US Vonage Account in Singapore

[Bigeasy]

I have read several posts on this site that Vonage VOIP services work in Singapore. My question is which account type is needed? We each plan on getting a standard SG cell phone service, but if we want to call US landlines or have others call our US Vonage number in SG, do we need an unrestricted “World plan”

[Taga-Bukid]

I have 2 vonage accounts. One "little box" (110V plugged into transformer) that connects directly to my router/cable modem and the usb-type that I can bring with me on biz trips. I just have the basic account for both and prepaid for 1 year. You do not need a "world plan" for you to call the US or your friends/family in the US to call you. For you, it would be as if you're in the US - just dial the US #. For your friends, it's as if you're in the US as they will call the telephone # you have chosen.

Of course, any calls to #'s outside of the US, including Singapore, will be and international call and you'll get charged the commensurate international rate of the basic plan. For frequent calls to outside of the US, a "world plan" could be the way to go.

We have a local Starhub phone for local calls. For international calls (non-us), we use calling cards. Most of our overseas calls are to the US, so the basic plan works for us.

[RyanLance]

We just arrived in Singapore and I brought my Vonage gear with me. It works great! The only catch is that you have to buy the VOnage gear in the US. I do not think you can get the box in Singapore, but I could be mistaken.

We have done the same thing as the above mentioned post. The Vonage line is for my US clients to call me directly without paying an arm and a leg for an international call (which come to find out is cheap anyway, like $.02 USD/min).

Another trick that I did was that I tranfered our cell phone numbers to vonage "using the phone portability act" (made them virtual numbers) and then forwarded them to the physical vonage number so that if someone calls our US cell phones, home number, or business phone they are all forwarded to our vonage number which rings our phone here in Singapore. The service is $5/number. It's great for us because we plan on being back in the states in about a year and want to keep our cellular numbers without paying AT&T $30/month to keep it!

I am quite familiar with using Vonage internationally...it's freakin' awesome if you have alot of people in the US that you communicate with.

[Bigeasy]

Perfect... great info!

One question... how do I go about transfering the cell number to Vontage? I do not want to turn off my cell phone until after we leave. Did you cancel your cell and transfer the number before you left?

Thanks!

[RyanLance]

sorry for the late reply. Yes I started the transfer before I left the US and it took about 3 weeks from AT&T. It was pretty much seemless as far as the actual transfer. Once my cell was out of service the vonage line was active.


Hope that helps.

Ryan

[boffenl]

RyanLance is exactly right. Our Vonage works GREAT! We love it and would highly recommend if you need to call often to the US it's the cheapest option outside of Skype and other free services. Our cell phone was also transferred to a Vonage line--seemless. We also have a line in canada too--works GREAT!

[sierra2469alpha]

If only Vonage could do the same great deals in other countries! We use Skype and Skype-Out - very happy with it, apart from occasional glitches with new users (especially if they are running Vista). Skype Video call quality is ok from SIN (on Starhub's MaxUltimate - bleghh!!!) but quality is OK enough. Still finding it hard to adjust to slow international connections out of Singapore, though.

But then again, so be it!

Cheers all, thanks for the heads up on Vonage. P & C