One of the great features of Vonage is that you can keep your old phone number when switching over if you choose to do so. This process is usually easy and fast, but as with all technology, once in a while a problem pops up. Here is something to keep in mind if you are thinking about switching to Vonage or know someone else who is considering doing so.

If you have a DSL internet connection bundled with regular land line service, this tip applies to your situation. To use Vonage, you need your DSL connection. The problem is if your DSL connection and phone line are using the same phone number because they are bundled on the same account, when you try to swap your existing number over to Vonage, it will interfere with your DSL service. This will cause one of two things to happen. Either the transfer will take place rendering your DSL useless, or more likely, Vonage will not be able to port your phone number over because the DSL company still has a lock on it.

Luckily the solution is very simple and looking into it before switching will save you a lot of time. If you are signing up for DSL to use Vonage, make sure that it gets put on a different number than the number you want to use with Vonage. If you already have the DSL bundled with your landline number, you would need to remove the DSL service and open a new DSL or cable internet account. The bottom line is that you can not port a phone number over to Vonage if it is powering your internet connection. Simple enough and it will save a lot of time and hassle. This also will avoid  the difficulties of having to get tech support from two different companies working together.

Despite stock market continuing to be hit this year, Vonage stock is doing well. Many people are praising Mark Lefar who took over the company in 2008 for this year’s performance. When money gets tight for consumers like it has been for a lot of us in this recession, cheaper alternatives become popular. This has contributed to the increasing popularity of VoIP and many people have been pleasantly surprised to find they like the more affordable alternative better than what they were using.

Vonage has positioned itself as a low cost, high value provided company. This means that their services are more affordable than other substitutes, but that those services also offer more value to the customer. Lefar has taken the company in a direction which has allowed the them to add many innovative features over a relatively short period of time. Vonage Mobile has been one of the largest new features allowing people to use Vonage to call internationally from their cells phones and even iPod Touches to enjoy great low rates.

While many many companies have been suffering over the past few years due to the economy, Vonage is having some of it’s best quarters ever. While many people argue that a standalone VoIP company will become outdated, Vonage has seemed to stay ahead of massive companies that also offer cable and other services as well as VoIP in both price and features. The fact that Vonage uses all of its resources to focus solely on VoIP improvements seems to have given the company an advantage so far.

The Vonage Unlimited Plan, Vonage World Plan, and Vonage Mobile plans are all great ways to save money on phone service.

The R&D, or research and development, department is one of the most important departments in most companies. Especially in an competitive industry that has shifting needs.The research and development department is in charge of coming up with product innovations and improvements. They make sure that the product is able to meet all of the customer’s expectations.

Over the years Vonage has shown that keeping ahead of all the other VoIP companies with call quality and unique features is a top priority. That is why this week they have announced the appointment of Amichay Oren as the new Vice President of Research and Development. CEO Mark Lefar is enthusiastic about this appointment given Oren’s past experience and accomplishments. Oren has experience in mobile application development as well as voice over internet protocol phone, so he seems to be the right kind of guy for the job.

Although Vonage has already created more features that I ever could have though of and given them to customers for free, their attention to continuing development shows that they are not going to be changing their policy of consistent pr oduct improvement anytime in the near future. I’m excited to see what kind of new products and improvements will be coming from Vonage over the next few years with a bright new mind at the table.

My wife and I have been using cell phones as our primary method of communication for a while now. I’ve been wanting to switch over to Vonage and ditch the cell phones, but I’ve unfortunately been unable to due to being involved in many group projects throughout school. I needed to have a phone on me at all times.

Well now that school is out, the need to always have a phone is gone. So I started wondering how much money we could save in the next 12 months if we got rid of our cell phones and just used Vonage. I mean, people say all the time how much money Vonage can save you, so I figured it was worth looking at an example. You can follow these steps if you want to see how much money you could save by using Vonage instead of another phone service.

Our current cell phone service costs $121 a month. Ouch! To cancel the contract early, there’s a $100 fee, so right out front we’d be out $100. So now we’re at -$100.

Next we’ll find out how much money we’d save every month by using Vonage. So the cost of the cell phones $121 minus the cost of Vonage $25 is a savings of $96/month.

We take $96 and multiply it by 12 months and we get $1152.

The last step is to subtract the $100 cancellation fee from the $1152 of savings for a grand total savings of $1052 over the next 12 months.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love having a cell phone, it’s very nice. It was a need for us, but now it’s just a luxury. I like it, but I don’t like it $1052 a year! In this economy, that’s just too much to pay for a luxury. We could take that money and go on a cruise or buy a new 50″ HDTV! Maybe you can’t make it without a cell phone, but you can definitely get rid of your local phone company and switch to Vonage. Just do the simple math and see how much you could save!

