Voip Deals Blog

We recently had a post about Voip.com and in that post we had explained how Voip.com is a PhonePower company and how the voip service plans offered by the two are very similar pricewise as well as feature wise. So I was wondering about what if a current PhonePower customer wants to switch to Voip.com or vice versa, can he/she port his/her existing phone number.

With that question in mind, I just inquired with the Voip.com/PhonePower customer service posing the same question.

And the answer was “NO”. An existing PhonePower customer can’t port his/her phone number to Voip.com. So I am assuming the reverse will be true too. No number porting from voip.com to Phonepower.

I don’t like this idea but I can understand their will be some regulatory issues porting a number between the two since both are the same company.

Its been a while since Voip.com was acquired by Phonepower.com, a leading voip service provider with great service for residential voip customers.  Since the acquisition, though the service plans offered by Voip.com  has been alligned nicely with the Phonepower.com service plans. The Voip.com website has also undergone some face lifts and now greatly resemble that of Phonepower.

In all practical purposes, the voip services offered by Voip.com and PhonePower are the same, the technology behind the two are the same, customer service behind the two are the same.

Where is varies slightly is in the residential voip space, Voip.com offers a prepaid plan for a year of unlimited local and long distance calls in the US and Canada and free 60 minutes of international calls for $99, which brings the average cost down to $8.33/month. PhonePower’s pre-paid plan is for 2 years of unlimited calls in the US & Canada and free 60 mins of international call at $199.

Side by Side Comparison Voip.com & PhonePower

Features:

Both the providers offer the same array of features on all of their plans. Some of the major features are

• Free 2nd Cloned line
• Caller Id, Call Waiting, Call Hold
• 60 minutes Free International calls every month
• Block list
• Call Routing
• 3 Way Confernce
• *69 Call Return
• Soft Phone
• Free Fax Receive

and more. They list 45 calling features on their websites.

Read a full Voip.com review.

Unless you are making a lot international calls every month and just need a phone service just for calls in US/Canada, there are some good alternatives to Vonage. We like Vonage because of its unlimited calls to 60 countries, but many don’t require international calling plans. Here are some of the Vonage alternatives to consider.

Excellent phone service with many free features.Unlimited calls in the US/Canada (and 60 free international minutes). Most of the time has a FREE ONE YEAR promo going on. Free 2nd cloned line, free soft phone. Free fax plus all the standard features like voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding, E911 and others. Cost: $199/yr (free 2nd year with the promo offer). PhonePower Reveiw

Lingo Unlimited World plan at $21.95/mo. Unlimited calls to 45 countries including India, China, Mexico, UK , US and Canada. Standard voip phone service features. Free activation, free equipment, no contract. Lingo Voip Review

$195/Yr Free Set Up, No contract. Unlimited calls in the US/Canada. Visual Voicemail, 3 way conference.Intalk Nextiva Review

Phone service suitable for home and small businesses. Unlimited calls in US/Canada. Costs $214.56/Yr or $19.88/month. Business phone features like click-to-call, simultaneous ring. Phone.com Review

In September 2010, PhonePower, a leading and growing voip company acquired Voip.com, a much smaller voip provider.

We have reviewed both the providers extensively. And as is evident from our blog posts and reviews, PhonePower provides a very good, reliable, cheap voip home phone service. Though it was not the case with Voip.com. Voip.com had been struggling to improve its service and expand its user base for sometime now.

This acquisition bodes well for PhonePower and its current subscriber base. With this acquisition, PhonePower would have added additional subscribers to its client list, which will make the company more stable and help it grow faster.

We are not sure if the Voip.com website will exist in the future or will be directed to the PhonePower website, but currently the Voip.com has undergone some changes to show that its a PhonePower company and also the ordering process and live chat service takes one to PhonePower.

We  have disabled our voip forum since we didn’t see much user participation and also it was attracting too much spam.

We  will spend more time on our blog and hope to interact with our readers though blog postings and user comments.

Maintel is a UK based business telecom provider which works both in the hardware and software side of the telecommunication business. On the hardware side it provisions telephone equipment sales and maintenance on contract basis. On the software side it offers a portfolio of voice and data services to businesses.

Voip Phone Systems

Maintel’s Business Telephone Systems is aimed towards businesses of all sizes a virtual pbx system without the cost of owning the hardware. Advantages of a hosted pbx system is you get all the features of a pbx system, like call routing, call forwarding, voice-mail to email, IVR on a monthly costly basis.

