Voip Deals Blog

Vonage has recently introduced its Vonage World plan at $24.99/month which includes free unlimited calling in the US and Canada plus 60 other countries. The plan is definitely very competitive. But after doing some calculations we think PhonePower may still be a better option than Vonage. Let’s look at the comparison below.

	PhonePower	Vonage
Cost/Month	$8.30/mo ($199/1 Year plus 1 Year Free)	$24.99
2nd Cloned Line	Included Free, its like having two Phone lines	None
Call Quality	Excellent	Excellent
International Calls	60 Free Minutes/Mo	Free
Total	$18.30	$24.99

For Callers Who Don’t need to make International Calls

PhonePower $8.30/mo Vs  Vonages $24.99

If you don’t need to call international, PhonePower costs $8.30/mo (paid once annually) or $14.95/mo (if paid monthly) vs Vonage’s $24.99. Plus you get a 2nd cloned line for free.

For Callers Who need to make International Calls

^*An average international caller who calls India (for our comparison here) spends around $5 to $8 month now a days on international calls using 3rd party calling card services. PhonePower (unlimited plans only) offers 60 minutes of free calls every month. Calling card service providers like Pingo offers 2.9 ¢/min India calling plan plus great deals like ($10 Free on sign up & half rates calls on Wednesdays which further bring down the effective rate to 1.9¢/minute) and pin less speed dialing.

For an average India Caller the cost with PhonePower & Pingo (for the India Calls) the total cost will be $8.30/mo ($199 Annual Plan with 2nd Yr Free) plus $10 (average India calls), total will be around $18.30 versus Vonage’s $24.99.

Plus PhonePower offers you a 2nd cloned line for free which Vonage doesn’t offer. A cloned line is like having a 2nd line. If you hook up two phones to PhonePower, you can make and receive separate calls form the two phone at the same time. Vonage doesn’t have this feature.

As the above comparison shows, by using PhonePower and Pingo an average India caller will save better than by using Vonage. And will enjoy the same benefits of excellent call quality, 2nd free cloned line, free 60 minutes of international calls every month, but will have to use a 3rd party calling card service.

PhonePower rotates its voip unlimited plan offer at different price points and at diffrent contract terms to make it easy for consumers with different needs. Some consumers want a slightly lesser priced plan, some like additional free service.  They had their 1 Year Free service offer with the unlimited 1 Year call plan going on for some time. This offer is going to end in 5 days per the PhonePower.com web site.

I recently signed up with PhonePower for my home phone service. My Packet8 contract was nearing its end. So thought I will try PhonePower. So far the experience has been very good.

Signing up was easy and quick. I got the 1 Year free Offer ($199 for 2 Years of service and a free cloned line). The box arrived soon, though I was not in a hurry. I still had a few month of service left from my previous service. I waited till my number got ported to PhonePower.

Setting up the Adapter:
There are two ways any voip adapter can be set up.

1. Connect the adapter to the internet modem. Then connect your router to the voip adapter.
2. The 2nd way is to connect the router to the internet modem and then connect the voip adapter to the router like all your other devices (pcs etc).

PhonePower instruction manual describes only the 1st way, but I prefer the 2nd way. All you have to remember is, you are plugging your voip adapter exactly the same way as your pc is plugged in to the router.

Now the steps:

1. Power off your modem/router
2. Plug the ethernet cable that comes in the packet to back of your router (exactly as your pc is connected to the router).
3. Plug the other end of the ethernet cable to the WAN port (not the LAN port, this is very important) of the phonepower adapter. If you plug it to the LAN port it won’t work
4. Plug the phone line to the adapter’s Phone1 jack and the other end to your phone
5. Power on the modem/router and then the PhonePower router.
6. Wait for 5 minutes, the PhonePower adapter will take a while to start up fully.
7. Pick up the phone and dial a number. If it works, you are all set.
8. Setting Up the Cloned Line (if your service came with the 2nd Clone line)
   1. Sign on to the PhonePower website using your user id and password you created when you signed up.
   2. Click on Modify Services on the left menu bar
   3. On the next page Click on the ‘Manage Cloned Line’ button
   4. On the next page click on the ‘Assign’ button
   5. Connect your 2nd phone to the Phone2 jack of the PhonePower adapter.

PhonePower offers the same unlimited Voip plan and different price/contract terms. Their 1 Year Contract offer which comes with an addition year of FREE service ends today.

Remember, this is a yearly contact plan with an Extra 1 Year FREE.
Price: $199
Cancellation: After the 30 day period, there will be a $99 cancellation fee or the remainder of your contract amount, whichever is less.

PhonePower also offers monthly plans at $19.95 which has no contracts, if you don’t like the contract plan, but is priced higher. With free year offer you get unlimited calling under $9/month. Compare that with the $19.95 for the no contract plan.