– title: Prepaying for a year of VoIP Service? layout: post permalink: /263/prepaying_for_a_year_of_voip_service/ — While this was blogged in a few places and written up as a news story on Voxilla, I haven’t had my say on this yet.

Given the state of the VoIP market today, I would be very hesitant to pay “up-front” for a years worth of VoIP service, however that’s exactly what SunRocket is offering. For $199, that works out to less than $17 a month, which is not a bad deal given what they are offering. To sweeten the deal, they’re also throwing in some sort of Uniden multi-handset phone system.

What happens if you buy a year of service from a company and they go under before your able to take advantage of the year’s worth of service? At least in SunRocket’s case, you’ve got a cordless phone out of the deal. Not sure what their “gizmo” is that turns your voice into IP packets, but I wonder how usable that device might be?

I don’t think I want to use a service where I have to either use a device the service provider gives me or I have to “lock” one of my existing devices in order to get service. I’ve got enough SIP devices, thank you very much. There are enough other choices out there that provide open SIP credentials, including ones that provide unlimited long distance, that I see no reason to go down this road anymore. I have to assume SunRocket is providing a locked device.

There are also enough providers out there that do not lock you into a contract. I hate contracts where I am committed to using a particular service for a certain length of time. I try and avoid those kinds of contracts as much as possible, though I’ve gotta have one for my Internet access (business rates) as well as my mobile phones–try getting a decent mobile phone plan without a contract.