Anyone have Vonage?

[Jon1]

I just switched my phone service to Vonage. Does it work well w/TiVo? I dumped Verizon because THEY SUCK! Every time it rains we get no service. By the the time the dimbulbs get around to checking the lines, it has stopped raining and it works again. The Vonage concept sounds good (on paper). But is it, really?

[DPF]

Depends on your question, does it work well with TiVo? As for the phone service itself, I've been using Vonage for, I don't know, a couple years now. I jumped early and never looked back. I love it as a phone service. Works flawlessly for me. Saves me a ton of cash. The voicemail stuff is incredibly convenient.

As for "working with TiVo" I'm assuming you mean TiVo dialing out through through the Vonage line. I haven't followed this in a while so I don't know the current status, but it was tough before (A year or more ago) and function varied with the TiVo in question. Series 1's worked ok, Series2's were spotty as I recall. Lots of fidgeting with modem speeds and such. Vonage got a lot of calls for improvement and I believe they made some changes to improve function. It may require fax line, I don't know. Best suggestion is to try and force a connection and see what happens. If it fails, there should be some around here who can help you out to get going.

Again, I'm assuming you have a Series1 or Directivo. If you have a Series2 SA, you should be running through the network anyway which makes the point moot.

-DPF

[davezatz]

I got a new TiVo over the Christmas holiday... it didn't have current system software so I had to enroll over dialup and get the guide data to finish setup. With no modifications to modem settings or Vonage settings I was able to register my TiVo no prob. Downloading the initial guide data took about 5 or 6 tries - the connection kept dropping, for whatever reason, before it remained solid long enough to get the update. For that big software download, I turned of all my other network devices to try and keep my broadband connection free from interference and traffic. (Once the updating finished, I moved to my wireless adapter.)

[Jon1]

Yeah it's actually a moot point because my TiVo is connected via wireless. I am really just curious how Vonage is as a telephone service.

[DPF]

For me it has been stellar as I said. I can't speak to the robustness of the new-fangled hardware. I'm still on one of the original Cisco ATA186's. Now you can get all sorts of combo router/wireless/ATA stuff. The old ATA has been so reliable I don't dare change it out.

The only drawback for me is that I have no bandwidth shaping since my router is an old b wireless POS. I've been tempted to get a router that I can apply port priorities with so that I can upload without causing interference. I haven't bothered since the days of Bittorrent are long gone for me and that was the only time it was even an issue.

-DPF

[etsolow]

I was unhappy with Vonage. During heavy P2P downloads, the phone service was all but unusable. YMMV, but I cancelled it with extreme prejudice. (In my experience their tech support is a big back of suck, too. Long hold times, rude and ill-prepared techs, etc.)

[DPF]

That was the issue I was referring to, and it was the uploads that were the killer. Since BT was always 2-way, it really hurt it. You can get around that with bandwidth shaping, which is pretty widely available now, but I stopped P2Ping (no time for anything anymore), so it became a non-issue. The default linksys ATA combo's may even have port prioritizing abilities available. I'm not sure.

-DPF

[zcamanap]

I use Broadvoice and have been 99% satisfied. Given that I get unlimited international calling to select countries that my wife frequently calls I am very pleased. No interference with downloads or Tivo. There are the occasional call hiccups i.e. caller cannot hear me but nothing redialing does not fix and I have never had a service interruption.

Furthermore, I maintain a hardline with Bellsouth which was out of service for nearly 2 weeks(due to a Bellsouth problem) but I continued to have VoIP service.

[cbordman]

Vonage is terrible. If it doesn't work, it is never their fault. And even though it says 'no contracts', you have to pay a $40 disconnect fee if you cancel within 12 months, even if your service is unreliable..

[Jon1]

Vonage is terrible. If it doesn't work, it is never their fault. And even though it says 'no contracts', you have to pay a $40 disconnect fee if you cancel within 12 months, even if your service is unreliable..
I have also heard the phone connection is only as good as your broadband connection. Our broadband connection has been fantastic (WAY more reliable than our landline) so I am hoping Vonage will work well too... Naive perhaps?

[cbordman]

I don't know.. I never notice any problems with our broadband. Many calls that i placed with the vonage line would be answered by the person on the other end, but they wouldn't be able to hear me.

The service did not work well for me, and it wasn't worth the small savings of a local phone line. What pushed me over the edge was the horrible customer service, and the "no contracts" claim.

Then they denied my rebate. Then i sold my vonage adapter on ebay, only to have the guy who bought it say that Vonage will not allow anyone else to re-activate old equipment.

[davezatz]

After my intial negative experiences with customer service, the phone service itself has been solid. I pay about $16/mo for local, LD, voice mail, caller-id, etc which is probably 50% less than Verizon was charging. We're limited to 500 minutes, but we both have cell phone plans with too many minutes and similar features.

What I'd like to do is cancel Vonage and get one of those cell phone -> home phone repeaters. Then I'd like to cancel DSL and get the Kyocera KR1 EVDO router if it's ever released. I've tried the SkypeOut service a few times, but man the quality is unpredictable.

(Yes, I live in one of the few places that let's you get "naked" DSL with no phone plan.)

[Aflat]

I have had vonage for almost 2 years now, and their service is very dependant on your ISP connection. For me, its been rock solid. I love the emailed voice mails, I can always get my voicemails while I'm at work.

