Hi Phil,

I started out with V O I P in December of 2004 with Lingo for the reasons 
that you mentioned in your message.  I tried to justify the poor call 
quality and constant dropped calls for three months as Lingo was gradually 
getting better.  But, the kicker came one day early in March last year when 
I couldn't call anyone and I got a "number disconnected" message when I 
called Lingo customer service.  Besides, my Wife was ready to shoot me do to 
the dropped calls and poor call quality.

I switched to Vonage about 12 months ago and what an improvement in both 
call quality and reliability.  Vonage does cost $5.00 more per month and you 
can't call Europe, but I can, at least, count on completing a call and not 
losing the call during the conversation.

If your broadband connection goes down or if it is of poor quality, V O I P 
will suffer and I would not recommend that anyone rely solely on a V O I P 
phone, I also have a cell phone which I have set up through Vonage to 
automatically receive my incoming calls if my internet connection goes down.

One of my big concerns about V O I P is security.  Vonage states that there 
system is encrypted and I haven't had any critical data stolen that I know 
about so far, but it is a major concern for me.

If you'd like to check out my call quality, you can call me at
269-978-3062.  I'm in the eastern time zone.
73
Bob, [log in to unmask] K8LR
Skype-name, bobtinn
If you choose to look at the bright side,
You will definitely be happier!