CNET editors' review

Vonage is the granddaddy of all Internet phone services--if a three-year-old company can be rightly considered the granddaddy of anything. Its wealth of features, extensive coverage, and strong support combine to make it a good Internet phone selection. Its monthly rate plans, $14.99 or $24.99 for residential customers and $39.99 or $49.99 for businesses, are a bit higher than those of competitors, such as Packet8, but Vonage's phone features are more numerous, and the company offers useful services, such as transferring your existing phone number to your Vonage account. With its easy setup, nontechies ditching their traditional phone can quickly get up and running, and Vonage's easily activated and inexpensive fax capabilities will appeal to businesses. While some VoIP services are best used as a secondary line or for saving money on especially expensive long-distance calls, Vonage offers clear call after clear call, making it a suitable replacement for your primary phone line.

Installation and interface of Vonage

Sign up for Vonage, and you'll receive a setup package that includes a Linksys RT31P2 router/telephone adapter, an installation-and-troubleshooting guide, a user guide, and a card showing how to configure your voicemail. (Other telephone adapters for Vonage service are sold at retail.) Instructions range from simple plug-and-play installation, which should work for most broadband providers, to more-detailed installation plans. The Linksys RT31P2 unit is a three-port Ethernet router that features Quality of Service (QoS) that balances the voice and data traffic on your network. (For results on how it did on CNET Labs testing, see our Performance page.) We plugged in the unit to a wall outlet, connected it to our cable modem, plugged in our phone, and heard a dial tone within seconds the first time, then immediately for all subsequent calls.

Once you get a dial tone, you'll need to locate your account information to set up your account. It's all on one sheet that ships with the phone adapter and includes an account number, a phone number, virtual phone number(s) if applicable, and a username and passwords for the Vonage site and for voicemail. We breezed through the setup, getting help along the way from Vonage's Web site. From this Web interface, we forwarded calls to a POTS line, configured voicemail to pick up the phone after 20 seconds instead of the default 30, established a network availability number (a forwarding number if the Vonage network is unavailable), and disabled international calling. We also set up two new virtual phone numbers (see the Features page for more info), following an easy three-step process.

Finally, we quickly set up the 911 dialing service. To do so, you provide your physical address so that the 911 call can be directed to the correct service location. Many VoIP services, such as Packet8, do not offer support for 911 calls. But like all VoIP services, if your Internet connection goes down or the power goes out, you lose the use of your phone, which isn't the case with a POTS line. But in the event that your power or your Internet service goes out, Vonage will forward the call to your cell phone or any number you specify beforehand.

You can manage your account by logging in at Vonage's Web site. The default screen, called the Dashboard, shows a list of the most recent incoming and outgoing calls, provides service announcements, and offers links to configuration screens. The billing screen lets you segregate activity information by phone number, including virtual numbers, and offers a billing history for each number.

Features of Vonage

Vonage offers three residential plans and two plans for businesses, none of which requires a contract. For residential customers, the $24.99-per-month Premium Unlimited plan gives you unlimited calls within the United States and Canada. The $14.99-per-month plan gives you 500 minutes per month to U.S. and Canadian phone numbers. If you exceed your monthly minute allotment, you pay a reasonable 3.9 cents per minute. Calls to other Vonage subscribers don't count toward your monthly minutes. Start-up costs include a $29.99 activation fee and a $9.95 shipping-and-handling charge. Taxes and federal fee are low but not nonexistent: the $24.99 carries with it a federal excise tax of 75 cents and a regulatory recover fee of $1.50.

Business plans are $49.99 per month or $39.99 per month. The former gives you unlimited local and U.S./Canadian long-distance calling, the latter 1,500 minutes and 3.9 cents per minute over that. You also get a free fax-line activation, which costs $9.99 to activate for a residential line. Business customers get 500 minutes per month of free faxes; residential customers get 250 minutes.

No matter which plan you choose, Vonage offers international long distance at extremely reasonable rates: 3 cents per minute to most of Japan and much of Europe, 7 or 8 cents per minute to Mexico, and from 9 to 18 cents per minute to the Caribbean.

Each account carries the following free services: voicemail, caller ID, call forwarding and call transfer, call waiting, three-way calling, repeat dialing, call return, international call block, and call hunt (the call rings on another phone if you're talking on the called number). You can choose from a wide variety of area codes, with coverage in most of the United States. To date, only Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, West Virginia, and Wyoming have no available area codes in the Vonage system. Vonage phone numbers are also available in Canada's five most populated provinces: Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Albert, and British Columbia (sorry, Saskatchewan).

You can also transfer your current number if you are a cable Internet subscriber. Fax an authorization letter to Vonage, and the company will contact your current local phone service provider to transfer your number to Vonage. It takes two or three weeks for the transfer to go through (closer to three weeks in our tests); in the meantime, Vonage provides you with a temporary number so that you can make calls on the Vonage service right away.

