WOW VoIP has become synonymous with unreliable landlines and the worst customer service. Individuals and businesses have been seeking affordable alternatives that offer reliability and better service.
Community Phone is the best WOW VoIP alternative, offering great features, world-class support, and robust phone service at affordable prices. Read on to learn about the drawbacks of using WoW VoIP service and how Community Phone is the best alternative.
12 Drawbacks of Having a WOW VoIP Landline
1. Bundled Landline Service
You must bundle the WOW landline service with their internet. Depending on the internet speed you choose, you may also have to bundle TV, OTT, and other services you may not need.
Combining several services for one price may seem economical, but since all of these services depend on the internet, the internet bandwidth will be distributed. Inconsistent internet throughout the day can lead to issues such as call drops on landlines, buffering on TV, and inaccessibility of other services.
2. Limited Long Distance Minutes
WOW’s VoIP phone plans come with 100 minutes of long-distance and unlimited local calls. This cap on the minutes greatly limits your ability to stay connected with friends and family across the country, as you may run up a massive long-distance bill.
Community Phone offers an unbundled wireless landline service with unlimited local and long-distance calls with plans starting at $39. Talk to their specialists to learn more!
3. Your VoIP Number May Be Marked as Spam
VoIP numbers are the highest source of unwanted calls. Studies have shown that over 66% of high-risk and 61% of nuisance calls originate from VoIP numbers.
A WOW VoIP number may sometimes lead to your number being mistaken for spam and blocked by the provider. Or, your loved ones and friends may ignore your call, fearing it to be spam.
4. Patchy Connectivity
WoW’s VoIP phones need more bandwidth than normal browsing. So, you need a high-speed internet connection for good call quality. Since the internet is unavailable or patchy in rural and suburban areas, WOW’s VoIP phones are not an option if you live in one of these areas.
Even in urban areas, fluctuating internet connectivity and blind spots at home can lead to patchy connectivity.
5. Questionable Reliability
Your WOW VoIP phones will go down:
- If you or the company have a power outage
- WOW VoIP has internet issues
- Network outages
- Scheduled or unscheduled maintenance
These issues make WOW’s internet-based phones highly unreliable if you want to stay connected with loved ones or emergency services.
6. Phone Lines Down During Power Outages
WOW’s VoIP lines will go down when there is a power outage. Investing in a battery backup unit can be an option, but it is expensive and is not the perfect solution. Backup power units can help you only if you have a power outage, but if your VoIP provider has an outage or other issues, your phone lines will be down.
7. Safety and Security Issues
Using the WOW internet-based phone will make you vulnerable to hacks, attacks, malware, and internet-related threats. Hackers may intercept your data when you use the internet for communication, leading to data and identity theft.
For example, you may be liable for credit cards, expensive purchases, and loans you never took.
8. Poor Call Quality
Call quality and clarity of the WOW VoIP phones depend on the strength of the internet connection. Internet speeds depend on various factors like network congestion, time of the day, device, surrounding vegetation, etc., and are inconsistent throughout the day. This fluctuation can lead to call drops, latency, and poor quality.
9. Lack of Flexibility
WOW’s VoIP phones boast flexibility claiming you can make or receive calls anywhere. However, since call quality and connectivity depend on internet strength, it will be consistent only in some places.
Blind spots at home, the distance from the modem/router, and the number of obstacles between you and the modem/router will influence call quality and connectivity. These scenarios can lead to call drops, jitter, latency, and poor call quality, even if you have a high-speed internet connection.
10. Installation Costs and Challenges
WOW’s VoIP phones need their internet lines installed at your home. The expertise required for the installation and the company’s customer response will determine the speed and accuracy of the installation and the subsequent working of your phones. Be ready to face several technical issues if the installation is incomplete or incorrect.
11. Challenges With Emergency Tracking
First responders, especially 911, cannot accurately trace your location if you call from the WOW VoIP phone. Since the information comes from an IP address with no GPS data and is not from a physical address or cell tower, location tracking becomes difficult.
12. Specialized Hardware
When switching from a traditional landline to an internet-based phone, you must buy a specialized VoIP router, special ethernet cables, and a VoIP-compatible phone. You will be stranded without a phone if the technician does not install the hardware correctly or the setup is incomplete.
Community Phone - The Best Alternative to WOW VoIP
Community Phone provides reliable wireless landline phone service that eliminates the need for internet or copper connections. Their wireless landline base connects your phone to local cell towers to provide reliability, excellent call quality, and safety. The company’s partnership with nationwide carriers and the landline base's unique design ensure excellent connectivity across 99% of the US, including rural and low-reception areas.
Enjoy unlimited nationwide calling, the freedom of wireless access, and several fantastic calling features like spam call blocking, 3-way calling, call routing, call forwarding, call waiting, caller ID, landline texting, and more at affordable prices.
