Originally Posted by jayeff

Vonage is brilliant. I hate talking to people on the telephone and my use is very light, but I wanted a solution which would make it easier for my increasingly frail father to call me. With VOIP I can get a number local to him, which is obviously much more simple to dial.

I tried Skype first of all, because it is much cheaper. Net-to-net calls were fine and so were international calls, but for some reason my US calls were badly distorted (I could hear fine, but most of the time other people couldn't hear me). I tried two handsets as well as taking the other steps Skype advised, but in the end nothing helped. From their forum and from Google, although many do not have any problems, it seemed not uncommon.

I have had Vonage for a while now and it has worked exactly like a regular telephone in every respect. In the unlikely event my internet connection goes down, callers would still get voicemail. The only irony is that while in the UK I have a number on the exact same exchange as my father, the closest number I could get in the US was in a place about 100 miles away. So unfortunately, no-one local calling me, gets to make a local call. That apart, there has been no downside at all.