Vonage offers 911 calling, but like all VoIP services that provide this service, it differs from 911 calls from a POTS line. Instead of connecting to a 911 emergency response center, 911 calls on Vonage go to a PSAP, and you'll need to provide your address. This difference might not sound like too big a deal, but families with small children (and babysitters) might feel more comfortable knowing their 911 service is as quick and efficient as possible. And remember to enable 911 calling when you first activate your Vonage account and enter your address so that any 911 calls will be sent to your local PSAP. When you sign up for 911 service, you'll also get 311 calling (for nonemergencies and city information) if you live in a major metro area with such service.

If you need to know about voicemail messages as soon as you receive them, you can configure Vonage to send a voicemail notification to your e-mail address. The e-mail tells you a message is waiting and also gives you the caller's phone number, obtained through caller ID (if available for that call). You can also have Vonage convert voicemail messages to WAV files and forward them to your e-mail address so that you can listen to them from another PC.

You can add virtual numbers for $4.99 each per month. A virtual number is an additional phone number in a different area code that will ring your phone so that, say, your mother in Florida can call you without paying long-distance charges. Virtual numbers are available with U.S. and Canadian area codes where Vonage has service, plus Mexico City and parts of the U.K. Another option: sign up for an 800 number--also $4.99 per month--which provides 100 minutes of toll-free calls for incoming callers in the States.

For $9.99 per month, you can opt for one of two softphones, which give you a phonelike interface on your PC, that Vonage offers. If you are traveling a great deal, the softphones will let you make calls on your laptop (with a headset) without running up the minutes on your cell phone. And if you live your life out of a hotel room, take note: as with other VoIP services, you can connect to your Vonage account through your adapter and any broadband connection, which means you can throw the adapter in your suitcase and take your number with you when you're on the road.

Performance of Vonage

We judge a VoIP service's performance on how calls sound under baseline conditions, as well as during data uploads and data downloads. The overall weighted average is based on calls made under these three conditions. Baseline conditions are given the highest weight of 66 percent; audio quality during data uploads and data downloads each factor 17 percent of the weightings. The scale for the voice-quality ratings is from 0 to 10.0, with a perfect score of 10.0 equaling our reference analog connection.

Nearly all of the VoIP services we've tested provide a baseline audio quality that rivals that of a regular analog (landline) phone connection. (We refer to baseline quality as the audio quality of the VoIP service when the telephone adapter, or TA, is the only device sending and receiving substantial amounts of data over the local network. During these tests the only other devices permitted to transmit and receive network traffic are the broadband modem and the router.)

Vonage deserves kudos for being only one of two VoIP services (the other being AT&T CallVantage) we've tested where the clarity of the audio equaled that of analog call quality. The audio volume was actually louder than we experienced with our analog phone. As we've seen with every VoIP service that has come through our doors, however, a barely noticeable background hiss was present on both ends of a call. This faint background noise did not impact our ability to make and receive calls; it was little more than a very minor distraction, most evident when no one was speaking.

The majority of VoIP services we've looked at come with TAs that are designed to plug into an existing router. Vonage, on the other hand, comes with the Linksys RT31P2, which is a TA and a three-port wired Ethernet router--designed to connect directly to your broadband modem, with all other networked devices plugging into the Linksys device. From a VoIP-performance perspective, this is a very smart move. By integrating the TA and the router together, the TA can give priority to the voice data packets, minimizing the loss of audio quality when the network bandwidth becomes saturated--this is commonly referred to as Quality of Service (QoS).

Most small business and home broadband connections do not have enough upstream throughput to support both voice and data packets simultaneously. The unfortunate result of this fact is that most of the VoIP services we've seen suffer significant audio-quality degradation during calls that take place when the VoIP user is also generating significant upstream traffic from a PC, such as uploading photographs to an online photo-finishing service. Vonage did not suffer from these problems because the Linksys device is designed specifically to avoid them. The trade-off is that your Internet data throughput speeds will significantly decrease during VoIP calls. We noticed an approximate 22 percent drop in downstream throughput from our Internet connection during VoIP calls. More notably, our upstream throughput dropped a precipitous 64 percent during VoIP calls. Depending on how frequently you upload files from your computer, this might not be a significant issue for you. If you would rather give priority to your data packets and you're willing to live with subpar voice quality, you can manually change the QoS settings for the Linksys TA/router. You can also adjust the level of bandwidth used for voice traffic at Vonage's Web site with its Bandwidth Saver feature.

Performance analysis written by CNET Labs Manager, Daniel A. Begun.

Find out more about how we test VoIP.

Service and support of Vonage

Apart from a collection of FAQs and details on the Web site, Vonage offers e-mail answers for installation and technical support, customer service, and billing, as well as a toll-free, 24/7 Vonage help phone or fax line. Our calls were answered promptly and usefully in all cases, whether the questions dealt with installation or the service, such as how to change phone numbers and how to activate the fax service. In one case, the attendant was unsure of the answer (to a question about the possibility of purchasing a second phone adapter for the purpose of traveling) but quickly and courteously found out what we needed to know. Service, in other words, proved perfectly satisfactory.

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