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VoIP.com Review: VoIP |
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| Great value with good international rates | |
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With a name like Voip.com, it should be the be-all and end-all of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). Despite the fact that the company takes its name for the technology itself, it hasn't developed the name recognition of more well-known competitors like Vonage and Skype. In our tests, it falls between these two companies, in both price and service.
Their unlimited residential calling plan comes in two terms, either Yearly Unlimited for $199 per year (equal to $16.58 per month), or Monthly Unlimited at $19.95 per month. There are no setup fees on the yearly plan beyond the usual mandated taxes and fees. There's a $29.95 set-up fee on the monthly. The unlimited calling is limited to the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Once we received the minimally packaged VoIP adapater, VoIP.com's setup was easy enough, though you must get the instructions online. Don't follow the link that comes on the welcome note; you'll need to do a search for "installation" on www.voip.com. After that, it's pretty easy though, and we were up and running with the standard Linksys adapter in a matter of minutes. There are no surprises with Voip.com's call quality. Call quality is just what we've come to expect from a VoIP provider. We did not notice a big lag between dialing and ringing, similar to what we experienced with ViaTalk. There's a 30-day money back guarantee, and a low cancellation fee of $39.95 if you cancel after that, though there's no prorated refund on the yearly plan. Our experiences with customer service were generally very good, though there was a glitch. Phone support is offered from 9:00am to 9:00pm (EST). I guess we placed our first call too close to closing time (at 8:00pm), because we would get continually dropped. Calling earlier the next day, we received very capable and friendly phone support with barely any wait at all. Voip.com used to be considered a good value, but plans from ViaTalk and others have trumped it a bit. Its calling features are not quite advanced. In particular, while you can select to receive voicemail notifications via email, but there's no audio file of the voice mail included as an attachment, a fairly common feature with other providers. Also, when checking voicemail online, we had to listen to our messages with a media player, instead of through the web interface. It also lacks some of Vonage's features, at least in number. There are still 20+ features though, including all the basics like caller id block, call forwarding, and three-way calling. While Voip.com's rates are descent and the customer service is great, there's something about the service that's not well put-together. It's little things here and there, such as the wrong web address on the instructions, the incorrect phone number on the cancelation page, and the fact that our phone number was suddenly dropped (they blame a carrier error, and they did give us an option for a new number or a fix). None of this is terrible news, but it does give us some pause. |
| Plans: | Annual: $199/yr; Unlimited: $19.95/mo |
| Setup Fees: | Annual Plan: $0; Unlimited Monthly: $29.95 |
| $ Back Guarantee & Cancel Policy: | Free to cancel within 30 days or $39.95 after 30 days |
| Promotions: | First month free with monthly plan; No setup fee with annual: Free S&H on both |
| Countries Included: | USA, Canada, Puerto Rico |
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