My experience with Vonage & why Skype wins.

I had Vonage a few years ago (in 2009). I have seen a lot of their advertising lately and frankly I think some of it's BS. My experience (on what was the fastest comcast connection at the time) was terrible. I definitely noticed a difference in call quality and & I eventually switched to skype and got better call quality and reliability. (yeah you can do that - they have some pretty cool home phones too)



But here is my real problem with Vonage: They are dishonest and I am highly unsatisfied with their customer service. I decided, after about 6 months of getting little to no help as to why (on a pretty speedy connection) I was getting dropped calls along with miscellaneous other problems, to terminate service. Incase you're wondering I did speed check my connection. And I was getting within 3 megabits of what I was paying for with comcast at any given time. My boyfriend at the time (who was a gamer) was extremely touchy about internet speed so trust me, that wasn't my problem.


Here's the real kicker though, if you don't cancel within the first 30 days (assuming their policy is still like this) you automatically 'agree' to a year contract with them, but even after a year you still have to pay a small termination fee. Should I have read the fine print? Yes, for sure. But I never thought the service would be that crappy either.


To add insult to injury, when I initially purchased Vonage I signed up for the cheap cheap cheap package with a cheap receiver. Well they were "out of stock" for the cheap reciever ($30) so they sent me a "free" upgrade. Which upon termination I also got billed for to the tune of $125.


Would I ever give Vonage a try again? Honestly - even if they changed their terms of service and customer service, NO. I don't want to completely smear their reputation because perhaps they have changed but I would recommend you check out skype home phones. The phone apparatus is initially more costly for the unit ($60 ish vs $30ish- compared to vonage's CHEAPEST unit and only if they don't give you a "free" upgrade they make you pay for later).


Skype does bill a bit oddly tho, I believe you can pay 3 months at a time for your own phone number for incoming calls($18) or a year ($60) then you have a choice on top of that to make for outgoing calls. Skype premium is $5/month right now and according to the website its usually $10. So you figure about $10-$15/month which beats out vonage by $10/month after their 3 month introductory rate ends and you're locked in to $25/month for a year.

Centrifugal Dryer from The Laundry Alternative

I got a Centrifugal Spin Dryer from The Laundry Alternative a week or so ago and so far I am extremely satisfied with it.

You can watch the video here.








or you can read on for my pros and cons:


Pro: Extremely effective, quiet considering my expectations (no louder than a vacuum cleaner), easy on clothing, great for portable washers with no spin cycle, great drying time even if you line dry this speeds it up SO much, removes more water than a regular washing machine's spin cycle



Cons: Hard to load at first with more than a few items - balancing your load takes a little practice but its hardly a "con", the dryer has a thermal switch that shuts itself off if it gets too hot - which is actually a pro, but I put it in cons only because I thought for about 20 minutes that I broke the thing, I with the spout was a little higher off the ground for some larger container like a bucket. This removes a TON of water and sometimes I have to restart it because my pan gets full before it is finished.