VoIP

This review compares three of the most popular Internet phone services: Vonage, MagicJack and Skype, and a March 2009 review covers Ooma as well. The review considers, in detail, all the relevant factors:… cost, call quality and features, plus privacy and customer service. Based on tests, the review concludes that all three services can provide excellent call quality -- but not consistently. Vonage is the overall winner, with Skype recommended if you only want inexpensive international calls. Nearly 50 users add comments.

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In this older comparison review, Rick Broida tests five VoIP phone services, including Packet8 (now 8x8), Verizon VoiceWing, ViaTalk, VoicePulse and Vonage. All earn praise, but Vonage is the Editors'… Choice pick. Since this article was published, the 2008 award went to another provider, MagicJack, but a winter 2009 update to the review no longer recommends it for "the average, nontechnical consumer." Links from this article lead to longer reviews of each of the services covered. A December 2007 article gives Ooma an award for the best "hardware innovation" at the DigitalLife show. The site also publishes quite a few articles on VoIP news.

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Though best known for its car satisfaction ratings, J.D. Power also polls consumers about their local and long-distance telephone service. Unfortunately, this survey mixes VoIP with traditional… long-distance services, which limits its usefulness. This research study, based on 13,600 customer responses, finds that for the second year in a row, cable companies have the competitive edge -- by bundling voice and data services. However, the top-rated cable companies in one part of the United States get much lower ratings elsewhere. Not all companies are included, and national VoIP companies such as Vonage and Lingo are not included in the survey at all.

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Seven VoIP providers are listed here as prominent, but only five have actually been reviewed so far. Of these, Vonage earns top rating, while BroadVoice is recommended if you make a lot of international… calls. Packet8 (now 8x8) earns a slightly lower rating despite a plethora of features, because of reports of poor customer service. (Note: ConsumerSearch is owned by About.com, but the two don't share an editorial affiliation.)

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This long review covers Ooma in detail, with a few comparisons to Vonage and Skype. The reviewer concludes that Ooma can save a significant amount of money compared with a landline phone -- unless you opt… for lots of extensions (called "Scouts") or extra options. However, call quality varies and is "generally fuzzy, with a hollow or tinny sound at times." Per-minute charges for calls overseas are comparable to those of Skype.

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Nineteen VoIP providers get detailed reviews and ratings here and the top ten are included in a detailed chart that compares features. The site also includes a video about VoIP. Though it's possible for… users to add their own reviews and ratings, only a few have been published. We'd rank this review site higher if the testing methods were better documented. The chart comparing features isn't completely accurate either; for example, Vonage does provide caller ID.

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New York Times technology columnist David Pogue reviews five Internet phone services that promise to slash phone bills, all of which are alternatives to true VoIP services such as Vonage. The review notes… some caveats for all five, but selects three as the most promising. A February 2007 article, "Overseas Calls Made Cheap, If Not Easy," surveys low-cost ways to make international calls, covering four Vonage and four Skype options.

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Owners review quite a few VoIP-related devices here such as Skype phones. The reviews and ratings of Ooma, MagicJack and the i2 Telecom VoiceStick are significant, since they also cover the services… themselves. Of these three, Ooma gets the highest average rating, with about 87 percent of the over 400 reviews reasonably positive. The VoiceStick plans earn a slightly lower rating, while MagicJack trails with only about 60 percent of users happy with it.

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Unlike most VoIP reviews, this one distinguishes among specific plans as well as providers -- comparing, for example, five different Lingo plans. The downside is that only three other providers get reviews:… Packet8 (now 8x8), VoIP.com and Vonage. Also, some of the user ratings are based on fewer than six reviews. Even the top-rated plan, Lingo Chatterbox, gets very mixed reviews. This is still a good site to check if you've narrowed your choice to one of these providers, since many of the comments are quite detailed.

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