I have a 3m/256k connection(256??? stupid charter!) and I used to have some issues with choppiness when I was using bitorrent, or some other heavy uploading, but I finally changed my firmware on my WRT54G and the choppiness is gone totally. Bandwidth shaping is a must. My brother-inlaw got one of those linksys wireless routers with Vonage built in, and has no issues at all, it does all the bancwidth shaping for him. If it had ssh abilities I'd get one myself.

[Lex]

I too have Vonage and, to be honest, I was surprised at the call quality. I fully expected it to be tinny, hollow, or have echos, but none of that has occurred. I also expected to have dropped calls or choppy audio at times, but have not experienced that either (actually I do have a strange problem of dropped calls when I call in to my voicemail, but I can deal with that).

You should head over to the Vonage forums at triple W dot Vonage-Forums dot cee oh em (apparently I can't post any URLs until I've made 5 posts in this forum - man that filter is tough to fool). That seems to be the official unofficial place to discuss Vonage. There's probably also other forums at places like Broadbandreports.

[AnimusF6]

I just want to throw my hat into the ring and say that Vonage has been nothing but outstanding for me. Again, I'll echo that it depends on your network connection speed. A good place to check (rather than relying on sometimes unreliable numbers given by your ISP) is Bandwidthplace. Use your favorite search engine to find them. Being nothing more than a lurker here, I can't give you the actual link.

Test it during "peak hours", between 4:00pm and 7:00pm, when you would be most likely to place and/or receive calls, and other users in your area might affect your speed. I have an actual 6Mbps connection from Comcast that only drops down to about 4 or 5Mbps during "peak hours", and have had no problems at all, even when my wife is online playing Guild Wars. Good luck!

[donivan]

I am a new Vonage user, picked up the service in October 2005. It has been perfect so far. My situation is similiar to davezatz, we have "naked" DSL - which Verizon calls "dry loop" along with the 500 minute plan and the Vonage/Linksys wireless adapter. Couldn't be happier with the savings and the quality. :)

[Jon1]

I just want to throw my hat into the ring and say that Vonage has been nothing but outstanding for me. Again, I'll echo that it depends on your network connection speed.
In a quantitative sense, what is considered "good" network connection speed?

[Aflat]

In a quantitative sense, what is considered "good" network connection speed?


If I remember right, Vonage doesn't need much, 90k down, and 90k up. So just about any cable connection can handle it, and most DSL, unless you get one of those 756/128 packages, then it might be worse.

Also, if you have a connection that drops out alot, Vonage is not for you, as the box takes ~3-5 minutes to reset itself.

[davezatz]

I have one of those slower DSL connections... haven't had any problems other than my initial set-up. Sounds like I'm on a landline.

[DPF]

Also, if you have a connection that drops out alot, Vonage is not for you, as the box takes ~3-5 minutes to reset itself.

Wow, that's one plus for the old Cisco ATA186 then. On the off occasion that I reset my router and then go ahead and reset the ATA, that old bird is back up inside of 30 seconds. Of course, that's a dedicated ATA where as the newer boxes are the combo units that do everything.

For the record and a big part of the reason I'm such a big fan of Vonage is the savings. I had SBC and at the time the best deal I could get for phones service was about $65 for basic service after taxes and fees and what not. That didn't even include LD. My wife would regularly call LD without thinking about using the cell, which would be free, and our monthly bill would regularly top $100. With Vonage, I got as good or better sound quality, reliability (I have a great HSI cable connection with WOW cable, only 384 up but rock solid), and I saved a bundle at only $26/ month inlucing taxes and fees. My monthly tab for phone, HSI and TV w/ HBO and Starz is only about 20 bucks more than my old monthly phone bill. The wife can talk to anyone all she wants and we were able to throttle back the cell package to save even more, basically balance out that $20.

-DPF

[NiteCourt]

I just want to throw my hat into the ring and say that Vonage has been nothing but outstanding for me. Again, I'll echo that it depends on your network connection speed. A good place to check (rather than relying on sometimes unreliable numbers given by your ISP) is Bandwidthplace.

Another good one just for testing how VOIP would work on your connection.

myspeed [dot] visualware [dot] com [slash] voip

(sorry, don't have 5 posts yet)

[jerzy]

Howdy.

I have a Series 1 TiVo and a WiFi connection for my internet. Can I connect TiVo's calling into the "mother ship" via WiFi even though I am using (with their permission) a neighbor's service? As a backup, I'm considering getting Vonage, even though I can otherwise totally dispense with a home line.

Thanks.
Jerzy

[bobk]

Vonage works great for me from Japan also, again the comments about having a solid QoS from your broadband vendor are on target, in my case it's NTT. Has saved us a ton of money too and friends can now call our old NJ number and get us over here.

[Fl_Gulfer]

I have a router with Vonage built-in but there isn't any 911 service in my area, and we are 3 very old people.

[c monkey]

How does Vonage work? I have just set up a wireless home network and would benefit from the savings. I have a Linksys router and noticed that there is a linksys router with Vonage at BB. I could return my router for that one but before I do, I want to get an understanding of how exactly this works. Also, does anyone know more about TiVonage?

[lcatania]

How does Vonage work? I have just set up a wireless home network and would benefit from the savings. I have a Linksys router and noticed that there is a linksys router with Vonage at BB. I could return my router for that one but before I do, I want to get an understanding of how exactly this works. Also, does anyone know more about TiVonage?