We’ve been using Vonage World for awhile now and man, isn’t it great. It’s been reliable, the call clarity has been excellent, and best of all, it’s so affordable that paying the bill every month is near pleasurable. I’ve only had one problem personally so far. The problem is that I’m not always at home, sometimes I need to make an international call on the run. Well, Vonage has just come out with Vonage World Mobile which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s Vonage World, for your mobile phone!

Let’s get some of the basic facts and concerns out of the way. It’s $24.99 a month and you also get to save $10 a month on your Vonage World home plan if you are using both. Using the mobile plan you can call all the same countries for free that you can with the home plan and get great rates on calling countries that aren’t free yet.

Vonage World works with Blackberry, iPhones, iPod  Touch, and Android OS phones. It will work with your current mobile plan. Vonage World is a mobile app. You use it by dialing directly without having to enter pins or other special prefixes.

Even being able to use an iPod Touch as a phone is especially neat. To use with an iPod Touch, you must be connected to wifi. You can also use the iPhone over wifi to make Vonage calls without using minutes. Blackberry and Andriod OS phones automatically recognize when you are making an international calls and route the call through the Vonage network.

This new service will certainly be useful for a variety of people, but especially for those who travel often, or find themselves constantly behind the wheel.

I wrote a while back that my uncle was considering trying Vonage. Since he lives in a remote town, he was worried the internet connection would not be reliable enough to support it. Well, to follow up, he did decide to give it a shot. The first thing I noticed the first time I talked to him through his Vonage phone was the clarity of the call. It was crystal clear! His previous land line had always been fuzzy and it made it difficult to understand him.

Well, his wife (my aunt) is from Europe. Needless to say, they make a lot of international calls to keep up with her parents and other family members there. The first time they talked to her parents over Vonage guess what they said . . . “Wow, your phone sounds so clear. What happened?!?” Except they said it in French.

Not only is the quality of phone service many times better for my uncle and his family, but now they can call Europe as often as they’d like for FREE. It’s all included in their monthly flat fee. They will probably save between $700 and $1000 this year on phone bills. What’s the moral of the story? Just because you live somewhere remote doesn’t mean that Vonage won’t work for you and work for you well.

I was talking with my uncle on the phone last weekend. He lives in a fairly remote part of Arizona. During the course of our conversation he asked me if his internet connection would support Vonage, after all, your internet providers service is likely subpar if you live in the boonies.

I decided to do a little research. First I had him run a free speed test at vonage-promotions.com/speedtest/. He said he was getting about 2 Mbps down and .5 Mbps up. I read up on what is recommended and found that the minimum Vonage requirement is 30 Kbps, BUT the recommended speed is 90 Kbps.

NOTE this is the upstream recommendation. Downstream means data coming to your computer from a server and upstream is how fast data can go from your computer a server. Uploading is typically slower than downloading, so pay close attention when running your speedtest. In short, most DSL or cable internet connections will work fine with Vonage. If your still using dial-up for some reason, upgrade you internet connection before trying Vonage.

In the end, I told my uncle that Vonage should work well with his internet service and to give it a try.

Hello all, a new year is upon us once more and it’s that time where we all start thinking of new year’s resolutions. How’d that go for everybody last year by the way? If you’re anything like me, you did great . . . til the end of January at least! With the difficult financial times lurking, no doubt many of you, like me, will set a goal to be more frugal spenders.

Fortunately for everyone, being more frugal does not always have to be painful. Saving money means a lot more than simply penny pinching and denying yourself of every last thing you want. In a nutshell, the way I see it, being frugal means spending your money wisely. Last year my wife and I switched from a regular land line to VoIP. We saved about $30 a month and made a lot more calls than usual. Guess what, it was easy as heck to do it all year, unlike many resolution plans. I just spent the money we saved this year on a beautiful vintage guitar. So you see, frugality doesn’t mean not spending any money. It means saving where possible so you have money to spend! Even better, you don’t have to feel guilty when you do!

This year Vonage will help families all over the place get a little closer to achieving their financial goals. Saving over $300 a year goes a long way! It’s rare to find more-for-less products and services these days, especially ones that will help you achieve your goals. So sign up for Vonage as you prepare this year’s resolutions. And above all, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Vonage has hit the news already this week with the announcement of being United Kingdom’s ‘Best Consumer VoIP Service’. The award came from the Internet Telephone Service Provider Association Awards on Monday.

It’s not really surprising that Vonage took the gold. The thriving VoIP company has managed to maintain their current prices for years while continually expanding upon and creating new features. $24.99 will now carry you farther than ever with free calls to many countries all over the world.

About receiving the award, Vonage said, “What we’ve shown is that for a fair price, customers can receive a service that offers exceptional quality and clarity.” And that is exactly what Vonage does. Their service is crystal clear and the price is competitive with the bottom line low clarity VoIP companies. Congrats to Vonage for closing out 2009 with a bang!