Nerdy Dork

All about Comcast, Qwest, and Vonage. See how I feel about each of their services:

Comcast

Let me tell you all about my digital home. We have had
Comcast high-speed internet for about 3-4 years now. It was formally AT&T. I think they are pretty
pricey at $52.99 per month, but if I could find any other provider with the speeds they offer for a cheaper price, I will happily switch.
(From now until April 30, 2005, when you sign up you can get 6 months for
$19.99, $25 cash back, and a free MP3 Player.
Click Here to get this deal.)

Qwest

Qwest DSL is available where I live, but it is much slower and in order to
get a better price than what I am paying for
Comcast they would require some
type of phone plan. It used to be that I didn’t really have an option for that
either. But about two or three years ago I called Qwest to see about getting a
better long-distance rate. I had seen them advertising 10 cents a minute in
state long distance or
something. I think I was using another company for long distance and paying
about 15 cents per minute or so. It was really adding up with the phone call my wife
was making to her mother. I can’t remember all the excuses they gave me but
would not give me a good deal on long distance. A friend told me about a new VOIP (Voice Over IP) company that his dad had signed up with called Vonage. I’m
sure by now you may have heard of them, but at the time they were fairly new. I
signed up for a 24.99 a month plan which gave me unlimited local calling, free
in state long distance, and 500 minutes of out-of-state long distance (which I
never came close to using).

Vonage

Initially, Vonage was a pain in the butt to say the least. The modem was
constantly loosing its connection and the phone would be out for up to a day or
so. This was quite a frustration at the time as this was our only phone service.
So, if it ever went out, we were basically without a phone. I had a few other
gripes to. In order to call anyone - even your next door neighbor, you had to
dial the full area code as if you were calling long distance. This took a while
to get used to. Also, if I ever wanted to check my voicemail from somewhere
other than home, I would have to call a certain number, which could be long
distance depending on where I was at the time.

Well, a lot of improvements have been made since then. The system is not very
stable. It is more likely that Comcast will go out rather than
Vonage. When it
does, which is rarely, it is quickly restored within an hour or two. It is not
so much of a problem since my wife and I have
cell phones with great rates.
Their plan has now changed too. For the same price, I now have unlimited long
distance to the US and Canada and if I ever need to call to South Africa for fun
they also have the best international rates I’ve seen. The greatest part about
the plan changes is I didn’t have to do a thing. They automatically kept giving
me better rates. It’s not like Dish Network
& other companies where you have to call
and threaten to leave before they transfer you to an "account specialist" to
negotiate a good deal to keep you happy. They just sent me an email and said in
effect - "Guess what, you can now talk all you want in the US & Canada…"

They have also listened to customer complaints about having to dial the full
area code. Now I can call anyone in my area code - even numbers that would
normally be long distance, without the area code. Just a little thing, but I
think it is great.

Also, I can now easily check my voicemail by calling my home number and
pressing pound when the message starts. It would just as you would expect it to.

Some other really cool things I love about
Vonage include:

1. I got to keep my original number. I even moved to a new area where I may
   be expected by Qwest to order a new number. I simply took my equipment with
   me. Once I had Comcast set up in my new home, I plugged in my Vonage modem
   and things worked out perfectly. I didn’t have to give out a new number to
   anyone. I didn’t have to call Vonage. I later simply logged on the internet
   and updated my billing address.
2. Voicemail, Caller ID, Call Waiting and all the other features you would
   pay a premium for with Qwest come standard.
3. My reception and sound quality was actually way better than Qwest.
   Something Qwest had told me was just a problem with my house’s internal
   wiring and nothing they could do about it. This actually made me a little
   upset since we had a brand new home and I did all the wiring myself. Vonage
   seemed to like my internal wiring.
4. Speaking of internal wiring, initially I had just one phone plugged
   straight into the modem. This was also a bummer. But I learned that I could
   easily get my whole house wired by plugging the line out of the modem into a
   wall jack, which then gives the rest of the outlets in the home a working
   phone line. If you need  a phone by your modem still, just get a simple
   splitter than can be picked up at any Wal-mart
   or even grocery stores. If
   you do this, make sure you unplug the Qwest (or your local phone company’s)
   phone line coming in to your house.
5. As soon as you get Vonage you’re going to want to tell everyone about
   it. When you to, you can get a free month, as well as the person signing up.
   It is great incentive to spread the word and give your friends a free month
   trial so they can afford to keep their current line to try it out.
6. One think I have enjoyed from the beginning is getting emails when I
   have a new voicemail. You can set you account up to send you an email
   notifying you of new message and optionally include the message. In order to
   save space and bandwidth on my email account, I just have it notify me. I
   can see the number of the person that left the message. Then if I want I can
   go online and listen to the message.
7. Speaking of going online. I can check my account online at any time to
   see a list of number and names of people that have recently called and calls
   I have placed.

But anyway, that’s my rants & raves on
Vonage. If you don’t know of anyone
that currently has Vonage and you want to get a
free month, you can use my
referral by clicking here. You will need high-speed internet, such as cable or
DSL. You can click here to get Comcast for only $19.99 for six months. Don’t
worry, there are not contracts for either
Vonage or
Comcast so you are not
require to stay or member or pay a fee to cancel.

Qwest Epilogue

You know, I really feel bad about talking so rudely about
Qwest since one of
my best friends is a Qwest salesman, but I simply cannot resist! After we had
had Vonage for about six months or so, a Qwest salesperson called my wife and
offered us 7 cents per minute long distance if we were to switch back! My wife
explained that I had left because they wouldn’t give us a 10 cent long distance
plan, but now we have free long distance. The sales person actually agued with
my wife that there was not company in existence offering free long distance. Oh
well! I’m sure that salesperson knows better by now.

For more about my digital home, see my blog on
Dish
Network and DVR.

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