Voice Over IP For The Lost
A Review of Vonage Voice Over IP Phone Service
By Brad Herring
Originally Printed in “The Communicator” Magzine

Gone are the days of the telephone and long distance companies.  Yes, you heard me correctly – gone are the days. You are going to be excited when you see how easy technology is making it to communicate with missionaries and fellow believers world-wide. 

As I began to research ways to communicate around the world with mission campuses I began to look into the idea of “Voice over IP”. Simply put, Voice over IP is using the internet to place telephone calls. In my research I have stumbled upon Vonage, a cutting edge company providing all the services needed. I’ve had the opportunity to use the Vonage product and to have a one on one interview with Mr. Louis Holder, Executive Vice President of Product Development and co-founder of this incredible company.

First, let me give you an idea of how this service can be effective for you. What if I told you that you could call from the US to your mission campus in Haiti for free? What if I told you that this could be done anywhere in the world? What if I further told you that it was as good as quality as a regular telephone and just as simple as placing a call to your neighbor’s house? Do I have your attention?

The Vonage site makes it easy to sign up with only a few minutes and a credit card.  The end result is you picking an area code, and receiving a little black box in the mail in just a few days. Plug this little black box into your broadband connection, and then plug a regular telephone into the other side of the box, and you are ready to dial.

Not impressed? Wait.  It’s just getting good. Now, you unplug that little black box, and travel ANYWHERE in the world where you can get at least 64kbps constant connection speed. Plug in the little black box, plug in a telephone, and wait for a call to come in.  IT FOLLOWS YOU. When someone dials your number, it rings wherever you are. Same area code, same phone number.  If you want to call home, it’s a local call (even if you are in Zimbabwe on a satellite internet connection). 

The rates are great! $24.99 a month gets you unlimited local calls (any call within the area code you ask for) and 500 minutes of long distance and Canadian calling.  $34.99 a month gets you unlimited long distance, Canadian, and local calling.  It’s almost too good to be true.  The ultimate test was using the device.   I was amazed. Great quality, easy function, and as far as I was concerned as the end user it was a regular telephone.  All the features you could want are included (Caller ID, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Voice Mail, Hunt Groups, etc. etc.).

We have a mission campus in Haiti that is setup with internet satellite. They can plug this device into their router and make local calls back home to their family, AND DO IT AT NO COST other than the monthly fee.  For another $10 they could call anywhere in the US and Canada with no time limitation.

With the emergence of affordable internet satellite and Voice over IP, I have to ask the question – why are we NOT doing this? Voice over IP is easy communication providing a cost effective global solution.

Technology continues to bring us new innovations that assist us in ministry. I am very impressed with this service and the potential it brings to both foreign and domestic missions. Their service can be used with existing PBX systems as well. We simply dead end lines into our PBX, and enabled the hunt groups for rollover features. Vonage has a simple interface that is completely web based and easy to use. The cost savings are amazing, the vocal quality excellent, and the interface super simple.

To find out more about this service, visit www.vonage.com

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