straightforward. You hook the Vonage unit into the Cable modem and then out to the router. The Vonage box takes about 5 minutes to download updates from their server. When the light is green, the line is clean and ready for service.
I like things that work exactly how I expect them to work
Here are some pictures.
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| Vonage Box | Cable modem left Linksys Router right | Cable modem with Vonage box on top. This plugs into the phone. Yeah, I know it is a spaghetti mess. |