I got the service last week. Works great. Half the cost of my local phone service. I hav the Linksys Wirelesss router with the vonage phone adapter plus build in. Not sure what you want to know. You go to the web site, sign up for the service, indicate if you want to transfer your existing phone umber or get a new one, if transferring your existing phone number you'll get a temporary one to use. I just continued to use my existing service. If you have your router/phone adapter next to a phone outlet for your hour your could disconnect the jack outside your house at the NIC box and plug a line from your router/phone adapter to a outlet in your house and distribute your vonage phone sevice throughall the outlest in your house. Just make sure yououtsie connection is disconnect before you do so. There are instaructions on the vonnage web site.

A few days ago I downloaed and installed TiVonage. If your TiVo box is connected to your home network, you load and run TiVonage on your home PC and you can get voice mail on your TiVO box. I had a few problems in regard to WAV->mp3 conversions, but read the threads that includes my "Starting TiVonage on Boot" post.

Luke

[Jon1]

So has anybody out there hooked ALL their phone lines in their home to the Vonage box? If so, how exactly do you do it? Can I just plug the phone wire from the Vonage router into the nearest phone outlet? I couldn't find any instructions on the Vonage site, although they said an option is a wireless jack but I'm skeptical.

[Shawn95GT]

So has anybody out there hooked ALL their phone lines in their home to the Vonage box? If so, how exactly do you do it? Can I just plug the phone wire from the Vonage router into the nearest phone outlet? I couldn't find any instructions on the Vonage site, although they said an option is a wireless jack but I'm skeptical.
It really is that easy, with one catch... be sure you are un-plugged from the telco outside in your phone box. Usually all you need to do is un-plug the RJ11 plug (that's your house side) from the jack in the box (jack is telco side).

I had Vonage in my last two houses setup this way.

Vonage worked with my Home alarm and Tivo (after several re-tries, as noted before).

I did eventually drop Vonage though, and here is why: bundling. The Phone and Cable companies are offering discounts such that Vonage could be free and it wouldn't be cheaper for me.

Using Vonage I was paying a premium for my Internet connection. and I was missing out on bundle savings with my Cable TV.

I'd go back in a heartbeat if it was cheaper.

As for quality - Mine echo'd a lot until I went to the 9.0/768 line. This pretty much solved all my problems. The quality issues were on my end - the far end callers couldn't tell the difference. To me, Vonage quality was similar to my cell phone (and that's a compliment!).

I run a personal web server at the house and see some (un)healthy traffic on the line sometimes. I think this was 90% of my problem. I used bandwidth shaping with Sveasoft firmware on my Linksys WRT54G router to help prioritize the DTA's traffic.

It was VERY livable for me.

[Jon1]

Thanks! I will try it tonight. I couldn't wait to switch to Vonage. I HATE my Verizon landline service. Every time it rains I get no service. When you call or fill out the online form for repair, it takes them several days to get their butts out to look at the line. By then, of course, the rain has stopped and its working again. We have discussed this with them and they are no help whatsover...this has been going on for months. You would think with all the telcom competition out there they would care a little more....They are still aggravating me because it is taking weeks for them to get around to transferring my old number to Vonage. VoIP is the wave of the future--screw the landlines!

[MassD]

So has anybody out there hooked ALL their phone lines in their home to the Vonage box? If so, how exactly do you do it? Can I just plug the phone wire from the Vonage router into the nearest phone outlet?

That would probably work. After all, that is pretty much how your old telecom connection does it. Phone wiring is pretty simple, actually. All that is required is something inside the circuit to provide a dialtone.. in this case it is the vonage router. Find your main connection to the outside and disconnect it (hope no one calls when you do, the ring packs a bit of an electric punch.. heh) and then connect the phone port of your vonage router to a wall jack...

As long as your wiring is OK... you'll be fine.

We've had Vonage for about a year now, and I am quite pleased with it. Our broadband connection has been rock steady, and the quality of the calls has been good 99.9% of the time. I have the vonage router plugged into a Linksys router that has Quality-Of-Service ability, so the Vonage router gets priority as far as bandwidth is concerned. My wife has been talking on the phone while I was busy downloading some junk, and she didn't mention anything about a degradation of quality.

Though, it did get a bit tricky when we added a brand new Tivo... It took a few hours before I could get the guided setup finished to the point where it got the new software and I could use the wireless ability. The connection via Vonage to the 800 number was really flaky... so basically I had to tweak it to call a more local number to handle the initial call (took some searching around the forums here as well as the Vonage forums), but I got it to work eventually and not the Tivo is running off the wireless.

I've been quite pleased with Vonage actually. There isn't any loss of quality, it's cheap, and their web stuff is great.

[rscaramelo]

Dumb question here! Sorry if I'm hijacking here.

I use Verizon for DSL but I'm interested in either Vonage or Sunrocket. What are my options here? I think I'd have to switch dsl providers.

RC

[DPF]

You shouldn't have to to use any VOIP over your DSL line. Do you have naked DSL or would it be doubling up since you have phone service with them anyway?

-DPF

[rscaramelo]

I'm sorry but I don't follow. I have Verizon phone service and Verizon DSL. I'm interested in VOIP but I don't understand how that would impact my DSL account.

