Anyone have Vonage?

Jon1 · 01-03-2006, 03:56 PM

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 · 01-03-2006, 04:06 PM

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 · 01-03-2006, 04:12 PM

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 · 01-03-2006, 04:12 PM

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 · 01-03-2006, 04:24 PM

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 · 01-03-2006, 04:41 PM

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 · 01-03-2006, 04:55 PM

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 · 01-03-2006, 05:02 PM

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 · 01-04-2006, 09:59 AM

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 · 01-04-2006, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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..

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 · 01-04-2006, 11:46 AM

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 · 01-04-2006, 12:10 PM

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 · 01-04-2006, 03:53 PM

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 · 01-04-2006, 04:07 PM

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 · 01-04-2006, 05:25 PM

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 · 01-04-2006, 05:43 PM

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 · 01-05-2006, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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

Aflat · 01-05-2006, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon1

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 · 01-05-2006, 08:02 AM

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 · 01-05-2006, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aflat

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 · 01-05-2006, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 01-05-2006, 10:59 PM

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 · 01-06-2006, 03:09 AM

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 · 01-06-2006, 11:19 AM

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 · 01-06-2006, 05:56 PM

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 · 01-07-2006, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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?

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 · 01-10-2006, 09:07 AM

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 · 01-10-2006, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 01-10-2006, 10:50 AM

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 · 01-10-2006, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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?

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.