Section 5.2. What You Get with a Broadband Phone

5.2. What You Get with a Broadband Phone

Every broadband phone company includes their list of standard features on their web site. They normally have a cleverly labeled menu item named Features. Figure 5-1 shows the Vonage Features page.

When you click on any of the features, a full page explanation of the feature loads automatically. The left side of the screen shows the list of features so you can easily drill down on any feature that strikes your fancy.

Figure 5-1. Main feature list on the Vonage web site

Some of the features you will always get from a broadband phone provider are:

Free calls to other subscribers of the same service
Caller ID
Call Waiting
Call Forwarding
Make calls to traditional telephones
Receive calls from traditional telephones
Web-based control over your account and feature configuration
Missed call notification/voicemail of some kind
Calls to any phone in the continental U.S. without long distance charges

These are the minimum features you should expect from any phone-centric broadband phone service like Vonage. If you don't see these features on a potential service provider, click to the next broadband phone company.

Some differences between broadband phone providers can be determined by answering the following questions before signing up:

Can you port your existing phone number to the new service?
Is Canada considered part of free North American call zone?
Are Alaska and Hawaii considered part of the free North American call zone?
Is equipment provided to connect your phone to your broadband service?
Can you to take your router on vacation and receive "home" calls there?
What are the rates to foreign countries you call most often?

You have to evaluate this list carefully. For instance, there's a difference between a broadband phone company who doesn't offer a way to transfer your existing phone number to their service and an occasional problem with a local phone company who can't, or won't, transfer the number to broadband phone company. No matter how universal a feature is, there is some situation where a combination of technical problem and stubborn traditional phone company can cause you grief.

That said, check this list carefully. Some smaller broadband phone companies do not include the telephone adapter or router necessary to support your existing telephones. Some consider Alaska and Hawaii long distance calls.

Each provider prices international phone calls differently. Although these rates can change as partnerships between phone companies are made, pick a service provider who has a good rate to the countries you call most often.

This feature difference alone dictates services used by many new broadband phone customers. After all, if you have family in Ireland, you want a service with cheap calls to Ireland. The fact that they charge three times as much as a competitor for calls to Australia won't matter if you don't call Australia.

5.2.1. Standard Features

Here's the list of standard (no additional charge) features from Vonage as of early 2005. Many of their competitors offer the same or similar features:

Voicemail Plus: Get voicemail messages by phone or web page, or have them emailed to you.
Caller ID with Name: Caller's name appears on your phone and in the subject line of any voicemail messages emailed to you.
Call Waiting: Juggle two calls at once (don't get confused).
Call Forwarding: Forward calls from one number to any other number, or have both phones ring at the same time (their free Simul-Ring feature).
3-Way Calling: Call and talk to two people together in one conversation.
In-Network Calls: Calls to another Vonage customer don't count in your monthly minutes allowance.
Take Vonage with You: Take your telephone adapter (or router) and a telephone, and you can receive your home calls anywhere you have Internet access. You can take your router (and number) with you when you move as well.
Area Code Selection: Your Vonage phone can have any area code from any Vonage service area you want.
Call Transfer: Transfer any call to any other phone number.
Click-2-Call: Click a phone number on your computer, such as one in an address book, and your phone will ring and immediately ring the number you clicked.
Call Return: Use the *69 service to return calls you missed.
Caller ID Block: Use the *67 service to stop your name from appearing on the receiving end's Caller ID screen.
Repeat Dialing: Push two buttons to have a busy number called constantly for up to 30 minutes.
International Call Block: Stop anyone from dialing international calls from a number, and directory service too.
Ring Lists: Choose different ring tones when you have more than two or more Vonage accounts and numbers connected to a single telephone.
Call Hunt: Automatically ring other Vonage numbers on your account when the primary number is busy. You can route the hunt sequence over 10 numbers.

Will you use all these features? No. Will some potential customers feel one of these features is critical or they won't sign with the service? Absolutely.

One way to differentiate your service, even without becoming a brand name, is to offer more features than the market leader. In this market, that means offering more than Vonage.

Both BroadVoice and Packet8, for example, offer better Caller ID blocking than Vonage advertises. If you want Caller ID blocking on all calls rather than setting that option call by call with *67, check out BroadVoice and Packet8 (among others). That's a minor difference, but if you have strong preferences for features, then check the feature list carefully.