RC

[miller890]

I can't say that I would recommend Vonage and I will not refer friends even for 2 months free credit. If you are doing any sort of file transfer, the quality of the VoIP drops off, as expected. The couple time I have called for support I was satisfied with the results. It occasionally drops a call and goes to dialtone for no reason. My biggest complaint about my Vonage service is that I get false half-rings at random times of the day or night. On the otherhand, the LD cost and the features compared to Verizon is the trade off for me.

[Bai Shen]

I can't say that I would recommend Vonage and I will not refer friends even for 2 months free credit. If you are doing any sort of file transfer, the quality of the VoIP drops off, as expected. The couple time I have called for support I was satisfied with the results. It occasionally drops a call and goes to dialtone for no reason. My biggest complaint about my Vonage service is that I get false half-rings at random times of the day or night. On the otherhand, the LD cost and the features compared to Verizon is the trade off for me.

You should be able to change your QoS settings so the download goes slower instead of affecting the phone call.

[miller890]

You should be able to change your QoS settings so the download goes slower instead of affecting the phone call.

True, but I had to moved the Vonage router behind another firewall/router because it was getting hit by something that would cause the Vonage router restart the VoIP service. Vonage support made this recommendation after the tech found out who my ISP was. Take this for what it is worth - he said that they (my ISP) send out a reset signal which causes this restart; he had me reset my router manually to simulate the problem, and it was the same. All I can say is that the half-ring problem has significantly reduced after this move and I am sleeping better. If quality of service is an problem, typically I will pause a file transfer if someone is complains about quality.

Verizon FIOS just hit my area with a package deal: unlimited US calls, 2MB broadband and direcTV for $102/month. I think I am going to hold out to see if they offer FIOS TV in my area in the next year before I jump. It an alternative if you are not already too discussed with Verizon service.

[Bai Shen]

True, but I had to moved the Vonage router behind another firewall/router because it was getting hit by something that would cause the Vonage router restart the VoIP service. Vonage support made this recommendation after the tech found out who my ISP was. Take this for what it is worth - he said that they (my ISP) send out a reset signal which causes this restart; he had me reset my router manually to simulate the problem, and it was the same. All I can say is that the half-ring problem has significantly reduced after this move and I am sleeping better. If quality of service is an problem, typically I will pause a file transfer if someone is complains about quality.

Verizon FIOS just hit my area with a package deal: unlimited US calls, 2MB broadband and direcTV for $102/month. I think I am going to hold out to see if they offer FIOS TV in my area in the next year before I jump. It an alternative if you are not already too discussed with Verizon service.

Ah. That's not a problem for me, as I plan on putting it behind my firewall anyways.

As for FIOS, AFAIK, they plan on offering tv to all customers. However, until they have the tv deals inked out, they're deploying just phone and net. Then when they get tv worked out, they'll deploy that as well.

[Shawn95GT]

True, but I had to moved the Vonage router behind another firewall/router because it was getting hit by something that would cause the Vonage router restart the VoIP service. Vonage support made this recommendation after the tech found out who my ISP was. Take this for what it is worth - he said that they (my ISP) send out a reset signal which causes this restart; he had me reset my router manually to simulate the problem, and it was the same. All I can say is that the half-ring problem has significantly reduced after this move and I am sleeping better. If quality of service is an problem, typically I will pause a file transfer if someone is complains about quality.
This still isn't a Vonage problem. You would have the same problem with any VoIP provider. You NEED to manage QoS on your LAN. If anything behind your router will likely be worse performance wise without QoS throttling in place.

I was able to get vonage working quite nice a a 3 Meg down / 512k up connection using Sveasoft firmare on my Linksys router. Later I stepped up to a 9M down / 1M up connection and throttling my connection wasn't an issue any more.

I equate Vonage to cellular service quality wise. It isn't quite as good or reliable as a POTS line. For me the cost savings was worth the minor inconveniences.

I recently jumped ona triple play deal throguh Qwest which ends up cheaper than my Vonage solution. If/when it's cheaper for me to go back I won't hesitate.

[cbordman]

I was unhappy with Vonage. During heavy P2P downloads, the phone service was all but unusable. YMMV, but I cancelled it with extreme prejudice. (In my experience their tech support is a big back of suck, too. Long hold times, rude and ill-prepared techs, etc.)

I was unhappy. Probably 40% of outgoing calls, the person would answer and i could hear them, but they couldn't hear me.

The Vonage standard answer is: "must be a problem with your broadband service. You should contact your cable company"

And there is a 12 month contract, even though it says "NO CONTRACTS!". Oh excuse me, it's not a contract, it's simply a cancellation fee if you cancel within 12 months.

no contract?? http://www.vonage.com/help_knowledgeBase_article.php?article=362&category=

[Warren]

I have had VOnage since JUne 30th. I like it no problems. I like that I can look online to see what numbers have been called and how long. I am suprised at how many phone calls are only one minute long.

[Warren]

will vonage numbers get listed in new phone books?

Will I still be listed in the Phone Book?

If you are transferring your number to Vonage and were listed in your local telephone directory's white pages before, by checking the two boxes on the Letter of Authorization (LOA) form, you will remain listed in the white pages of the directory. Otherwise, you won't be listed.

Customers who get a new number from us will not be listed in a telephone directory.

[restart88]

The explaination was in the quote. If your number was transfered from a traditional landline to Vonage, and when you transfered it to Vonage you clicked the boxes to remain listed then yes. Otherwise no.

[restart88]

I have a router with Vonage built-in but there isn't any 911 service in my area, and we are 3 very old people.