SIP Trunking

Maintel also provides SIP trunking, an alternative to traditional analogue or ISDN lines. SIP trunking can be created over any existing or new data connection. Maintel assists businesses with estimating bandwidth requirement and creation and maintenance of SIP channels.

NGN

Maintel also offers a variety of voice services like non-geographic-numbers, virtual numbers, analogue and ISDN line rentals.

A NGN(non geographic number) number in UK is like a US toll free number. In the US toll free numbers have a generic area code and hence not tied to any geographic location, NGN numbers are similar, but they aren’t toll free.

Broadband

Maintel’s IP and data services offer a business class broadband service which can then be the foundation to enable their voice related services, vpn or wan services.

Mobile

MaintelMobile offers mobile broadband and mobile email at a very competitive price. Aimed towards businesses Mobile broadband for employees can be used anywhere whether on the road or at home to connect to the internet. Mobile email connects to the company’s mail server and your employees have full access to their company mail accounts 24/7.

About the Company

Its a public company traded on the London and Berlin Stock Exchange.

Maintel operates through two subsidiaries, Maintel Europe Limited and Maintel Voice and Data Limited. Maintel Europe is the  maintenance, and services arm. Maintel Voice and Data is the voice, ip, data services arm.

Get more info about and MainTel Uk here on their web site.

Well, that’s a very good question. Here we have compiled a list many different situations and the phone services that will be suitable for each with a little humor.

1. I am always on the Phone making calls

Any plans on cutting back.. if not, you need a phone service with unlimited calls in the US/Canada. Most voip phone service offer unlimited calling plans. We like PhonePower, see why?

2. I travel a Lot

Watch your diet, those calories add up fast. And choose a phone service that offers a soft phone service which can travel with your PC. PhonePower offers a FREE soft phone service. So you can take your phone with you, and your family will still have the regular phone at home.

MajicJack is another option. Though it doesn’t have a softphone option, the jack is tiny enough to travel with you hassle free. It won’t require an extra seat on the plane.

Another option is SkypeOut. With skype Out you get to make unlimited calls in the US/Canada for as little as $2.99/month.

3. I hardly make any calls

Why no friends . Opt for a limited minutes phone plan like JoiPhone ($6.95/mo for 100 free minutes), Vonage Lite ($9.99/mo for 200 free minutes) or JoiPhone. You can receive unlimited calls. And you will get some free outgoing minutes for the occasional calls that you will need to make.

4. I work from Home

Lucky you. Go with PhonePower. You get unlimited calling in US, Canada, free incoming fax, outgoing fax (if you have a fax machine), free 2nd cloned line, free soft phone.

5. My wife and I both work from home

We feel your pain . You can lessen it with the free 2nd cloned line from PhonePower. The 2nd cloned line acts like a 2nd line which can both receive calls when the main line is in use. Just plug a 2nd phone to the phonepower adapter and you are set.  More on how to set up the 2nd cloned line.

Here is a recent email we received from one of our readers and we liked it, a lot. So we decided to publish it here in our blog. Do you have a similar story, do you use a voip phone service. Send us your voip story from our contact us page or just post a comment here for a chance to win $50 gift card from Amazon.com. (THIS PROMOTION HAS ENDED)

No purchase necessary. Just tell us your story and the best story will be awarded a $50 gift card by email. So be sure to use a correct email address while submitting your entry.

Here is the email from Mark, a long time voip user and a long time reader of voipdealsreview.org. Thanks Mark for sharing your voip experience with us.

Hello Voipdealsreview.org,

I have been a visitor to your site and a subscriber to your mailing list for a few years now. When I first found this site, I was using a regular phone company. The articles and reviews on your site prompted me to switch to voip and save some money.

With my wife’s permission , I signed up with SunRocket with the then ongoing 1 year free offer. The pricing was really cheap ($199 for 2 years for unlimited calling) and I was apprehensive about it all.

But I was pleasantly surprised when I started using SunRocket. There was a slight drop in voice quality.  But the price that I was paying for unlimited long distance calls in the US, the slight drop in voice quality was fine with me.

After having used Sunrocket  for almost 18 months with hardly any issues (I never had to call their customer service in the 18 months), SunRocket went out of business suddenly.

I had to make a quick decision to switch to another phone company ASAP. By that time I was hooked to voip for its cost saving potential and didn’t want to go back to a regular phone company.

