Vonage V-Phone (V256USB11VR)

Pros: Simple to use.
Cons: Hard to know if you are receiving a call.

The Vonage V-Phone seemed like the perfect solution for us as a family. The idea behind it is that you have unlimited incoming and outgoing calls as long as you have a high speed connection. This small device fits into your USB slots so very easy to ...

Pros: Works Internationally. Compact. Easy to use.
Cons: Customer service is dicey.

I have traveled internationally as a part of my job for the past 20 years. Keeping in contact with family and office staff while traveling has been a long-time problem for me. At first, I found Skype--and, I loved it. But, recently, I started with a ...

Pros:

None.

Cons: Headset/microphone is low quality.
Hardware is buggy.
Scheme to discourage account sharing.

For anyone planning to use this product, be warned. The Vonage forums are filled with users reporting massive diffculties using this product with Windows Vista.

Vonage has created a "workaround" support page, but in many cases it simply doesn't work.

A desktop application (similar to Skype) would be FAR preferable to a hardware based USB product. The only reason this product really exists is to discourage Vonage account sharing. Your Vonage account is attached to the Mac Address found on the USB device. This device must be sitting snugly in your USB port to use Vonage.

Other than that, you'll run software on your system and likely be using your own headset/microphone.

Pros: Easy to use, good sound quality
Cons: Won't work at internet cafes

I have Vonage as my home/office phone service and it has worked fairly well over the past four years. I just purchased the V-Phone specifically to make calls while I'm overseas. While in Ukraine, I went to four different internet cafes, and the V-Phone would not work on any of them. Vonage indicated that this is probably because of the firewalls at the cafes. Regardless of why, the bottom line is that the V-Phone is only functional when used with networks without firewalls, which pretty much makes it useless at most internet cafes. I was able to use it on my laptop at two different places that had unsecured wireless networks. A guy sitting next to me at one of the cafes was using Skype, and he had no problems. Apparently Skype uses different technology than V-Phone, so maybe this is the way to go. I am disappointed that V-Phone does not work "as advertised", and their technical service was of little help on this subject.