We use vonage for our Business VOIP, we were one of the FIRST of the revolution a few years back, and aside from the fact their customer service reps don’t speak English, they sometimes bill false charges or bill on dates when not authorized, their excessively annoying “one time activation fee” on all their services, they are a good provider.

OR WERE,

As you can already probably imagine I spoke with vonage tonight to ask if I could get “any” 800 number, and in broken English the woman said “I am sorry sir the system will not allow that” so that’s ok I said, what if I BOUGHT a number (like from you bill) and then attached it to my account, she said after five more minutes of pandering that “ they could not switch 800 numbers from other telephone providers” and then after 25 more headache filled “I do not understand you” minutes, she finally realized I would “own” the number and it wasn’t being SWITCHED from anywhere.

Needless to say the call ended when I realized that these people would not be able to “get with the times” and in fact the rep even admitted that, that we are probably leaving their service very soon, now the question is do you know or anyone know of a provider that can handle our office voip (our requirements are basically a few extensions, fax switching, 800 number, local line number to which the 800 number can be virtualized, and of course virtual “numbers” for other regional offices)

I googled some of this but met a wall, any thoughts however remote would be great, if I can nail down who our next provider is going to be, all I got to do is sit down with my marketing gal and find a number on your list to buy from your service.

Thanks so much for your time bill

I liked the way you described your experience. I agree it is usually frustrating dealing with most voip companies (not just Vonage) for toll free service. Fortunately you really don’t have to talk to vonage at all, or change your service with them at all either. You don’t need to use the same carrier that provides the local line to get toll free calls to the local line any more than you do for regular local calls. If only other vonage customers could call your vonage phone it wouldn’t be very good or make much sense.

There are actually several reasons why you probably shouldn’t use the same company for your toll free service that you do for the local lines. One of them is definitely that the companies providing most local lines never seem to be very easy to deal with, nor are they even the cheapest. They actually tend to be more expensive (because companies never seem to be more competitive than they need to be) and worst of all, they usually impose restrictions such as needing a business line or being unable to change the ring to number to your cell phone or your assistant’s phone when you need to, if they’re not from the same phone company. There’s absolutely no reason for those things, or why Vonage couldn’t provide toll free service. It’s just their own attitudes and self imposed restrictions.

Enough about that though, because I usually find it’s much easier to just go around difficult people or companies than to convince them they are wrong or educate them. I try to be a good ambassador and help people but there are just too many of them and too little time to spend it fighting with people like that. So the best solution is to simply use another company for the toll free service. It will cost you less. It won’t affect your local lines or equipment at all, and if you change phone companies which you may still do from the sounds of it in the future, you don’t need to change the toll free number. People sometimes think it’s an advantage to have everything on one bill, but that is easy to do. Just put the bill for the toll free service on your credit card and although you’ll still get a bill, you won’t have to write a separate check. This actually gives you more control than if you used one company for everything, which is actually called putting all of your eggs in one basket. And there is honestly nobody that’s the best at everything in any industry.

Each company has different strengths so I try to give customers flexibility and also to refer people to the best solution for their situation. In this case PNG is usually the best for going to a cell phone or voip service or even a very small rural phone company (these are all Tier C). All you need to do is fill out the form we send you with the toll free manual for PNG (the last page in the toll free manual) and fax it in. For them I would also include a copy of your current phone bill in your name too, since that makes it easier and faster to go through credit. By the way, if you use my form instead of going through PNG on your own, it’ll also get done usually in two days instead of two weeks too.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions or need any help with anything else and have a nice weekend!

It is interesting to hear about challanges with VoIP providers. I just recently got involved in this industry and I am learning more everyday.

Have you had any experience with ACN regarding 800 numbers?

Thanks .. look forward to your reply.

Todd Thompson

We’re working on a provider directory though which may help get more information on options like that soon.

Bill.