For the past four days, since I've signed up with Vonage Arizona, I've been pulling my hair out in frustration. Yesterday, my husband became so enraged and frazzled, I thought he was going to break something. (Not his style though; thank goodness.)
This is all due to the failure of my Cox high-speed internet connection (cable modem). I never realized just how dependent I was on this evil little box and the company that controls it.
I could have strangled the customer service reps at Cox... But I am getting ahead of myself; let me back up a bit.
Here's how it all went down:
I thought I'd save some money and get Vonage telephone service. You've seen the ads right? $24.95 per month with free long distance to the U.S. and Canada-- sounds great! So I canceled my home phone service with Qwest, and got ready to start saving a bunch of money.
The Vonage phone service was fine; the connection is clear; everything was as was promised.
So, because Vonage seemed to work so nicely, I decided to set them up as the alternative lines for the office. What I mean is, my main telephone number is (480) 551-8188. That is a standard Qwest land line.
Anyway, when calls come through and that main line is occupied-- which is practically 100% of the working day-- the incoming call hunts for another open line...just like any office.
Except, I decided that all of the hunted lines would be of the Vonage variety. So the office consists of only one "real" telephone line and a bunch of Vonage lines to be hunted. I'd save a small fortune I thought.
This, of course, was idiotic on my part. You do get what you pay for folks; I can attest to that right now.
Vonage depends on the internet and late Friday afternoon, my internet went down. It actually never dawned on me that if I lost internet connectivity, I would lose my phones as well.
Cox told us the best they could do was get a repairman out on Tuesday, which is today.
Monday is the busiest day of the week and tends to be very stressful as far as the telephones go. Yesterday, the main line would ring, but that was it. No more than one incoming call at a time. That was very strange, but I couldn't pay too much attention to it, because I was so frustrated without email. Many of my clients communicate with me via email...so I kept hitting "refresh" hoping I could somehow will the connection to come alive.
Of course, I was getting lots of calls and they all had nowhere to go. Some clients got busy signals, others told me the phone just rang and rang. Very professional. I bet my clients and potential clients think I'm just brilliant right about now.
So that's it. That's my Vonage horror story. I hope it helps anyone who was on the fence about signing up for this new service.
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