I received an email from a U.S. military service person asking me if I was aware of any VoIP service providers offering a "military suspension plan" which allows U.S. military members to "suspend" your contract without paying monthly fees.
Mr. Tom Keating,
I'm a current customer of Vonage, but have recently been disappointed by them. You see, being in the military, deployments do not allow us to use our regular phones, for obvious reasons. As far as I'm aware, every cell phone carrier has some form of "military suspension plan" which allows you to keep your contract without paying any monthly fees until you notify them that you want it reactivated (not sure about landlines, but most ISP's seem to have a similar policy).
My question to you is: do you know of any VOIP companies that have a policy to accommodate military deployments, or even long vacations? At $35ish/month, I'd prefer not to pay this during a 6+ month tour in Iraq.
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"Bitter cold, Bitter fight" a weary U.S. Marine in Korea 1950 |
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This is pretty ridiculous that Voice over IP companies are not doing this. Not only is it the right thing to do but whatever company does this first will have some great PR/advertising spot opportunities. - Jill Houston Real Estate Blog
Yes, this is very much possible and is what I use for my main home line.
Go to gizmo5.com and get yourself an incoming number $35 a year which includes unlimited incoming calls.
For outgoing calls you pay 1.9c a minute and you pay only for what you use, no hidden fees, no monthly charges.
You then buy a sip adapter for $50 - $100 that you'll own forever and plug your phone into it.
That's it!
PS Other then being a satisfied customer, I'm not affiliated in any way with Gizmo.
well, wcell could be the answer for you. It is a pay as you go service, no monthly contracts.
Checkout:
www.wcell.com
Our military service men and women should be driving new GM cars, and talking on free satellite telephones. A great service for our military service men and women is NumberGarage. For $9.95 a month, they can forward all calls to their telephone number to any other telephone number they choose.
I am affiliated with NumberGarage.com
There are plenty of pay-as-you-go providers. While we (Future Nine) for example do not offer a military suspension - at $5/month for a pay-as-you-go number, do you really NEED to suspend your account?
($5/mo is probably less than what a cell phone company would charge you when your account is suspended...)
The solution is not to look for the overpriced companies to get "nicer" - it is to look for the companies who care about their users to begin with...
After reading this blog, FreedomVOICE has responded with a Military Suspension Plan for the FreedomIQ Hosted VoIP Service. Read more on our blog:
http://www.freedomiq.com/blog/freedomvoice-responds-with-military-suspension-plan/
Let them pay. We need economic stimilus.
If Vonage or any other provider will not accomodate the military, then they will not have my (civilian) business or my recommendation to any client. Support the troops or lose my support is the simple way to put it.