I decided to go with Packet8. Packet8 was good but there were some shortcomings. The voice quality was not as good as Sunrocket. Then Paccket8 didn’t allow me to fax. Packet8 sells a fax service separately and does’t give their phone subscribers the ability to send faxes.

I stayed with Packet8 for a year until my contract was over. And then switched to PhonePower, again with a free 1 year offer for $199, thanks your site.

PhonePower offers everything that I needed for a price that’s better than Packet8′s. Here are some of the things that I like about PhonePower.

2nd Free Cloned Line – I work form home, and my wife is a stay-at-home mom. So we both need to use the phone during the day. PhonePower’s 2nd cloned line sets us free. Its like having two phone lines. I can make and receive calls while my wife is on a call.  And the best thing is the 2nd cloned line is absolutely free.

Faxing – PhonePower lets you send faxes over their voip line, unlike Packet8. I don’t send a lot of faxes but it helps when I need to send a fax occasionally.

Incoming Fax – Since I work from home, I get all my work related faxes online thorough an internet fax service that my company has provided. But with PhonePower you can receive faxes in your email through your regular phone#. When someone sends a fax to your phonepower number, the phonepwer system receives it and sends the fax to your email as a pdf attachment. Works for me when I need to receive a personal fax. And this service is also free.

60 Free Minutes of International Calls every month – Though I hardly use the free international minutes, I can imagine it will be useful for someone who have friends and families overseas.

Also I would like to thank you for this site and in a way having helped me to switch to voip.

(THIS PROMOTION HAS ENDED)

There are three ways to check your PhonePower voicemail, i.e if you have PhonePower voip.

1. Online

Go to www.PhonePower.com and sign on to ‘My Account’ and within your account, there is a voicemail menu on the left hand side. You can play your messages, delete old ones from there.

2. From Your Home Phone

Dial *21 from your home phone that is connected to the Phonepower voip adapter. If you haven’t set up your voicemail before, you will be guided through the set up process. You can skip all the set up options like personal greetings, voice signature if you want to keep the defaults. Then you will be asked to set up a 4 digit pin#. After that you are all set. You call *21 from your home phone any time to go to your voicemail box and manage your voicemails.

3. From An External Phone or Cell Phone
   

Dial your phone number and once you hear the greetings, hit *to go to your voicemail, you will be asked to enter your pin and once done, you will be able to listen any new voicemails.

Last but not the least, in addition to the above three, PhonePower also offers free voicemail to email. You can  setup within your online account to have Phonepower send new voicemails to your email address. Everytime you get a voicemail, a voice file will be attached and sent to your email, which you can download and play in any audio player like windows media player or quicktime.

Well, its 2010, high speed internet connection at home is no more a novelty. If you have any type of high speed internet at home are you using it to the fullest. Have you switched to a Voip company yet, if not, why? What may be the rational behind an expensive regular phone service!

Whatever your call need is, switching to a voip company will save you a lot. Lets first look at some of the concerns.

911 service- Are you keeping your regular phone company for the 911 service. Most voip phone services offer E911 service, which is similar to the 911 service offered by cell phone providers. With a E911 service you need to provide your home address upfront. The first time you sign up, the voip phone service asks for your home address and uses that as the E911 address. But if you move afterwards, you will need to update your address with your phone company.

Caller Id, Call Waiting - Most voip services offer Caller Id/Call Waiting/3Way Calling. In fact most voip services offer more features for free than regular phone companies.

VoiceMail - Most voip phone services offer Voicemail, also voice mail to email, which is an extra feature most regular phone services lack.

Now Let’s Look At the Cost Savings Voip Services Offer

I urge you to look at your current Phone Bill, and then compare it to what it will cost you if you were to switch to a voip phone service provider.

If you need unlimited calls to US & Canada – If you switch to PhonePower, an unlimited plan will cost you around $14.95 to $18.95 per month depending on a contract length.

For a limited plan – If you were to switch to Phone.com you get 250 minutes of outgoing calls and unlimited incoming calls. Any additional minutes will be 3.9¢ per each extra minute.

Based on the above cost information, check how much you will be able to save with a switch to a voip phone service provider. I am sure in almost all cases there will be a substantial amount of savings. And if there is, don’t hesitate and make the switch. Some voip providers also offer free trials. So you can keep your regular phone company when you are trying out a voip service and if not fully satisfied cancel it.