You're in FL? Probably not a big problem then. Remember that in most, if not all of, FL even without active service on the landline your 911 will work on your old landline. I'm assuming you're just going to leave the old Ma Bell lines as they were. Get get a $2 old non-powered phone from a thrift store and leave it plugged into Ma Bell for an emergency.

[restart88]

Thanks! I will try it tonight. I couldn't wait to switch to Vonage. I HATE my Verizon landline service. Every time it rains I get no service. When you call or fill out the online form for repair, it takes them several days to get their butts out to look at the line. By then, of course, the rain has stopped and its working again. We have discussed this with them and they are no help whatsover...this has been going on for months. You would think with all the telcom competition out there they would care a little more....They are still aggravating me because it is taking weeks for them to get around to transferring my old number to Vonage. VoIP is the wave of the future--screw the landlines!

My sister has always had that rain failure problem with AT&T for 20 years. Oddly, mom is only a few blocks away and has not had that problem. My sister's DSL is cheap, but seldom works due to the line problems. For her, cable internet & Vonage is a no brainer especially since she mostly uses a cell phone anyway.

-------------------------------------------------

As for quality - Mine echo'd a lot until I went to the 9.0/768 line. This pretty much solved all my problems. The quality issues were on my end - the far end callers couldn't tell the difference. To me, Vonage quality was similar to my cell phone (and that's a compliment!).

I was considering one of thiose deals. I have DBS and rainy season makes TV viewing a pain. But the lower priced bundles can involve a mere 1 Meg internet, as opposed to 7. I agree the call quality improved greatly when my provider upgraded. Oddly though, my broadband speed test numbers went down after the upgrade.

[Adam1115]

I use packet8, cheaper than vonage and I've had no problems... Even has E-911..

[Sherminator]

As for the cancellation fee. It is not a fee, it is a surcharge on the ATA that you were "borrowing" from Vonage, if they sent you the device, they are lending it to you for as long as you subscribe to the service, if you cancel the service, they charge you $40 returnable to you upon your returning the device within two months.

If you buy the device from a brick & mortar store, the device is yours and you won't be charged should you cancel service.

[verdugan]

I love Vonage. Virtual numbers are really cool. Just once catch. If you have a MIMO-router be careful. They think that VOIP traffic is a DoS attack and it tries to shut it down. I have the WRT54GX2, and I couldn't figure it out. The result is that your calls are totally choppy.

In the vonage forums I finally read what the problem was. I needed to turn off the router's firewall. Luckily I have a software firewall. The latest firmware is supposed to fix it, but it didn't work for me.

I'm happy w. Vonage though.

[cbordman]

As for the cancellation fee. It is not a fee, it is a surcharge on the ATA that you were "borrowing" from Vonage, if they sent you the device, they are lending it to you for as long as you subscribe to the service, if you cancel the service, they charge you $40 returnable to you upon your returning the device within two months.

If you buy the device from a brick & mortar store, the device is yours and you won't be charged should you cancel service.

Well, I bought the device at staples and they still charged me a cancellation fee, or surcharge.. What is the difference again?

[ashu]

Flawless Vonage quality (just a little lower volume, than on a landline) with a 5/0.5 cable connection.

[ccooperev]

I was an earlier adopter of TIVO having picked up the service in 2002. I'd rate my experience as fairly good. Of course there are issues with bandwidth contention especially when one of my systems or servers OR my 2 TIVO's are downloading something.

My biggest beef with them right now was the absolutely HORRIBLE customer service I got in the past few months. My tale of woe is my company was terminating their corporate cell phone accounts and I was conflicted about what do to about retaining the business cell number. So, I thought I would be clever and simply have it switched over to a separate vonage line which I could then forward to my personal cell phone.

Unfortunately, Vonage was completely clueless and had been sitting on this for almost 3 months. I ended up keeping my cell number by opening a personal account with the same company the corporate account was with. Meanwhile, I couldn't dial my cell phone from my Vonage line because it thought it was assigned to the second port on my adapter. I tried and tried to get Vonage to cancel the line including escalating it up to a supervisor. This was also during Vonage's disastrous IPO. (Initial Public Offering). I'm convinced that they were stalling line terminations during this period because about 2 weeks ago, I called up again to have the line cancelled and voila! they cancelled it immediately.

So, I'm a bit pissed at them, I've stopped referring people to them for now and I'm undecided about keeping them going forward.

[restart88]

I notice that Cramer, of CNBC's Mad Money, loves to talk about the stock. Or rather loves to call it Vonage the dog, in reguards to it's financial dealings and stock price. Well, it's either giving away a lot of free advertising or driving people away from considering the service but at least you can now say just about everybody's heard of Vonage. :D

Personally, I think they should now pick up a dog as a mascot and run with some connected motto as long as they don't wind up getting sued by RCA. :up:

[duoart]

I've only had one short outage directly attributable to Vonage. All other problems have been because of bad signals on my Comcast cable modem connection. We had some old coax and a crappy splitter that have been replaced.

I have two lines and two other family members on the other coast have Vonage too. We use a fax on it too with no problems. I really can't complain. Vonage bashing is pretty popular these days. I don't understand why. Some people just like to complain.

Oh, I think running VOIP over DSL is just stupid unless you can live with the occaisionally bad voice quality and simply want another line to use for long distance.

