Vonage Comes To West Virginia

Thursday 26 October 2006
The Charleston Daily Mail reports today that Vonage has finally entered the West Virginia market. I've been waiting for Vongage to come to West Virginia after having used the service in North Carolina at my brother in law's house. Based on my experience it's a great service.

Those of you who aren't famililar with Vonage and voice over internet service providers you can read this. Basically, it is phone service over your high speed internet service. One of the nice features is that your phone number is portable.

According to the article, Vonage prices will be $24.99 per month and a $14.99 per month basic residential service. There is a draw back if you live here in Charleston. You can't get a local Charleston number yet and instead have to sign up using a Wheeling, Huntington, Parkersburg or Beckley exchange number. This is a draw back for me -- since I would want local Charleston calls from my family and friends to not be charged a long distance call for calling me local via a landline.

Wondering when Vonage will get a Charleston exchange? Maybe someone from Vonage will see my post and provide a response.

UPDATE: A few weeks ago I checked in to see if Vonage was now available in Charleston. At that time it still wasn't available. However, today (2/4/07) I checked again after a conversation with my neighbor about the service and it now appears to be available in Charleston. Although I haven't switched yet -- I plan to switch our home phone the coming days, especially after a recent failure by Verizon to come out and check out lines after we had been having trouble with a garbling line. When we called Verizon they told us that we had to first go out and check the line ourself on the outside box by plugging in a phone and see if it still has problems. I guess this would help to diagnose whether the problem was an outside line problem or problem with the lines in our house.

The following areas are listed as available for West Virginia (area code 304).

304 is available
Available Towns:
BeckleyBridgeportCharleston Zone 1
ClarksburgFairmontGrafton
Huntington Zone 1HurricaneLogan
MartinsburgParkersburg Zone 1Philippi
PrincetonRavenswoodScott Depot
SpencerWheeling Zone 1


Welcome to West Virginia Vonage!