I am planning to change from Cell phone use to home phone use after the new year when my cell phone contract is up. It's just too expensive and from what I am seeing even decreasing my cell phone to the lowest possible plan is still more expensive for the most part. I have a few questions:

1. For those of you who have Vonage, how is the service?

2. If I go with our main phone service provider there are two plans I can choose from, there is a significant difference in the cost, though I wouldn't have long distance with the less expensive. I was thinking that a phone card woudl probably be fine since I hardly make long distance calls. I was just wondering if anyone uses a phone card for long distance or has and what their thoughts are on this.

I know this is a little early but I am doing my research now so that when the contract is up I don't make a rash decision since it'll be around the holidays.

Thanks.

I've used phone cards for years. It's a little inconvenient to have to punch in numbers, but you can put the 1-800 number of the card in your phone memory, which will help quite a bit.

I am also considering Vonage. If it works, you get unlimited long distance. Still trying to decide though.

Plans like Vonage work great and save money.

I've been without a home phone for years though, we only use cell phones, works well for us. There are online free long distance things like skype. my dh talks to his sister overseas with that all the time no problems.

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A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.-Eleanor Roosevelt

I wish we could do this, but hubby is diabetic, so I couldn't take a chance on problems with an ambulance not being able to find us if I had to dial 911.

There is a way to have 911 service with Vonage, I'm not sure exactly I think you have to register your address or something, but I know it CAN be done pretty easily!

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A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.-Eleanor Roosevelt

We have had vonage for several years now. We got it initially when we moved to Europe, so we'd have a "US" number for people back home to call and it worked wonderfully for that! They could call us on our regular number and we could use that number to call home...no international call fees.

Vonage is significantly cheaper for us, even with caller id, call forwarding, voicemail etc It's compatible with our alarm system and you can register with your area 911 service. It's easy and I called 911 to check to see if it was working after we registered - and it was! LOL!

We haven't had many problems with our vonage, I know some people have gotten it and hated it for whatever reason. It really just depends.

My Mom has the basic 'no frills' phone service and uses a phone card for all her long distance calls, since it is significantly cheaper. It works out fine for her.

We used a cell phone plan with T-mobile which we paid 20.00 a month for one cell phone at 100 minutes a month. Needless to say it was for emergency calls only. We now have the ATT family share plan which runs us 30.00 a month.

As for our home line we use a program called USA Datanet which you call a toll free number anytime you want to make a long distance call. Our bills have been no higher than 20.00 per month and I call home alot! People around here in Ohio where I live have had alot of problems with Vontage so I can't recommend that myself. I guess it all depends on your area. Good luck!

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In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.Mother Teresa

Thanks for all the information. I don't know what I am going to do. I have heard great things and then negative things with Vonage myself, but I truly think that any and all services have the issues where some people love it and others hate it. I don't know of anything that I have seen that gets great reviews from everyone, someone is always dissatisfied.

I also was wondering whether anyone uses the pay as you go phones and if you do how is it?

Isn't there one issue with Vonage, though, because it's based on the internet, that in the rare (HOPEFULLY, esp. those with Comcast) instances when your internet is down you won't have any phone service, including 911 service? That in itself would scare me. If my power is out or my computer is down, I'd be afraid to be without that.

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