You can check your broadband speed here:

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

If you don't regularly get at leat 2Mb on download and 200Kb on upload, forget about using VOIP

I get 7Mb on download and 340Kb on upload and almost never have quality problems

[restart88]

I don't understand why.

Well people just don't like hearing how much cheaper it is when they are afraid to cut the cord to Ma Bell. When we are truthful and admit that there may be a minor problem with 1 call every so many months they tend to believe the Bell rep who tells them their service will suffer.

Personally, since Vonage will ring my cell at the same time even when my internet is down I never actually have an outage on incoming calls. Not yet, at least.

I had Verizon call me last week and tried to get me back by "offering" to charge me twice what I pay now for less service (for a limited time, of course). :rolleyes: But here's the killer, the call was perfectly clear and the rep kept trying to convince me I had phone problems and that I needed to get my phone checked. :D I told him if there was any problem it was on his end and I'd gladly get him hooked up with Vonage. :up:

BTW I love that SpeedTest site. I usually use CNET but I may start using this one. I was told by Brighthouse I was upped to 7000 but it came back 6700 download, so that's still pretty good. 430 - 470 on the upload.

[lstorey]

if you have a wireless router/system you will be fine. it does not like to dial over VOIP as if it were a phone line. I tried all the tricks people recommended and finally had to go to wireless and it works like a dream

[lstorey]

I was unhappy. Probably 40% of outgoing calls, the person would answer and i could hear them, but they couldn't hear me.

The Vonage standard answer is: "must be a problem with your broadband service. You should contact your cable company"



it truly is the cable company...we have Comcast and it will drop packets and we can't hear anyone or they can't hear us. My husband has it at his office on a T1 line and no problems at all

[Adam1115]

What is Vonage's advantage over Packet8?

[Sherminator]

More local numbers and a greater public presence.

[Rob Helmerichs]

I know somebody with Vonage. Been trying to reach him all day...

[terryfoster]

What is Vonage's advantage over Packet8?

Higher cost and, as inferred before, more advertising overhead. Packet8 and Vonage both use Level3 (http://www.level3.com/)'s softswitch system in many/most areas so in essence your service is pretty much the same, except for some of the bonus calling features, between most VoIP providers.

So that pretty much boils down to little or no advantage.

[nlsinger]

I'm pretty happy with Vonage, though I do have a couple problems. The first isn't really Vonage's fault, I think. Simul-ring to my cell phone was great until I realized I can't call home on my cell because it immediately rings my cell phone which answers with my cell voicemail so no one can pick up the call at home. If anyone knows a fix for that they would earn a 9 on my coolness meter. The other problem is that occasionally when people call it half rings, I can see who is calling but the line is dead when I pick it up. Meanwhile the caller is routed to voicemail. This was a bigger problem a few months back but it still happens.

[d_anders]

I had Vonage for over 9 months. I loved all the web features, simulring with cell phones is a great call saver, virtual numbers, and low cost. If the service goes down they can automatically route calls to a different number (cell, etc.)

However, we had significant issues with vonage call quality (even when I set it to the highest or lowest quality settings on vonage). Call quality on the receiving house end was always fine, it was folks on the other end that complained continuously that parts of the conversation would drop out intermittently.

We have upgraded Comcast Internet Service with 8Mbps down, and 768K up, and it worked great. We suspected that it was our home network configuration that caused the issues, because when I dedicated the vonage router to the cable modem and nothing else, phone quality would be fine...that said, that situation is unrealistic and never found the right settings for vonage to work on our home network...and you will never be able to get vonage to help you out with it....I went to a number of online forums for tips/tricks, etc....in the end, we dropped the service, and when with a more dedicated voip service....

If you send shows on your TiVo's and do heavy in-house networking, you are going to want to isolate your in-house traffice with your internet based traffic. This means using two routers (one that is the vonage, and the other as your base). Which one that get sets up as your first router to the cable or dsl modem is basically up to how the QoS features are setup on each. It's takes some patience and time.

If anyone goes with vonage, I highly recommend that you do a lot of router setup/config experimentation while you are temporarily on the "temp numbers" they assign to you while your number transfer is completing. Make a lot of calls with the temp numbers and get the bugs worked out.

Once you primary number is assigned to vonage, then you're whole family is going to rely on the service. If you get great service, fantastic...enjoy the most full featured and cheapest phone service you can get.

Bottom line, VOIP quality will always be best when provided directly by your ISP/broadband provider. I've now got Comcast Digital Voice. While it's almost twice the cost @ $39 a month, they have isolated QoS (and I suspect a separate frequency channel on the coax for VOIP traffice) that separates comcast voice and data traffic on their network and makes a direct connection to the standard telephone POTS network.

Comcast Digital Voice call quality and service blows Vonage away, and has been 100% reliable as a standard line (thus far after 3 months). Even when the internet service has been down for standard IP traffic, my phone (dial-tone, etc) has continued to work.

That said, Comcast has yet to meet all the nice-to-have features that Vonage provides (as I noted above), and I'm hoping they will get added soon. Even so, it's nice to have a reliable telephone service.

At some point, we'll probably just go all "cell" phone service and be done with standard in-house phones for good (outside of using some type of cell "cradle" that connects a cell phone to your house wiring or internal wireless phone handsets, etc.

