Using Vonage in Stuttgart

My wife and I are on our way to Stuttgart as part of the AFRICOM wave. Does anyone have any datapoints on using Vonage in the Stuttgart area?

maybe it would help if you explained what on earth "Vonage" means

oopüs, I see it is a VOIP thing. Surely if you have an internet connection you can use it anywhere in the world, oder?

We use Skype in Germany with no problems. We signed up for Skype because my husband's co-workers said it worked better than Vonage. I'm sure Vonage will work here, though.

We use Skype as well. I thought vonage was a 'cable' provider VOIP which is not available here. Europe is a DSL zone. Anyone; please correct me.

I know people who've had Vonage in the US and bought it over with them. You still have to make the payments through the bank in the US but it will work. We just use Skype, $10 will last for quite a while and we phone Arizona two or three times a week and talk for an average of 20 mins.

I have been using Vonage here near Stuttgart for the last 2 years. We are now on the way back to the states and we recommend it to everyone! Our family can call us and it's like we've never left. What kind of info are you looking for?

We use Vonage here also. It is great we have a local stateside number for my family to call and also a local British number for my wifes family to call. I highly recommend it.

Because Vonage only provide hardware based solutions you can have problems with German based internet, especially from T-Online, whose modems and/or routers are sometimes not compatible with the service or equipment provided by them that you are forced to use. Bear in mind you'll also need a power converter for the hardware you bring. Broadvice may be a better (and cheaper) solution as they don't force you to use their own hardware - any VoIP hardware will work, even the routers supplied by Telekom. Broadvoice allow you to keep your US number and charge $19.95 for their "unlimited world" service to 21 countries.

It's now $5 more expensive than that. They made up a new bogus fee called "International Regulatory Recovery". The plan now costs $30/month:

Monthly Fee 19.95
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery 1.00
Int'l Regulatory Recovery Fee - what's this? 5.00
Universal Service Fund - what's this? 1.97
Regulatory Recovery Fee - what's this? 2.50
TOTAL $30.42
http://broadvoice.com/rateplans_unlimited_world.html

These charges are the same for most US providers. Vonage also adds between $5 and $6 to their advertised prices to cover regulatory fees and state taxes, so Broadvoice remains competitive if you really want a US number and an "unlimited" plan (Broadvoice includes many more countries in their unlimited list than Vonage).

I've recently arrived in the Stuttgart area and have signed up for Skype Unlimited World, which gives me unlimited access to landlines in 34 countries for Euro 8,95 per month (10,29 with VAT). The flat rate also includes free calls to mobile phones in the USA, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Additionally, you can apply for up to 3 telephone numbers that are associated with your account, so that your friends and family can call you for little or nothing. From a purely economic standpoint, I think Skype is a better option. The only downsides I see are that the phone call quality can be degraded during high-traffic times and that you must have your computer on to use it.

Good luck...

Skype is a rip-off (but good marketing!) - Poor quality and needing the PC on are major downsides.
CountryFlat from Telekom costs €3.94/month with flatrate services to most European countries, USA, Canada (inc mobiles) and Australia, so is a third of the price and has none of those downsides.
To be honest, with normal call costs at around 1cent/minute, you'd be stretched to spend that in a month anyway, unless you call Mummy abroad, 2 hours a day. With a flatrate you still spend money, even when you don't use the service (e.g. when you are on vacation) which is how most of these services make their money in any case

We decided to not bring our Vonage hardware and just rely on Skype.

I saw that some Vodaphone contracts restrict your VOIP use, but I am not sure if they actually filter or limit your use in real life.

Skype has worked great for us. About 2 cents a minute to call the US, and you can video conf with your kid's grandparents.

The thing to watch is calling German cells. Since the caller pays for the call, it can be expensive. I think skype costs 2 cents a minute to call german landline, 20 cents a minute for german cell.

My phone at work actually displays the cost of the call, so it freaks me out that a simple call will cost a few bucks. In America, we have this thing called "flat rate unlimited usage..."

Yes but the big difference between the US and EU for mobile usage is that it should be very obvious what numbers are mobile numbers - they all start with a specific code (07 in the UK and I think its 01 in Germany?)

In the US mobiles use the standard NANP numbers and its the receiver who pays for the incoming call since it would be unfair to charge someone for a call when they couldnt possibly know from just the number that its a mobile to begin with (which just freaks me out).

So (in short) you should be able to know up front which numbers are mobiles so it doesnt become as big of a surprise.

Mobile numbers are all in the 015 / 016 / 017 blocks in Germany (not though in 018 and 019 of course).

Maybe I'm just retro, but what's wrong with a normal phone and plain 'ole internet? 1cent/minute to the US (or €3.94/month for flatrate), 9cents/minute to German cells, video conferencing around the world using MSN messenger, and none of the Skype hassle.

I got Vonage on recommendation from co-workers. I even got to transfer my long-time cell phone number so everyone didn't have to write a new number down for me back in the states.