A Review of Toronto Telephone Service and Canada VoIP
I still remember the time when I first moved to Toronto and had to pay $200 cash deposit to Bell Canada in order to get a phone line installed, after that a $50 monthly bill followed, for the service including caller ID, call forward, voicemail, call transfer etc.
A few years have passed, the landscape of Canadian telephone service has changed a lot, thanks to VoIP technology. Now Torontonians have many alternatives, actually so many that some good homework is required to choose a good, reliable phone service.
As an early user of VoIP in Toronto area, I experienced quite a few VoIP service and had to switch among providers from time to time. I think it’s worth to share the lessions learned to help my fellow Torontonians to make wise choices.
I will start with a few major players and add more later…
Vbuzzer is my favorite VoIP phone service provider, I’ve subscribed 2 phone numbers, one for home and one for business, and a fax number; all 3 numbers with just US$75/year. The service performance is solid and reliable.
Pros:
Fast – you can literally get vbuzzer service within 10 minutes, compared to a few days from other VoIP providers.
Price – Vbuzzer is so far unbeatable, a stunning $25 per year for a phone service. Now the promotion is over, but still, $50/year is the cheapest I can find in Toronto market.
Quality – So far very reliable, back in 2005/2006 some glitches from time to time, starting 2007 it is steadily becoming always-on for me.
Easy to use – the software is very intuitive to use.
Here’s a video of how to download Vbuzzer and signup Vbuzzer Toronto Phone.
Cons:
No hardware, software only – that’s why you can signup the
service in 10 minutes, – company provides software only. It means
if you want to use it the same way as a good old telephone, you
need to buy a VoIP adaptor by yourself and have someone install
for you. There are adaptor and its vendor information on vbuzzer
website.
No Number Portability
No 911 – Vbuzzer is positioned as a computer program and doesn’t provide any 911 or E911 service. You can bypass it by setting a special dial plan on your VoIP adaptor to forward your calls to a police station,- but again you need to be a guru or have a guru do the job for you.
Vonage.ca
Vonage provides reasonably good VoIP service in moderate pricing in Canada.
Pros:
LNP – local number portability, if you want to keep your old telephone number to switch to VoIP, Primus can do it for you, after a few weeks waiting.
Price – $19.99/month for local phone service, better price than the incumbant Bell Canada, but not as good as many smaller VoIP providers.
911 E911 – supported
Cons:
Quality – Vonage provides fair quality overall, but there are many reports complaining the VoIP quality. It looks like that the quality can be bad if you are in bad luck.
Customer service – not bad if you can handle all the isuses alone, otherwise it can be long waiting and no effective solution, other than having somebody listening.
Contract lockup – it is fine if you like the service, but not fun if you don’t and want to cancel…
Rogers
Rogers is an active alternative phone service provider, if you’ve already used other Rogers bundled service like Rogers TV, Rogers Cable, Rogers Wireless, you probably can get a good deal for your home phone service for the first 12 months.
Pros:
LNP – Rogers provides number portability
911 E911 – supported
Hassle free installation – Rogers will send someone to your home to install it.
Quality – I couldn’t find many quality complaints, no news is good news.
Cons:
Price – $29.95/month is expensive in this VoIP age, Rogers is obviously targeting Bell canada – try to be slightly cheaper when it makes its price.
Features – Again they add up the price – if you choose 4-6 features your phone bill can be $41.95, even a moderate feature list can make the price of $33.95 per month, it is definitely expensive compared to vbuzzer’s $50 per year.
Contract lockup – be aware of it and be clear with it when you signup.
Bell Canada
Still the same price modle and price level, you can have a good
old telephone line at the “good old” price.
Interestingly, Bell Canada claim that they win back customers due to the poor quality VoIP provides.
Will gather more materials about other telephone service providers in Toronto…
Other related information about Toronto Phone Service can be found at:
Toronto Phone Service At a Glance
Tags: canada phone, canada telephone, canadian phone service, toronto phone, toronto phone number, toronto telephone
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