[October 26, 2004]

Vonage Adds London Virtual Numbers

BY JOHANNE TORRES

Now Vonage (news - alert) customers within the United States and Canada will be able to have a London city virtual telephone number code which would enable phone calls to ring to the user’s primary Vonage line.

The company announced it will offer customers the opportunity to select London-based virtual numbers for $4.99 USD/$7.99 CAD monthly. Virtual phone numbers are secondary numbers that ring to the primary Vonage line, making it less expensive for friends, relatives and business professionals residing and working in London to make calls to the U.S. and Canada -- since the parties they call will now have numbers local to their calling area. Calls to London are priced at 3 cents per minute.

“For several months, Vonage’s customers have been requesting the ability to have London telephone numbers to communicate with family members, friends and business associates,” said Jeffrey A. Citron, chairman and CEO of Vonage. “Vonage has responded quickly to our customers’ demands that we make keeping in contact with friends and loved ones abroad easier and more convenient by offering a local number as a point of contact, no matter where you are in the world.”

Vonage offers two different VoIP (define - news - alert)-enabled calling plans, the Residential Basic and the Residential Premium Unlimited. For $14.99 monthly Vonage subscribers to the Residential Basic plan get 500 minutes of local, toll and long distance calling throughout the United States and Canada. For $24.99 monthly, users subscribed to the Residential Premium Unlimited plan get unlimited calling throughout the 50 United States and Canada anytime, anywhere.

Free services and hardware included on both plans include enhanced voicemail, call hunt, call waiting, call transfer, caller ID with caller ID block, bandwidth saver, call forwarding, international call block, Motorola VT1000v device, area code selection (now including London codes), call return, redial and Linksys RT31P2 Device.