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May 3, 2005

The Vonage Experience

I am totally, completely, and utterly blown away by my Vonage phone service.

As a geek, I'm often enthusiastic about new technologies or services, but know, deep in the back of my mind, that problems usually come with the territory. Marketing people have an astounding ability to paint a pretty picture of Life With Our Product, but when the thing actually arrives at your house you notice the warts. Then it's off to phone tech support, RTFM, and on and on until you reach a comfortable truce with the device.

So, in truth, when I ordered Vonage, I expected that the promise - unlimited local and national phone service for $25 a month over your high-speed Internet connection - would fall a bit short. Calls might sound tinny or hollow. Calls might not go through. There might be unacceptable latency or delays. The equipment might be a Rube Goldberg device that takes two weeks to get running. I wasn't sure what it would be, but mentally I was ready for all of it.

Here's the really shocking thing: Vonage "just works."

Here's the process. Honest.

1. I went to the Vonage Web site and ordered service. This basically meant I got to pick the area code I wanted (206), and let them know whether or not I wanted to transfer a current number (no). They charged me $68 to set everything up, which included activation, my Vonage equipment, shipping, and tax.
2. The stuff showed up a few days later. As a nicety, Vonage ships DHL. This is important because DHL doesn't do home deliveries (they're business-to-business), so when they're delivering to a house or apartment DHL hands the package off to the local post office. Ultimately, this means I don't have to do the "get in the car and drive to FedEx in South Seattle" dance, which is what usually happens when FedEx (or UPS) delivers something and I'm not here to get it.
3. I take the Vonage package to my apartment and open it. Inside is a Linksys broadband router, a nice "welcome" kit (brochure, important account information) and a baseball cap (see photo).
4. I open the Linksys router box, take out the router, and plug it in to my cable modem.
5. I plug my cordless phone into the phone jacks in the back of the Linksys.
6. I push "talk" on my cordless phone.
7. I get dial tone.

No, really. It worked just like that. No fuss, no mess, no hassle. No need to call them and "set up" my service (the equipment was preconfigured). It was, quite honestly, spooky-easy.

So I called friends. I called friends in California and Texas. I called my Dad. I called people all over. The call quality is fabulous.

I plugged in my fax machine and faxed some stuff. Worked perfectly.

It's all just so, like, works-out-of-the-box and does-what-the-marketing-literature-says-it-will that it becomes nearly boring. I can't even tell you how amazing that is.

Some coolness about Vonage: your call records - who called you, who you called - is available, live, through their Web site. You can do call forwarding, set up and check voicemail through the Web site. You get an e-mail when voicemail is left for you (uber-handy if your Vonage phone is at home and you're at work/school). Essentially, your phone service is now a Web-managed application.

So - wow. Just wow. Eventually, more people are going to figure out how killer this is.

Qwest is in big, big trouble.

UPDATE, September 10, 2005: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at May 3, 2005 1:30 PM. Posted to Geek.

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