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Vonage After 22 minutes of hold time I spoke with someone in Tech Support. He told me that
After 22 minutes of hold time I spoke with someone in Tech Support. He told me that they just found out one of their servers was down and sure enough it's the one my account was on. That server had been down at least 30 minutes. That is a problem if a server can be down that long before support notices.
The temporary solution that he had me do is to enable call-forwarding. He said that instant call-forwarding works when the server is down. Service was restored soon after that. (My wife called me from the Vonage phone about 5 minutes after I enabled call-forwarding) I have a network availability number, but I was told this time that forwarding to the network availability number wouldn't occur for 2+ hours. The tech support guy told me the ATA registers to a different server so it takes a long time for it to realize the service is down. (Probably wouldn't ever realize it since my ATA could still communicate to the registration server, just not the actual service server)
All is well now, but I wanted to reply so that people investigating this problem on their own service will know the temporary fix (call forwarding) and cause (server down at Vonage)
Just in case someone from Vonage monitors this I also have some suggestions.
1) Put some monitoring on your servers. If the only way you found out the server for quite a few accounts (including mine) was down is people calling your tech support (with 20+ minutes of hold time).... Well how can they call when their phone is out? It might take a while before people realize they have no phone, find a phone, and wait through hold time to tell you.
2) Change the message (The number you have dialed is disconnected or no longer in service) that people recieve when this problem is happening. Anyone who called me during the 30 minute period will think my phone is disconnected. They may even scratch off the number and wait to ask me what my number is when they see me next. Given that a lot of your customers probably switched recently (new area codes, word of mouth advertising, etc), people thinking they have the wrong number when they call someones "brand new, super cool, internet phone number" is a big issue.
3) When a server goes down that affects a lot of accounts, force all those accounts to use the network availability number right away. It is counter-productive for the backup to not kick in for hours (if ever) when a server is down. There should be some process to force calls over to the backup when it is known that the network (ie server) is not available.
4) Why didn't voicemail pick-up. Actually once I wrote this I realize, if the disconnected message is on then voicemail can't pick up. The service already did and told the caller that the number was disconnected. If the message can't be changed, can voicemail pickup instead? (This is a pretty good fix for 2 and 3)
And here are a few out-of-the-box type questions: (I understand that there is development/architect time involved in any change, just a few thoughts that might help)
1) Is it possible for the server to force calls to the network availability
number when they attempt and fail to hit the ATA on delivery time? (Probably wouldn't help here because the server that would probably do that was the one that was down. but I bring it up just in case nobody thought of it)
2) Live-chat solution for support. A lot of companies are going to this type of support to augment their telephone support. I think they may even be able to handle more than one person at a time this way since typing takes longer than talking and the chat is not completely real-time. (A 5 second delay in replying makes is seem the support person is really giving my question serious thought even though they may be helping someone else) This also seems to be the perfect match to Vonage. I generally need support when my phone isn't working. If my internet connection isn't working either I can't chat online with Vonage, but hopefully I figured out that the problem is the broadband connection not Vonage. If my internet connection is working I would much prefer that than having to find a phone or use my cell phone.
Read The Full Thread: Service problem - Disconnected or no longer in service msg
• I seem to be having major problems with Vonage service today. I have had Vonage
• While I'm a generally satisified Vonage user, I agree w/ TyeInformer and his suggestions
• Its odd they didnt know. Setting up some sort of sniffer application that sets
TyeInformer posted "After 22 minutes of hold time I spoke with someone in Tech Support. He told me that" on 07/31/2003 |
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