How It Works
The Community Phone landline base does not tie your phone to the internet as it works off resilient cell towers. The company's partnership with nationwide carriers and the unique design of the landline base ensure connectivity across 99% of the U.S., including rural areas. The built-in antennas on the base amplify signals from mobile towers to ensure superior voice quality in low-reception areas.
The 12-hour backup battery in the base ensures your phones continue working during a power outage or blackout in your area.
Why is Community Phone better than WOW VoIP?
Here are some salient Community Phone features that make it better than VoIP providers:
1. Connectivity
Community Phone has partnered with nationwide carriers to ensure coverage across 99% of the U.S. Since the wireless landline base does not need an internet connection to work, you will not face issues such as call drops, jitter, or latency.
2. Reliability
Resilient and thoughtful technology make your Community Phone landline the most reliable option to stay connected with loved ones and emergency services. Their landline base works off resilient cell towers with power backups to support them during a massive outage. The base also has a 12-hour backup battery that keeps your phone working during a power outage or blackout in your area.
3. Security
Since Community Phone does not tie your landline to the internet, it does not leave you vulnerable to hacks, attacks, data, or identity theft. You get an additional layer of security as the wireless landline cannot be wiretapped like conventional landlines.
4. Call Quality
Community Phone has partnered with carriers nationwide to ensure robust coverage and clear voice quality in rural areas. The landline base has built-in antennas that amplify mobile signals to ensure crystal-clear voice quality in poor-reception areas.
5. Geographical Limitations
Community Phone's landline service covers 99% of the U.S., including rural areas, making geographical limitations and the monopoly of certain carriers a thing of the past. You can take your Community Phone landline anywhere in the US, as all you need is a power outlet and a phone to have a landline.
6. Flexibility
Community Phone's partnership with nationwide carriers and the unique landline base design ensure excellent voice quality and connectivity across 99% of the U.S. Experience extreme flexibility with your Community Phone landline, as you can take it anywhere without changing the number. Plug it into a power outlet and a phone, and your landline will work as well as new!
7. Installation
You do not need a technician or advanced skills to install your Community Phone landline. You can set up your landline in 30 seconds with the following steps:
1. Unwrap the landline base
2. Connect the base to a power outlet. Do not turn it on yet.
3. Hook your phone to the base per instructions in the manual (Phone 1/Phone 2 port)
4. Toggle the ON/OFF switch to the ON position
5. Turn on the power and wait for 5 mins. Once the base finishes setup, make a test call to ensure your phone works as intended.
8. Emergency Tracking
First responders can easily track your location in an emergency, as they can trace the data originating from the cell tower and zero in on your location.
9. Hardware
You don't need fancy equipment for your Community Phone landline, except the landline base and a SIM. You will receive the SIM with the base when you sign up with Community Phone.
The landline base is compatible with all phone models, saving you the hassle of buying new phone equipment. Save time and money with the zero-cost installation of the landline base.
Community Phone Landline Features
Spam Call Blocking
Robocalls duped over 61% of phone scam victims in the US. With scammers and robocalls persistently targeting gullible victims, manual call blocking after receiving a spam call is no longer effective.
According to reports, con artists have discovered a technique to get around the STIR/SHAKEN regulations that the government has implemented for customer safety. You need a powerful spam blocker that can block unwanted calls before your phone alerts you to protect you from scams.
Get the Community Phone spam-blocker, your one-stop solution to barring unwanted and unlawful calls. The spam blocker challenges robocalls and blocks them before the call can ring your phone, ensuring protection against spam.
The "Safelist," a new Community Phone feature, allows you to list the numbers you want to accept calls from. Your phone will ring to let calls from these numbers through and block all others before the phone rings. You can update your allowed list anytime to add or delete numbers, or Community Phone specialists will be happy to assist you.
Studies have shown that several people miss legitimate calls fearing spam. Community Phone is launching another iteration of the Safelist soon to counter this issue. The Safelist iteration will allow you to accept calls from numbers you want and route the rest to voicemail. You can check your voice messages and respond to legitimate ones.
The soon-to-be-launched "blocklist" is an aggressive spam blocker that blocks over 6 million spam calls based on an ever-growing database of spam numbers and a spam score. You can actively contribute to this database by adding a spam number to protect yourself and other Community Phone customers from scams and fraud.
Talk to Community Phone specialists to learn more!
Call Waiting
The call-waiting feature helps you handle two calls simultaneously. You will hear 2 beeps when there is an incoming call while you are engaged on one call. You can place the first call on hold, talk to the second caller, or route it to voicemail.
Call Forwarding
Enable call forwarding to forward important calls when you cannot answer them from your business landline. You can opt from one of the several Community Phone options to forward your business calls to a number of your choice.