Besides features, money helps many people decide on a provider. Do you want the cheapest possible monthly payment? Most do. Do you feel comfortable paying up to $30 for an installation fee to save $5 to $8 per month on your bill? Do you want to own your router or telephone adapter, or get one from your service? If you buy your own from a third party, you get a monthly discount and you have a better chance of using that equipment with another vendor if you switch services.

Note: Surprise RestrictionRouters and telephone adapters provided by broadband phone companies are almost always keyed to that provider only, and WILL NOT work on other services.

On one hand, everyone wants the best deal possible. On the other, picking a service based strictly on a couple dollars per month is pretty shortsighted. If you feel more at home with the web site, information pages, feature lists, and support pages of one vendor, that's worth a dollar or three per month. Saving a dollar while losing your patience with a provider that's a poor fit is not worth the aggravation.

5.2.2. Advanced Features

Broadband phone companies call the features listed earlier their "standard" features; and they also offer "advanced" features. Personally, I believe if a feature comes as part of the package price, it's standard. However, all the features listed as standard are comparable to those offered by traditional telephone companies.

Marketing advice probably convinced the broadband phone companies to call some of their features "advanced" to mark the differences between the new wave of telephony (broadband) versus the old wave (Ma Bell). Take a look at these features from BroadVoice and see if any of them have been offered by your traditional telephone company:

Call Manager: Web-based account configuration screens.
Calling Line ID Blocking per Call: You can block Caller ID information on all calls through the configuration screen, or call by call with this feature.
Call Forwarding Selective: Normal call forwarding sends all received calls to a different number, but this lets you forward calls from certain numbers to specified numbers. BroadVoice allows you to specify individual or ranges of phone numbers and forward those numbers differently.
Calling Line ID Delivery per Call: If you block Caller ID information generally, you can enter *65 before dialing to send your Caller ID information on that call only.
Priority Alert: Define a special ring for special callers or phone numbers to alert you aurally when they call.

Now you may think, as I do, that the Call Manager or Online Account Management screens are a standard part of broadband phones, since you have to use these to set up and manage your account. But your traditional telephone company doesn't have anything like this, do they? That's why the broadband phone companies make a big deal about it.

BroadVoice puts their Call Manager under the Advanced feature set. Vonage lists their Online Account Management under Great Benefits. Packet8 also prefers that you pay your bill online, to save time and stamps, through their Online Management screen.

Here are some features that just Vonage offers (in most cases), listed under their Great Benefits heading:

311 Dialing: Reach city nonemergency numbers through Vonage as you can with your traditional telephone today. Most broadband phone providers don't offer this.
Network Availability Number: If your Internet connection goes down completely (it happens much less often than in the past, but it does happen), Vonage will transfer all your calls to another specified number, such as your cell phone, traditional phone line, or another person. (VoicePulse now offers this service, which they call Line Unavailable Forwarding.)
911 Dialing: Not exactly the same as the 911 that the telephone company provides, but close. (See "911 Support," later in this chapter).
Refer-A-Friend: Convince a friend to sign up for your broadband phone service, and your service will reward you. Check out Table 5-1 for more details.

VoicePulse offers Telemarketer Block, which may be worth changing your phone service for, all by itself. Lingo offers Automatic Call Rejection, which refuses calls with numbers blocked out or listed as anonymous, common tricks of telemarketers. Packet8 offers call blocking of anonymous calls as well.

One way for companies to get more business is to encourage their happy customers to become salespeople. Car dealers call these "bird dog fees" (at least in Texas) when you send them a new customer. For the hunting-impaired, bird dogs flush out the game, and you're flushing out new customers for the salesperson.

The fees can be worthwhile, as you can see in Table 5-1.

Table 5-1. Customer referral fees
Company	You get:	Your referrals get:
Vonage	Two free months (up to $50)	One free month of any service plan, business plans included
Lingo	$25 credit	$25 credit
Packet8	One free month	One free month

I'm frankly surprised more services don't offer rewards for signing up customers. Every customer you give them is another customer they don't have to find on their own, and customer acquisition is one of their major costs. Maybe some other services will get smart. In the meantime, if you have a wide group of friends who are easily influenced and interested in switching their telephone service, you can call free forever. Family members qualify, too, so harangue those cousins.

5.2.3. Optional ($$) Features

Not every possible telephone service comes included in your monthly broadband phone subscription. There are several features that cost more money, but they cost less than comparable services from your traditional telephone company. Assuming your Ma Bell leftover has these services at all, of course.

