20 percent of phone calls in the U.S. will be transmitted over the Internet by 2011. There’s no lack of early adopters already. Sometimes cable broadband providers will also offer voice, like our Readers’ Choice Optimum Voice, courtesy of Cablevision. Other times it’s just a pure VoIP player like the well-known Vonage, also a Readers’ Choice. Both companies improved on their scores from last year, Optimum up just a tenth, but Vonage jumping to 7.8 from 7.5. Vonage is also the market leader among our readers, with 736 respondents, more than double the nearest competition (Comcast).
Maybe the number of VoIP users will stay low, considering just how much technical support is required with these services. Eighteen percent of Optimum customers required tech support, and that was the lowest percentage among standard VoIP providers. AT&T and Charter had more than one-third of their users requiring support. The average is 29 percent.
Vonage is also the market leader among our readers, with 736 respondents, more than double the nearest competition (Comcast).
Maybe the number of VoIP users will stay low, considering just how much technical support is required with these services. Eighteen percent of Optimum customers required tech support, and that was the lowest percentage among standard VoIP providers. AT&T and Charter had more than one-third of their users requiring support. The average is 29 percent.
AT&T’s CallVantage, which last year was a Readers’ Choice, dropped to a 7.6 from 7.9. Time Warner Cable’s Digital Phone was down overall as well, by a tenth of a point. Other companies—Cox, Packet8, and Comcast—remained the same. Gone are the late SunRocket and the low-scoring Lingo (you gave it a dismal 6.5 out of 10 in 2006). The only addition is Charter, which barely made our cut with 50 responses and earned only a 7.3 score.
Though all of the services above work over your broadband connection, we keep the Skype numbers separate: Calls using its services primarily involve a PC. Skype’s PC-to-PC service scores a respectable 7.8 and has a very low 6 percent of users who required tech support. The tech-support numbers more than double when readers are Skyping from a PC to a standard phone. Skype’s numbers continue to be better than the average for VoIP phones.
By PCMag