Temporary Forwarding: Use the manual process to turn call forwarding ON/OFF if you are temporarily away from your business phone. Here's how you can enable it:
- Get a dial tone
- Dial **21*1
- Dial the 10-digit number you want the calls forwarded to and #
- Three beeps will indicate you have enabled call forwarding.
Follow the same steps, but press ##21# to turn off call forwarding.
Unconditional Forwarding: Forward all calls from your landline to a cell phone or another number of your choice and ditch your landline.
Conditional Forwarding: You can program several phone numbers to ring simultaneously with one incoming call, allowing the person available to answer the call.
You can also have numbers ring in succession if the first number is busy or does not answer. For example, your cell phone can ring if you do not answer your landline within 20 seconds.
Call History
Enable the call history feature and access information on incoming and outgoing calls to and from your Community Phone landline.
You can use this feature to
- Return missed calls from known contacts
- Store legitimate contacts
- Check caller information against known contacts
- Send a message or
- Block spam calls.
Caller ID
On Outgoing Calls
Opt for the caller ID feature so the recipient can see your number or name when you make outbound calls. This feature can help loved ones answer your call or return missed calls without mistaking them as spam.
Incoming Calls
You will be able to see the caller ID of the person calling you if:
- The person has enabled caller ID
- Has registered in the national register
- Your phone can support the caller ID feature.
Community Phone does not use third-party apps to provide the caller ID feature.
Landline Texting
Studies reveal that millennials and later generations prefer texting to talking. Stay in touch with younger children or grandchildren by texting them from your Community Phone landline through the landline texting feature. The unlimited text feature and 2-way messaging enable you to see the messages from the recipient and continue the conversation.
3-way Calling
Connect with 2 or more of your loved ones simultaneously with the 3-way calling feature, spend some great moments, and create memorable experiences. You can connect with your loved ones on the same call and hear them speak simultaneously without worrying about free calling apps, internet bandwidth, or patchy and dropped internet calls.
Benefits of Switching to Community Phone
Besides having a reliable landline service that does not require internet, Community Phone members enjoy the following benefits:
Unlimited nationwide calling and text: Stay in touch with loved ones across the U.S. with Community Phone's unlimited talk and text.
No internet needed: The Community Phone landline base works off cell towers without tying your phone to the internet. Since your phones are not dependent on the internet, they will continue working during an internet outage or maintenance.
Number choice: You can get a new local number FREE when you sign up with Community Phone. You can also transfer your existing number through their unique hand-held porting process.
Zero-cost Installation: The landline base does not require a technician to install it. You or anyone in your business or household can install your Community Phone landline in under 30 seconds and be ready to make calls in 5 mins.
24/7 reliable customer support: Contact Community Phone customer support via phone, email, and live chat 24/7 to experience world-class support from live agents. Glowing customer reviews on BBB and Trustpilot are testimonies of their commitment to customers.
Works during power outages: The 12-hour backup battery in the landline base ensures your phones continue working during power outages and blackouts.
14-day FREE trial: Experience excellent calling features, the reliability of a landline, the freedom of wireless, and world-class support FREE for 14 days, without obligations. Several customers have been overwhelmed with the company’s world-class support and reliable service, so they signed yearly contracts after the trial period.
How to get a Community Phone landline?
Follow these steps to get a Community Phone landline:
- Call Community Phone at (866)-340-6256 and speak with a specialist.
- The rep will check your area for coverage. Since Community Phone covers 99% of the US, this should not be an issue.
- You get a local number FREE when you signup. Choose a new number or port your existing number. The specialist will help you get a similar number if your preferred number is unavailable.
- Choose a plan to suit your needs.
- Complete the signup process
- Wait for your landline base, and install it per instructions. You can contact Community Phone support if you have challenges or questions.
- Wait until the base completes the setup. Make a test call to check if your landline works as intended.
FAQs
What are the drawbacks of WOW VoIP?
Some of the drawbacks of WOW VoIP are:
- The landline has to be bundled with the internet
- Unreliable service if you do not have high-speed internet. High-speed connections come with several unnecessary services bundled with the landline.
- Your landline will not work if there is a power or network outage
- Your number may be mistaken for spam
- Not all phone features are available in all areas
What is the best alternative to WOW VoIP?
Community Phone is the best alternative to WOW VoIP. Their wireless landline base connects your home phone to local cell towers for a dial tone. Since it is not dependent on the internet, your phones will work during network and power outages.
Enjoy unlimited nationwide calling and great features like spam blocker services, call forwarding, call waiting, landline texting, voicemail, and many more at affordable prices. Talk to their specialists at 866-415-4764 to learn more.
Conclusion
Community Phone understands the importance of reliable, easy-to-use, dependable phone service. That's why their landline services provide more than just a connection to the world around you.
They also include features and benefits designed to make your life easier. Access features such as unlimited nationwide calling, caller ID, call forwarding, voicemail, and more at affordable prices and enjoy an outstanding telephonic experience with Community Phone.