Add a Line: Run two or more phone lines through your Vonage router(s).
Virtual Phone Number: Add a phone number from a different area code to allow callers in that area to make a local call to you.
SoftPhone: Add a software phone to your PC, Macintosh, or laptop.
Toll Free Plus: Have your own toll-free 800 number.
Fax Service: Use the second phone plug on your router for a fax machine. Business customers get the fax service as part of their standard package.
Enhanced 411 Dialing: Get directory information from all over the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Can your current telephone company give you a telephone number in a remote area code? Actually, they offer that service for businesses, but it costs much, much more than the $5 per month Vonage charges.

Other broadband phone providers have almost the exact same feature list, but they also have a couple of extras that Vonage doesn't yet include. For example:

Video phone service: Packet8.
Music on hold: BroadVoice.
Virtual phone numbers in other countries: Lingo offers virtual numbers in over a dozen countries; Vonage offers them in the U.K., Canada, and Mexico; and BroadVoice offers numbers in the U.K.
Microsoft Windows Instant Messenger link: BroadVoice.

In addition, every residential broadband phone provider offers business services. If you have a small company, broadband phone services will save you a great deal of money and provide more features than you could ever afford from a traditional telephone company.

Pricing for these optional features varies greatly between broadband phone providers. Some nice charts for standard services and optional features are waiting in the "What It Costs" section later in this chapter.

5.2.4. 911 Support

On one hand, people have come to rely on 911 and feel it's somehow a basic right. On the other hand, people did perfectly well for the hundred years or so before 911 became available when they had to call the police directly.

Please realize that the Ma Bell leftovers constantly yell about 911 service, even to the point of pushing stories to local TV news shows when a tragedy occurs in a home that has broadband phones but no 911 service. These stories are an example of A) corporations concerned about the safety of their customers or B) greedy corporations fighting competitors using fear rather than innovation. This isn't a test: you decide which you feel is correct.

However, let me say that this worry about 911 calling will disappear in short order. Here's what the broadband phone companies will be able to do when city emergency systems catch up:

Track the serial number (MAC address) of the router that you use with your broadband phone service.
Put that serial number in a database with your name and address.
Grab 911 calls and route them to the local emergency contact point for your location.
Send your name and address from their customer database directly to the 911 dispatcher computer system.

These features will match what you have with traditional telephone line 911 today. In another year or two, however, people will start to point the finger of inadequacy toward the traditional telephone line 911 services because of the advances of broadband phone services. Here are a few emergency features broadband phones could provide in the next year:

Send floor plans of the location to the 911 operator (gathered from apartment buildings or home builders providing schematics).
Tie in medical information by pulling a link to your medical records on file at your doctor and send that info along with the emergency call.
Send photos of family members living at your location to emergency services.
Immediately fax any medical authorization forms to the nearest hospital if necessary.

These are obvious ideas derived from common sense and a few minutes' thought. Chapter 7 explores some of the advanced telephone services that are becoming available thanks to broadband phone technology.

Chapter 7 also has the full scoop on 911 services available through broadband phone companies. Rest assured Vonage is at the leading edge of 911 capabilities available today from broadband phone service providers.

5.2.5. Comparing Providers

I can't look at all the possible broadband service providers in this section, because there are hundreds, and this is a small book. I can show you what Vonage offers and how several of the major competitors to Vonage stack up. Use this list as a guide to see which features are important and which ones aren't.

I picked features that many users report influenced their decisions when choosing a broadband phone service. The features in Table 5-2 are not listed in order of importance, because only you can prioritize what you want from your new phone service.

Table 5-2. Quick feature comparison (subject to change)
Feature	Vonage	Packet8	Lingo	BroadVoice	ATT CallVantage	VoicePulse
911 support^[a]	Yes	Optional	Yes	No	Yes	No
Keep your number?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Activation fee	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Depends on plan
Speed dial	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Bandwidth saver	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes
Softphone support	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes

^[a] As of 6/1/2005. By the end of 2005, all broadband phone services must provide 911 service.

Some features (or options) are consistent across all broadband phone providers. Others vary, but you may not care. Vonage may not have speed dial, but does that matter if you already have your speed dial numbers programmed on your phone? Probably not.

Bandwidth saver won't come into play all that often. But if you have two or more broadband phones that can be used at once on a slow broadband connection, limiting the bandwidth so that all concurrent calls will be usable will be important to you.

The crucial part is deciding on the features you need and checking with the service providers to make sure they support those features. Feel free to pick up the phone and call their toll-free numbers to see whether they answer your question quickly and competently.