The WayCommunicator

News & Noteworthy

WayComm Proudly Presents Our 1st E-Newsletter!

We are in the technology business. That being said, we have decided to forego sending our quarterly "snail-mail" newsletters and instead send our contacts monthly e-mails.
This issue is the last paper newsletter that you will receive from WayComm. The e-mail "pulses" that you'll receive will be about things that are not only newsworthy in the telecommunications world, but in the business world that we are all part of.
We will include interesting articles, book reviews, product reviews and any other information that we think you will find of use.

Volume 3, Issue 1 - December 2006

In This Issue:

  • Vonage The Experience - Not A Good One
  • WayComm President's Message
  • News & Noteworthy

Vonage The Experience - Not A Good One

Many of my friends have changed their residential phone service from a traditional carrier to Vonage. Most had a positive experience during the change so I decided to change my residential service over so I could document the process, evaluate the service and technical support, and also save some money!

Here is an evaluation of my experience:

Ordering - Simple. I ordered my service online and the web site was easy to navigate and ordering was straightforward. All order information as well as the process for conversion was confirmed via email. However, credit card is the only accepted method of payment. The required telephone adapter was also ordered through Vonage with a cost of $29.99 plus $15.00 for shipping.

Conversion: Frustrating. I received an email notification two days prior to conversion. However, I had not yet received the necessary telephone adapter, therefore was not ready to make the conversion on the scheduled date. My first call to customer service was frustrating as I waited in cue for 44 minutes prior to speaking with a representative. The call grew more frustrating as the customer service representative made it clear that they would not postpone the changeover despite the fact that they ad failed to deliver the necessary equipment. Escalating the problem to a supervisor was very difficult and required another 12 minutes on hold with no satisfaction. I finally agreed to purchase an adapter from Best Buy and refuse shipment of the Vonage adapter when delivered. (It arrive the day after conversion.) When I received my first bill, I was still charged for the adapter and shipping. This required another call to customer service with 35 minutes on hold to resolve the issue and to obtain a credit.

Voice Quality: Marginal. Our broadband connection is excellent; however, voice quality.

President's Message —Wayne Sos

Our primary business is technology. For the most part, we spend the majority of our time analyzing telephone bills looking for ways to help our clients reduce costs.

We are constantly looking for new ways to solve business problems and improve service while reducing expenses. Since Voice Over IP (VoIP) has many technical advantages over traditional phone service and the pricing appears to be very attractive, we have decided to test some VoIP services from several providers.

To date, we have been reluctant to recommend a VoIP implementation because while it is economically attractive, the service is really within it's infancy and we have not been able to document any positive experiences fro clients we've contacted. One of the articles in this issue documents our experience with one of the major service providers: Vonage. I think you will be very interested to hear about what we experienced.

We intend to test services from Verizon, AT&T, Cooperative Communications, as well as other carriers over the next several months and will publish our findings in subsequent issues. As always, if you any type of telecom or network-related question, please call us. -

— Wayne Sos