[fergus10]

I know this was touched on in this thread, but I wasn't entirely clear what the answer was -- Will a series1 bottom of the barrel tivo model be able to dial in with VOIP (probably vonage)? I happy to buy some accessories if necessary to make it happen. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[terryfoster]

My series 1 works with my VoIP provider and no tricks were necessary.

[restart88]

We suspected that it was our home network configuration that caused the issues,

I avoided that by putting the adaptor ahead of the wireless router. I hardly ever have a problem now that Bright House upgraded their service, even though my connection is actually a bit slower after the improvement. But hey, it's a lot more stable so that make it worth the minimal loss and who really needs every possible byte as a home user? :)

[bkdtv]

We have upgraded Comcast Internet Service with 8Mbps down, and 768K up, and it worked great. We suspected that it was our home network configuration that caused the issues, because when I dedicated the vonage router to the cable modem and nothing else, phone quality would be fine...that said, that situation is unrealistic and never found the right settings for vonage to work on our home network...and you will never be able to get vonage to help you out with it....I went to a number of online forums for tips/tricks, etc....in the end, we dropped the service, and when with a more dedicated voip service....

If you send shows on your TiVo's and do heavy in-house networking, you are going to want to isolate your in-house traffice with your internet based traffic. This means using two routers (one that is the vonage, and the other as your base). Which one that get sets up as your first router to the cable or dsl modem is basically up to how the QoS features are setup on each. It's takes some patience and time.
There are several routers with QoS that can make a big difference in terms of VoIP quality for those with 384kbps upstream or less (or heavy users of bittorent). Heavy P2P is a VoIP quality killer for those with typical broadband connections and routers without working QoS.

The QoS on most routers today is ineffective or non-functional. A few routers with effective QoS for VoIP include the D-link 634m, D-link DGL-4300, Zyxel X-550, and Trendnet TEW-611BRP. These routers can give VoIP top priority over other traffic when you pickup the phone, and they have the processing power to do it effectively.

[bkdtv]

I'm pretty happy with Vonage, though I do have a couple problems. The first isn't really Vonage's fault, I think. Simul-ring to my cell phone was great until I realized I can't call home on my cell because it immediately rings my cell phone which answers with my cell voicemail so no one can pick up the call at home. If anyone knows a fix for that they would earn a 9 on my coolness meter. The other problem is that occasionally when people call it half rings
You need to set your answering machine to pickup before your cell's voicemail does.

Most cell providers can also disable your voicemail if you request it.

[Sherminator]

That doesn't work, when I had Vonage simulring to call my cell, just calling the Vonage number from my cell resulted in the call going straight to my cell's voicemail, no ring inbetween.

[GoHokies!]

I'm pretty happy with Vonage, though I do have a couple problems. The first isn't really Vonage's fault, I think. Simul-ring to my cell phone was great until I realized I can't call home on my cell because it immediately rings my cell phone which answers with my cell voicemail so no one can pick up the call at home. If anyone knows a fix for that they would earn a 9 on my coolness meter. The other problem is that occasionally when people call it half rings, I can see who is calling but the line is dead when I pick it up. Meanwhile the caller is routed to voicemail. This was a bigger problem a few months back but it still happens.

I've got the same deal, I just call my g/f's cell phone, whether she is at home or not - it's a workaround, and may not work for you, but it's a start. I love being able to just keep my cell phone in my pocket and grab it if I'm not near a phone.

Another note on the Vonage to whole house wiring thing - a few other posters have mentioned disconnecting your house from the TELCO wires coming into the house. I can't stress enough how important that is. Someone else mentioned the high ringing voltage, if someone calls your landline number and your Vonage box is hooked to it through the house's lines, you WILL fry the box.

In the game of dueling anecdotes, my call quality on Vonage using Comcast internet ROCKS! I can't recommend Vonage enough (I even got my parents up and running with it).

[restart88]

That doesn't work, when I had Vonage simulring to call my cell, just calling the Vonage number from my cell resulted in the call going straight to my cell's voicemail, no ring inbetween.

I had that problem for a while. In your case it probably is that your cell phone voice mail settings are causing it. Personally, I disabled the cell voice mail entirely since a message would go to Vonage voice mail anyway and I'd have the bonus of email message notification.

[restart88]

There are several routers with QoS that can make a big difference in terms of VoIP quality for those with 384kbps upstream or less (or heavy users of bittorent). Heavy P2P is a VoIP quality killer for those with typical broadband connections and routers without working QoS.

The QoS on most routers today is ineffective or non-functional. A few routers with effective QoS for VoIP include the D-link 634m, D-link DGL-4300, Zyxel X-550, and Trendnet TEW-611BRP. These routers can give VoIP top priority over other traffic when you pickup the phone, and they have the processing power to do it effectively.

As I think I said before, I put my adaptor ahead of the router. That avoids the problem entirely. And my Netgear router doesn't mind a bit.

[terryfoster]

That doesn't work, when I had Vonage simulring to call my cell, just calling the Vonage number from my cell resulted in the call going straight to my cell's voicemail, no ring inbetween.


So, when you called home from your cell phone with simulring your cellphone's voicemail picked up immediately? That makes perfect sense. Your cell phone was the first to take action on the call and it said, "You dummy, you're calling yourself so you get voicemail." So the answer is, don't call home with simulring turned on. This isn't a Vonage issue, but an issue with your cell provider.

