I decided I needed to get an office telephone. My cell phone reception indoors was not as great as it should be. I don’t want to say it’s poor because I would consider no reception poor. I can make and receive calls but sometimes the calls would drop. I guess you could say the service was intermittent. It looked bad for me to my clients that calls would just drop. Most were understanding, but i felt like that was unacceptable. I was debating a normal land line telephone, but was interested in VOIP. Vonage had been hit by the media about their recent IPO and stock losses, but I figured it was a risk I could take in picking up the service.

I didn’t want to go with Skype. Vonage seemed like a much better setup to me. They didn’t have long term contracts and it seemed the closest to a land line telephone to me. I don’t talk on the phone too much so I went with the 500 minute plan for $14.95 and 3.9 cents for each additional minute. With my cell phone and the Vtech IP8100 I figured I would have plenty of minutes. The service comes with Voicemail, Caller ID, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Call Transfer, Three Way Calling, Call Hunt, Repeat Dialing, Caller ID block, and Call Return.

It pretty much offered all the same features my cell phone did but in a land line service. Since it was VOIP if I ever move or need to work remotely I can take the Vtech IP8100 with me and keep my same phone number.

The Vtech IP8100 is a pretty basic phone with a main basestation and a charger with handset. The basestation has two leds to indicate when the service is ready and when it is use. The handset has a basic phone book and screen for caller id information and basic settings like voiume, ringtone selection, etc.

The Vtech IP8100 offers speakerphone which is very useful to me. I can put a client on speakerphone and still use my computer when I am walking them through projects.

The Vonage web interface is very nice. It is similiar to larger cell phone carrier websites. It’s easy to use and gives quite a bit of information. Also you are able to change most of the settings for the service that you would need.

I have to say the setup was very easy. I just signed up on their website. Then I plugged my Vtech IP8100 into the wall and into my router and within minutes I was up and running with a new telephone number.

It’s kind of funny to me. I had been using only my cell phone for years now and the voice quality seemed like old land line phones. It seems like you are actually talking over a wire. This isn’t a bad thing. The call volume is good and comes in clear and that’s what is important to me.

I would highly recommend the Vtech IP8100 to people looking into VOIP. I think it is a great value. Sure it’s not as fancy as some of the other VOIP solutions but it offers the features most users would need at a reasonable price. Simplicity and ease of use tends to be a key selling point for me. I rather use a product that focuses on that concept than one with a million features that I don’t know how to access. I think I?m pretty technically saavy, but if something is easier to use then I’m much more productive and efficient. The last point I would like to make is there are pretty good rebates for the phone and no long term contracts. It’s not too much of a risk just to try out.