[ale] Vonage invite?

[Benjamin Scherrey]

9/19/2004 6:52:03 PM, Courtney Thomas <ccthomas at joimail.com> wrote:

>George,
>
>Thanks for your candid reply.
>
>Coupla questions:
>
>Are international calls cheaper than say, BellSouth ? If yes, how do 
>they compare ?

	I've been paying .18/min to Bangkok and .23/min to Dubai for example which are pretty 
good rates. Of course the best thing about it is when you're traveling and have good internet 
access (fortunately now fairly common in hotels all over) you can make and receive calls as if you 
were at your home. I was in Curacao and making phone calls all over for effectively free that 
otherwise would have ended up costing me several hundred dollars. Next month I'll be in Bangkok 
but my clients will be able to call me as if I were still home and never know the difference unless I 
mention it to them.

>
>I thought any number in N.America was fair game. How many other 
>exchanges than 404 are unavailable ?

	Pretty much any number is but the way they are handed out now  - it is just difficult to get 
some of the more densely populated area codes. FWIW - I transferred my 404 cell phone number to 
my Vonage account so that is one option if you already have a number you wanna keep.

	In general your experience with Vonage is going to be more dependent on your ISP than 
Vonage itself. My connectivity the last few months has been less than satisfactory (as you might 
have read on the list) which has been a big PITA for my calls. This has been no fault of Vonage's of 
course. Fortunately, if your phone isn't available, your voice mail will come in (eventually) as an 
email. You can receive it as an attached audio file or a link to a website with the audio file in order 
to keep the size down. 
	
	-- Ben Scherrey