Vonage Fee Increase 1.49 to 1.99
In addition, the Regulatory and Compliance Fee becomes the Regulatory, Compliance and Intellectual Property Fee. This fee covers our regulatory-related and legal compliance expenses, including those related to customer privacy protection, anti-fraud protection and number portability, as well as intellectual property-related costs enabling our services.
Both fees will increase from $1.49 per month to $1.99 per month beginning with your first billing cycle on or after April 23, 2010. This change will allow Vonage to maintain our commitment to safety, innovation and customer service.
This has to come to an end. Vonage has been doing this even since they started their service. It was expected when World plan was announced.
How to Increase Call Quality in Vonage
We were talking to our family and friends to pass our Diwali greetings. It’s such a wonderful feeling to talk to friends and family members for the first time from US without the worry of phone bill/balance/recharge/time remaining/… Thanks to Vonage World Calling Plan.
I noticed another something different while talking to India through Vonage. We were using Reliance to call India before Vonage World Plan was introduced, always during festival time, new year,.. Reliance lines will be busy, we have to try many times, before call will connect. That was not the case with Vonage (Maybe Reliance could be different if we tried today)
Increase Vonage Call Quality
Eventhough we didn’t experience connection issues during our calls to India, call quality was less. There were noise disturbances during the phone call. Many of you might not be aware of one of the features offered by Vonage, which will allow us to increase the call quality by changing the bandwidth used by vonage connection.
- Go to Login to Vonage Account > Features > Bandwidth Saver
3 Bandwidth options (30, 50 and 90 kbps) will be listed. Set the bandwidth to 90kbps and within few minutes, noise disturbances in the call was almost gone. If you have dial-up internet connection, this might slow down your internet connection, but with High Speed Cable/DSL connections, you will not find any impact to your browsing speed.
Vonage iPhone App to Call India – $0.07 per minute
World Calling plan had vonage free calls to India, but we have to use the landline. People around the net, started talking about calling India using iPhone or blackberry using same plan and some were considering Lingo, which offers plan to call from Cell Phone to India for free. ( It comes with 2 years contract)
Apple approved Vonage iPhone app, that will allow calls to India for 7 cents per minute. Reliance India Call and AirTel Call home has the same deal, but Vonage iPhone app uses Wi-Fi, so your Cell Phone minutes will not be affected.
This is very cool feature. Using Reliance and Airtel will use the cell phone minutes, but not the case with Vonage. I haven’t tried it yet, but planning to give it a try.
It would be nice to make free calls to India using Voip from iPhone that includes option to use World Calling Plan. But, this is a good start for Vonage.
How to Call India from Vonage
We signed-up for Vonage World Calling month back. Using referral and Vonage 20% discounts we get Vonage Free Calls to India for $18 per month.
But, first questions we had after signing up for world calling plan – How to call India in using Vonage?
- Call – 011 + Country Code + Area Code + Number
- Landline India : 011 + 91 + Area Code + phone number
- Mobile India : 011 + 91 + Cell Number
- To Hide Caller Id in Vonage : *67 + Number
Where 011 is the International Access code. Codes of major cities of India include 44 for Chennai, 80 for Bangalore and 11 for Delhi.
How to Get 1 Month Free Vonage Service?
In last post, I had wrote about how to get Vonage Free Calls to India for just $18 per month. I have 2 vonage accounts, one we use here and second one in India. Since we already have free calls to India through new Vonage World calling plan, we decided to cancel the second Vonage.
Vonage 1 Month Free Service
I called customer care to cancel the vonage phone line. After few minutes of discussion, customer rep offered 1 month free credit and then it will continue to be same plan after 1 month. So, I decided to take that offer. What will happen after 1 month? Not sure.
I’m still going to call Vonage Customer care after 1 month to cancel the account. I’m expecting they will offer
- $9.95 for 100 outgoing minutes first and
- $4.95 for 0 outgoing minutes if I decline the above.
That’s typical way for Vonage to retain the customers. But, with $5 plan other fees will add up to total of $10. So, we haven’t decided if we need to pay $10 to retain a phone back in India, eventhough vonage world calling plan offers free calls to India?
Vonage Free Calls to India – $22 per month
I was paying close to 40 cents per minute to call India, when I first came to US. My friends used to say they had paid close to 55 cents per minute to call India from USA.
I used to wonder if there will be a day when we can take our landline phone and call India as we call any other number in US. Finally that day has arrived through Vonage World Calling Plan.
You need to signup for Vonage World Calling Plan and it includes free calls to India and 60 more countries around the world.
Vonage Free Calls to India – Cost
- Monthly Service Fee for World Calling Plan – $24.99
- Total After taxes, 911fees, .. – $33
- 1 Year Total Expense = $396
So, if you are spending even around $20 to $30 per month on Local and Long distance phone service, you can switch to Vonage World Calling plan, that will include free calls to India.
How to Save on Vonage
Savings is not just limited for 2 months. Here is a neat trick that can save even more money by using Vonage Free calls to India.
- Default 1 Year Expense = $396
- Use Annual Pre Pay Plan after creating Vonage Account(20% Off ) : 396 – 79 = 316
- Use the Banner to sign-up (2 Months Free) : 316 – 49.98 = 266 ( About $22 per month)
- Refer one person after you sign-up : 266 – 49.98 = 216 ( About $18 Per Month)
Hidden TOS from Vonage – Lack of continuous dialog activity, unusual call patterns, excessive numbers and/or consistent excessive usage (i.e., More than 5,000 minutes per line per month for unlimited residential calling and/or more than 10,000 minutes per line per month for unlimited small business calling), will be considered indicators that use may be inconsistent with normal use, or that impermissible use may be occurring and may trigger an account review by us.
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