Product Details
 | Vonage VDV21-VD - Router - VoIP gateway - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet - external |
| List Price: | $79.95 |
| Price: | $71.99 |
Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days
Ships from and sold by lakeplacegames
29 new or used available from $17.88
Average customer review:
Product Description
VoIP gateway and single port router combined in 1 deviceConnect up to 2 Vonage lines through your high speed cable or DSL internet connectionIncludes power adaptor 1 RJ45 cable quick start guide features and FAQ document and warranty cardProduct Details
- Brand: Vonage
- Model: VDV21-VD
- Dimensions: 2.00 pounds
Features
- VoIP gateway and single port router combined in 1 device
- Connect up to 2 Vonage? lines through your high speed cable or DSL internet connection
- Large LCD display, caller ID, call timer, voicemail and many mmore features
- Includes power adaptor, 1 RJ45 cable, quick start guide, features and FAQ document and warranty card
Customer Reviews
No Complaints -- Happy to Say Goodbye to Verizon
In fairness, I am a new
Vonage customer, having signed up April 27, 2009. Within 48 hours after
signing up, I received this new adapter (paid $9 and change for it - was
a Vonage deal) and hooked it up to an ethernet switch. Hooked up a
corded phone to the device, and had dial tone. I kept this hook-up for 3
weeks, making LOTS of phonecalls and sending faxes to be sure I was
ready to say bye-bye to my Verizon landline ($42 a month and never touch
the phone for an outgoing call because of the costs involved). I have a
networked setup: Modem --> Wired Router --> Ethernet Switch
--> Vonage adapter. (I also have a wireless access point connected to
my wired router,just to be precise.)
There are 3 PCs hard-wired and 1
wireless laptop. My cable provider is Cablevision (Optimum Online) at
10Mbps down and 3Mbps up.
Service is great. You could not tell
between Vonage or the landline. The only issue I had was with faxing via
my Canon MP780 all-in-one (outgoing faxes would not complete), and that
wound up being just a matter of shutting down and re-starting my Canon.
If you have this issue, please do not make yourself crazy changing your
fax baud rates or ECM to off until you shut down your fax, remove all
cables, replace cables and restart your fax. When I changed my baud rate
from 33000 to 9600 because of many, many threads on the net, my fax
capability was completely crippled. Now, it works great. And I don't
have a dedicated fax line, it's done through my regular voice VOIP line.
After
the 3 weeks, we cancelled the landline, disconnected the incoming Telco
lines from the house, and then plugged the Vonage adapter into our
phone jacks which back-feeds the signal through all of the phone jacks.
I
have spoken to customer service for matters relating to my office
(which also uses Vonage on 3 lines) and customer service has always been
helpful and polite and there pretty much without a wait. Nice to have
them available 24 hours, 7 days a week, if you did need them (better
have a cell phone too though -- duh!)
I also have the line split
and going to my Dish Network ViP722 DVR, which enables the ViP722's
on-screen caller id. (So it is compatible--could not confirm this prior
to trying it myself.)
As for complaints from others about bad
sound quality, please realize that the service will be as good as your
internet connection. If you don't have a stable, strong connection -- do
not bother with VOIP. And, DSL filters can interfere with the signal,
so read up on that. And never, ever plug these adapters into telephone
jacks that still have Telco lines connected to them outside -- you can
short out your equipment.
I got the $9.95 a month for 3 months
deal, and thereafter it will be $24.99 (approx. $32 with tax). I did not
port my home telephone number because the Vonage site informed me it
was not available, but I was able to search through loads of telephone
numbers and pick one that was memorable. Yes, I am in it for 2 years or I
will fax a $39.99 disconnect fee. But, as far as I concerned, Verizon
violated me for years with its fees and nickel-and-diming for every
feature and call. I have to say that I wanted to try Vonage when it
first came out, but was hesitant. Since my office has had it for over 2
years now, I decided to just do it myself.
Besides the many
features listed on the website, you have access to alpha features like
Vonage Fax (free outgoing faxes through your PC) and Vonage Talk.
Also,
others here have complained that your trial starts as soon as you
order, even though you don't have your adapter yet -- but you
immediately can make calls through your computer with a headset. They
assign a temporary number if you are porting your own, and the service
and online features are instantly accessible.
And, as for the
disconnect fee of $39.95, it's still less than what your cell phone
provider would charge, so what's the big deal? You can't have
everything.
Oh, the adapter...forgot what I was reviewing! The
adapter is great. You have an orange backlit screen that shows the date
and whether you have missed calls. It has built in caller-id, and you
can initiate a call-back right from the adapter itself (your home phone
will ring to tell you it's calling the number back). It has some other
features too, like calling weather and traffic for free, and you can
call your voicemail too.
Highly recommended. If you want to try
it, try to do so without porting your number (check if you can port it
free after you're sure it works well for you.) Try it risk-free (but
keep an eye on the calendar!).
Very
pleased with the service
I've been a VOIP user for a
while, starting with AT&T Callvantage service but had to switch when
CallVantage got discontinued. Decided to go with Vonage because they
are the biggest and most established player and because of their
remarkable new World Plan, which allows you to call 60 countries around
the world and the US for a flat fee of $25 a month. (With extra taxes,
911 charges, it ends up being closer to $33 a month but the cost is very
predictable.
My experience with Vonage has been flawless. I
called them up and asked them to port my number. They shipped me the
router you see here, which was much better and more intuitive to use
than the rather primitive Dlink device that came with CallVantage. The
company did an excellent job or communicating with me via e-mail at all
times on the status of my request, shipping info etc. When I got the
router, was able to get it set up and working very quickly and was able
to use a number they gave me until my old number ported over, which
happened on schedule as promised
The sound quality has been
fantastic - no dropped calls, no tinny sounds or echoes and of course I
love all the features of VOIP including the ability to check your voice
mails on line, call logs, conference calling etc. and the regular flat
fee.
My connection at home is a Time Warner cable connection.
I've seen bad reviews about Vonage but I have to say that I have had a
pretty flawless experience and would highly recommend the service to
anyone, especially if you need to call overseas frequently.
Vonage for Small Business
I run a business and use Vonage for our phone service. We have five devices in our office. The
bottom line is that as of June 2009 the Vonage technology is just not
there yet.
Part of the difficulty is that several of the issues
we have are periodic and temporary; akin to taking your car to the
mechanic and trying to explain that "sound" it is no longer making.
Here
are some of the issues we have had:
* Getting Vonage and modem,
router and switch to communicate. Trying to communicate with Vonage
techs gave my IT guys a runaround and hours of billing.
*
Periodically the box will misread the number we dial. It's not "fat
fingers", the box genuinly misreads the key tones and results in dialing
an incorrect number.
* Outbound calls are sometimes met with
"dead air". This requires a reboot of the device, unplugging, etc...
think of rebooting your PC. Its always inconvenient.
* Vonage
customer service- American location is good, Indian location is
noticably lower quality and more insistent on repeating every
troubleshooting step despite having gone through them already.
Unfortunately, the location you call is hit or miss.
As a
business owner there are several issues you have to be concerned about.
In hind site, I would use regular phone service. It's more expensive but
it is reliable and straight forward. I have spent more money on the
time it has taken me with tech support than it would have been for me to
just do regular phone service to begin with. Not to mention the
headache. Frankly, business owners have plenty of other things to worry
about besides constantly attending to phone issues which should be quite
basic and trouble-free.
All in all, Vonage technology is not ready to replace traditional phone service yet... yet.
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