voip

—>eBay has successfully unloaded Skype. They remain a minority stakeholder, but 70% of Skype has been sold to a group that includes the original co-founders of the internet telephony company.  More »

—>If you had trouble canceling your Vonage account in recent years and ended up getting charged for services you didn't want, you might be eligible for a refund under an agreement Vonage just made with the attorneys general of 32 states.  More »

—>Yesterday the FCC announced new, expanded rules enforcing net neutrality, and they've set aside the next 60 days for public debate. Get ready to hear all sorts of creative end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it arguments from opponents like AT&T. We've checked out the official document (pdf) and below we summarize the changes that are open to public discussion for the next two months.  More »

—>My Linh's Vonage modem stopped working, so she called to request a replacement under the terms of her service agreement. Vonage was happy to oblige. So happy, in fact, that they sent her 14 modems instead of one via UPS—but then couldn't figure out how to get UPS to come pick them up again. Hey, they do VOIP, not logistics.  More »

—>Justin says he has done something that many iPhone users have discussed, but haven't been able to accomplish. He claims that AT&T let him drop the voice plan from his account, and plans to use VoIP in order to make any voice calls he needs. Is this even possible? Is it a good idea?  More »

—>If you've been waiting for a chance to use Skype on your iPhone over AT&T's network to save on international calls or supplement your calling plan's minutes, your day has come. After a little nudge from the FCC, the company has reversed its ban on VOIP apps on its data network, and will now let you Skype away until you run out of people to call or things to say.  More »

—>Until now, airplane cabins have been blessedly free from idle phone chatter thanks to FAA regulations. Now, thanks to the introduction of wi-fi on commercial flights, it's time to ask: should passengers be able to use Skype, Google Voice, or another VoIP service of their choice to make phone calls in the air?  More »

—>Apple may not feel like you're ready to take advantage of Google Voice, but luckily Jobs and his legion can't lock you out of every potential way to access the service. (Yet.) Here are three paths to GV you can use today, no permission needed from the Applelord.  More »

—>A lot of Consumerist readers use Skype. (I mostly use it to call my cell phone when I can't find it, but I also use SkypeIn for my business line.) Many of said readers, such as George, have technical or billing problems with Skype, but can't get a response out of the Web-based customer support system. What should they do?  More »

—>We're having a hard time figuring out how Vonage can justify pulling their "Visual Voicemail" scam on customers without even offering the option of a refund, but that's exactly what they're doing to Daniel. They quietly turned on the feature over a year ago. You'd think in a year of logging onto the website, an observant customer would catch that sort of thing—only Vonage makes it actually look like it's not enabled on your control panel, all the better to sneak it past you. Here's how they pulled it off with Daniel's account.  More »

—>A few hours before Republican FCC chairman Kevin "Kevvy" Martin officially lost his job — he launched an investigation into whether Comcast is deliberately degrading rival phone services.  More »

—>We don't know what the hell happened with this customer service situation, but somehow the CSR for Vonage decided that when Sarah abruptly hung up on him, she agreed by default to a service cancellation and $92 cancellation fee. That sounds like the kind of angry-CSR "mistake" that can be fixed with a second call—but according to the next CSR Sarah spoke to, that's just Vonage policy. What?  More »