I had Vonage for about a year (the 500 minute package) and decided I was ready to dump my @#$%ing Bell South land line and go 100% VOIP. Unfortunately, Vonage doesn't have local numbers here. I switched to ViaTalk, a smaller VOIP company. Within a couple of weeks, they had ported over my local number and Bell South was history! I unhooked their line in the box outside and now I have the VOIP service at every phone jack in the house.

I signed up for 1 year at $11.95 a month (500 minute package) with two free months, basically giving me 14 months at $10.24 a month. Bell South was over $40 a month for a basic line for just local calls.

I can't believe all the features they include. If Bell South had something similar, it would probably be at least $100 a month. Of course the downside is that it's probably only 99.5% reliable compared to 99.999% reliable for a POTS line. If the Internet is down or the power is out, I've got no phone. But there is always the cell phone.

Anyone have good/bad experiences with VOIP providers?

BTW, if anyone is interested in ViaTalk, I can shoot you a referral code. I think it's $25 off and I get a $25 credit, too!

I'm a vonage subscriber and have found it, as expected, to only be as reliable as your internet connection. If you rely on your VoIP for your primary telephone, I'd recommend having a UPS connecting to the cable/dsl modem. This will give you some safeguard in case of power loss, the same way most unpowered POTS phones would still work. Basically, anything you can do to increase the reliablility of your internet connection will be a necessity. I changed ISPs three times last year just to find a reliable one.

I do have my cable modem, router and Linksys PAP2 phone adpater on their own UPS and keep a couple of good old fashioned phones around so I should be OK for about a 1 hour power outage. Of course there is always the cell phone and I get really good reception in the house.

What was funny was the morning after I posted that, I lost Internet service for a few hours in the AM. I had run out to do some errands and came back to no dial tone. I called Charter (cell phone) and by the time I got off the phone with them the service was back and running. There was an outage for my entire neighborhood.

Charter is pretty much a monopoly in my area. DSL is not available yet and I think we are just out of range of a nearby Wireless ISP.

That was my first downtime since going to full time VOIP. I guess it was bad karma to say anything good about it.