Is the Vonage World Plan right for you? [Opinion]

I am sure, by now most (if not all) of you would have heard about the Vonage World plan. The blogosphere is full of posts arguing how great the plan is. So here are the key highlights of the plan:

• For $24.99 you get unlimited calling to US and over 60 other countries (including India).Yes, you can make unlimited calls to India, China and several other countries.
• Free activation (otherwise $29.99) if you sign up for a year contract.
• You also get over 25 premium features, such as call forwarding, 911, among others.
• You can also retain your existing number.
• There are no setup or equipment fees.

The list of free countries include:

Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guam, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Republic of, Macau, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saipan, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, Venezuela, Zambia

Looks great, isn’t it? No wonder why there is so much buzz about this. But a deeper investigation reveals several issues with the plan leaving me less than impressed with the Vonage World Plan. I have listed my concerns below and would advise you to go over them before you join the bandwagon:

• Taxes & Fees: In addition to the $24.99, you will also have to pay lots of other taxes and fees. The total bill comes to around $33 per month, instead of the promised $24.99. To be fair to Vonage, most of these are charges which are not under the control of the company. This means that you will be making an annual agreement of around $396.
• You are limited to only 5000 minutes per month and thus it is not “unlimited” in the true sense.
• In addition, you need to have a high speed internet to use this service. Vonage does not provide you with internet connection, so you must also consider the cost of internet connection.

You would be better off buying an ATA from Amazon and configuring any SIP service that suits your requirements. The ATA is the same device that you would use with Vonage, except that the Vonage ATA is locked to Vonage (you cannot use it with other providers).

You could use a Betamax service like Jumblo, ActionVoIP, or SmartVoIP on it. The ATA costs $45 (that is your one time expense) and then your monthly payment is likely to be less than $10. You also get free calls to lots of countries all over the world. Read the earlier posts about these services. All I want to say is that you can get these services for much less, if you are willing to put in little effort or you have someone who can help you with it.

Having said that, you should still consider this plan if you are already on Vonage. This plan is better than the other Vonage plans, so go ahead and switch. Also, if this plan suits your calling patterns and personal preferences, go for it. The Vonage World plan is also better than the Yupeephone unlimited India calling plan. It is a good plan for most purposes and you should not be disappointed.

Related posts:

1. Vonage World Plan revisited – Residential VoIP service from Vonage [Updates]
2. Can the Skype or Vonage juggernaut continue?
3. Unlimited International Calling Plans (incl India) from Versafon [Review]
4. CalltoPBX offers unlimited international calls to over 70 countries (incl. India) for $10 [Review]
5. Skype offering Unlimited international Calling for $6/month [Deals]