Which VOIP (Voice over Internet) Phone Service Provider is better ? Sunrocket or Vonage or Skype ???

Many of you especially who have not used any internet based phone service wonder whether it is worth making the switch from the traditional phone service. I have been using Sunrocket for last 2 years and also have friends and colleagues at work who have used Sunrocket and Vonage for more than a year.

Sunrocket
When I signed up with Sunrocket in early 2005, the service was just launched and in the intial 15 days we had problem with the bandwidth and staying connected with the phone. I even considered switching to Vonage or even going back to the traditional phone service with Verizon. Sunrocket gave me assurance that the problems had been temporary as they are working towards large volume of subscribers. Indeed Sunrocket did stand up to its word and till date I have been a loyal Sunrocket customer. In last 2 years the phone service has been stable with just one outage of 2 days and even that issue was addressed in a prompt manner. The issue I had was more with the gizmo which was replaced by overnight mail. The best part I like about their service is its very cheap. I pay $199 per year (which is approx. $17 per month) and initially I got the handset free. I recommend users to renew their contract if they wish to extend during the time when they advertise $99 per year promotion to their new customers. When you get on phone the customer service rep will try to honor the promotion given to new customers also for its existing customers for being "loyal" or may be thats their retention strategy. In addition you get voicemail, caller ID and an additional line included in the above cost. Best of all you get unlimited calling to US and Canada. CallerID gives names and number. I have used 911 service with Sunrocket and it has worked well when I had to call for emergency in the family.

Vonage
Vonage is also a decent VOIP service and it costs around $26 per month to enjoy it. Quality is same as Sunrocket now, but a couple of years ago it was a different story with Vonage being the better. They charge $5 for additonal line. CallerID does not give names. You need 11 digit dialing for all local calls where as others don't. I heard that porting the local number you have with Vonage sometimes may be a problem when you decide to switch from Vonage to someone else.
With both Sunrocket and Vonage you get very competitive international call and with either one you choose you get the basic phone service with unlimited calling for $17 and $26 respectively unlike $70+ I used to incur with Verizon.

Skype
Skype is a good PC to phone service unlike the other two above which are phone-to-phone service and what most of the people prefer. Have some very good international calling rates available. A major con is you require a PC with good internet connection. Well! You would say the above requires a good internet connection too......but at least with Sunrocket you can forward your calls by setting up your online profile with them and get the calls forwarded to your cellphone or an alternate location. But you don't have the choice with Skype.


RECOMMENDATION: Based on my personal experience and also on the feedback I received from my friends, I highly recommend Sunrocket. Quality has been great and had no major issues with the service for last 2 years. As I said I used to make a 911 call in 11/2005 and everything worked out perfect too. Additional free phone line serves great too. Domestic calling is free and also to Canada. Recently they also introduced 8 cents/min rate to India. And I call Germany sometimes too and its very cheap to any European countries as well.





DISCLAIMER: Author has expressed this opinion based on his last 3 years of experience using VOIP and also utilizing opinions of 9 of his colleagues and friends that have been using either Vonage, Skype or Sunrocket for at least one year. Author personally uses Sunrocket (for last 2 years).