Questions deal with VoIP telephone charges....people calling our new VoIP line.

I am switching our telephone land line to VoIP.  The adapter box from
Vonage is enroute. I think I understand what I am doing: not a techie
but I know the basics, advantages/disadvantages.  My wife is not with
me on this and has posed many questions. I am unable to answer a few.
For example, I understand how things will work on my end. But, the
people calling us? I tried number portability but not possible at this
time in our part of Oregon, even our Area Code(541)is not possible,
thus we have a Portland area code (971) as part of our new VoIP Vonage
phone number.
Questions:
A local (541)person calling our new number; will they incur long
distance charges as if they were calling Portland (971)? A person
calling us who is not in the local (541) Area Code, will they accrue
long distances charges as if they were calling Portland(971)?
I have studied the Vonage web site, the Net2Phone web site and have
done searches on VoIP.

Hi jnettle1,

People who call your Vonage number will be charged according to the
area code of your Vonage phone number, not the area code of your
location, as Maniac said.

I confirmed this with Vonage customer service.  I left an inquiry on
their web site and got an email answer a few days later, which said
"if your area code is not local for them, they will charge by their
phone service."

This conclusion is also suggested, though not explicitly stated, by
their web page on their Virtual Phone Number service.

http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=virtual_phone_number

It's also what I would have expected from my experience in
telecommunications.  When someone calls you, the caller's carrier
doesn't know where you are geographically located.  It just uses the
phone number to route the call through the network, and also to
determine how to charge the caller.  As Maniac noted, telephone
companies have a service called "foreign exchange," which works like
Vonage's Virtual Phone Number service:  you get a phone number located
in some location remote from your telephone and calls to that number
are charged according to that number, not your location.

http://www.interconnection.bellsouth.com/products/lec/fx_srvc.html

If you need any further information, please ask for a clarification.

--efn

Hello Jnettle1,

Not positive, so I'll post this as a comment instead of an answer. The
set up you describe should operate similar to what the [analog] phone
company would set up as a line in a separate exchange. Calls to / from
that number are just like calling any other number in that Portland OR
exchange. Let's say you really live in Bend but have this number in
Portland.

 - a call from your new number to another Portland number will be "local"
 - a call from your new number to a Bend number will be "long distance"
 - a call to your new number from another Portland number will be "local"
 - a call to your new number from a Bend number will be "long distance"

In other words, its as if you have a phone in Portland (but you can
talk on and hear in Bend ...).

  --Maniac

My God, has everyone missed this?
Look guy, I got my voip phone box (router you put between your cable
modem and your p.c.) from Lingo.com in 3 days.  Lingo.Com is a Voip
phone company.  I also didn't get a local (Florida) area code from
them too.  BUT, I did get a temp number (Virginia) from them.  I got
Virginia as a temp number because my wifes family lives there, and all
of the sudden they can call that "local" number to call us for free. 
In the mean time, I faxed Lingo.Com a letter saying I want to move my
current local phone number to Lingo.Com (Lingo.Com sent this letter to
Sprint) and 30 days later my old local number is changed to the Voip
phone.  Got it?  That's when I stoped getting a Sprint bill for
$75/month.  In addition, for $5/month extra with Lingo.Com I kept the
Virginia phone number for the family to call us for free.  Now when
you call me your calling my same home number I've had for years,
unless your part of my wifes family in Virginia Beach.  They call our
other number as a local call.  All for $20 + $5 per month, unlimited
long distance in U.S., Canada and Western Europe.
 
And if I had a home business, I could add a couple more lines and call
them my "Miami office" and my "N.Y.,N.Y. office" at $5/month each. 
Sure they aren't 800 numbers, but how cool to say you have 5 to 10
offices around the country and put them on your website, all for less
than I use to pay Sprint.

I've used the phone every day now for a couple of months without a
problem.  Good luck.