[classicX]

So, when you called home from your cell phone with simulring your cellphone's voicemail picked up immediately? That makes perfect sense. Your cell phone was the first to take action on the call and it said, "You dummy, you're calling yourself so you get voicemail." So the answer is, don't call home with simulring turned on. This isn't a Vonage issue, but an issue with your cell provider.

I've got the same issue. Unfortunately, my cell phone is provided by my employer and I cannot disable voicemail.

Put a message in Vonage's suggestion box - Based on Caller ID info, do not forward a call from a number in the SimulRing list to itself, but continue forwarding to the others in the list (if any).

I call my wife sometimes not remembering that I have SimulRing on, and it rings once (just enough time for the house phone to ring and show my CID info) and then goes to my voicemail. Then I just wait for her to check who just rang the phone and call me back. Otherwise I just call her cell.

[GoHokies!]

I've got the same issue. Unfortunately, my cell phone is provided by my employer and I cannot disable voicemail.

Put a message in Vonage's suggestion box - Based on Caller ID info, do not forward a call from a number in the SimulRing list to itself, but continue forwarding to the others in the list (if any).

I call my wife sometimes not remembering that I have SimulRing on, and it rings once (just enough time for the house phone to ring and show my CID info) and then goes to my voicemail. Then I just wait for her to check who just rang the phone and call me back. Otherwise I just call her cell.

What's even better is before I started using Simul-ring, I would forward my cell phone to the house when I was at home because the cell coverage in my house is a little spotty (can't talk on the cell in the kitchen). I still do that out of habit sometimes, and anyone calling the cell gets forwarded to the house, which then tries to simul-ring the cell and gets forwarded back to itself and I end up with a half ring and then these pesky wormholes in the kitchen. ;)

Just like Tivo is "TV my way", with Vonage I have a lot more of "phones my way". Isn't technology great?

[restart88]

Verizon sends me a letter every week trying to get me to come back and pay double my Vonage bill for less service. :D

Today, they even promised to send me a $25 check to come back. Gee, a whole $25? lol

I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to charge me $100 just for resuming service, but switching my home number back I think would cost $30 anyway. :down:

[d_anders]

As I think I said before, I put my adaptor ahead of the router. That avoids the problem entirely. And my Netgear router doesn't mind a bit.

We placed ours in front for a period of time too. Unfortunately, it didn't work either.

I'm not arguing that folks cannot get it to work. I'm just part of a fairly sizable minority that has had problem with it. Whether you are lucky or not, if it can work for you, then enjoy it. When it works, it's an incredibly good value and has a lot of cool features.

[bud8man]

Vonage...Vonage...Vonage...Oh I am going to miss Vonage...
We have had it for over a year...and the quality is not good enough for the wife and in law test.
I suspect my DSL is not up to snuff....or else Verizon is throttling my connection on my DSL line.
The features are great, the quality on the other end, not so good.
We have a PAP2 adapter which does not go infront of my router...I did have a dedicated router for Vonage and a link over to another router for my TiVo network and Computer's wireless.
When I called people that knew we have it they always go are you on the VonPhone cause you sound like a million miles away.
So...Friday Verizon is installing Fios and their 40 unlimited calling with vm, and caller id with name service. I was on the 15 a month von plan...with a 10 verizon basic phone...so for 25 a month we had 2 phone numbers....
Fios kills the copper coming into the house...and verizon will install a UPS with 6 hours of time on it.
all that for only 15 more a month and no features....well almost no features.

[Bai Shen]

Anybody bought their Vonage adapter from BB or other stores? How does that work if you cancel? The local stores have the adapter for $49 with a $50 MIR. So do I have to wait 'til I can't cancel to get the rebate?

[restart88]

Vonage...Vonage...Vonage...Oh I am going to miss Vonage...
We have had it for over a year...and the quality is not good enough for the wife and in law test.
I suspect my DSL is not up to snuff....or else Verizon is throttling my connection on my DSL line.
The features are great, the quality on the other end, not so good.
We have a PAP2 adapter which does not go infront of my router...I did have a dedicated router for Vonage and a link over to another router for my TiVo network and Computer's wireless.
When I called people that knew we have it they always go are you on the VonPhone cause you sound like a million miles away.
So...Friday Verizon is installing Fios and their 40 unlimited calling with vm, and caller id with name service. I was on the 15 a month von plan...with a 10 verizon basic phone...so for 25 a month we had 2 phone numbers....
Fios kills the copper coming into the house...and verizon will install a UPS with 6 hours of time on it.
all that for only 15 more a month and no features....well almost no features.

If you have the $13 Verizon package then you probably don't have the bandwidth necessary for reliable service. I was going to go with Verizon DSL but I'm right between the two whatever they call it points and the installer couldn't get it to work, so I just stayed with Bright House and am I glad I did! I've since cut the cord to Ma Bell and pay less using cable & Vonage than my old phone bill was!

Oh, as for the poster asking about Best Buy, I don't trust Best Buy. I'd rather pay more and go to Circuit City.

[verdugan]

Anybody bought their Vonage adapter from BB or other stores? How does that work if you cancel? The local stores have the adapter for $49 with a $50 MIR. So do I have to wait 'til I can't cancel to get the rebate?

I recently bought the PAP2 adapter from BB. It was $60 with two rebates. One rebate was for $50 and the other one for $10.

I already got the check for the $10 rebate. The other one said that they'd mail me the check after having vonage service for 60 days.

Doesn't Vonage have cancelation fees after the 30 day trial period?

Angel