Vonage VoIP Forum Digest - July 27, 2005

July 27, 2005

By Daniel Connor

Welcome to today's edition of the Vonage Voip Forum Digest.

In today's edition, we'll talk about what the FCC's 30-day extension on the need for Voip subscribers to acknowledge they understand the limitations of E911 service means for you. We'll also look at one way in which Vonage is gearing up for even more services and expansions. We'll also explore an older, but recently revived and quite lively Vonage Voip Forum thread on using multiple adapters, and a new thread about caller I.D.

Vonage In The Headlines

FCC Extends E911 Notification Deadline

Late yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission announced a 30-day extension on its Voip E911 enforcement.

The FCC told Voip providers- including Vonage of course- that by August 10, they need to file a complete report to the FCC about steps taken to notify all customers about the current limitations of E911, as well as the percentage of those subscribers who have responded back to their provider by acknowledging they understand these limitations.

Then, by August 29, Vonage and other companies are expected to achieve 100% acknowledgement. That means everybody. If they don't, then these service providers- and yes, Vonage -are supposed to temporarily disable the account of anyone who hasn't gotten back to them with an acknowledgement.

Vonage should have sent you at least one email requesting you acknowledge E911 limitations. This email has a link to a Web page where you will need to check off you acknowledgement. If you have not responded to the email, you should do so now. If you cannot recall receiving such an email, check your Inbox. Most likely, it's there. If you're sure you have not gotten that email from Vonage, go to http://www.vonage.com/help_contactUs.php and fill out the Contact Us form.

Should you want more information about the FCC ruling and how it affects companies like Vonage, there's now a Vonage Voip Forum thread that explains the issue. The name of the thread is FCC Announces 30-Day Extension on VoIP E911 Enforcement.

Vonage To Use Venture Capital for More Expansions

In an article in the (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger, Vonage spokesperson Brooke Schultz tells reporter Beth Fitzgerald what the company hopes to do with some of the $408 million in venture capital it has raised so far. She says that Vonage intends to expand into Europe and Southeast Asia.

Vonage, incidentally, raised $199.9 million of that $408 million last quarter (April 1-June 30). That number placed Vonage in the top ten of companies ranked by venture capital received in that time period.

On The Vonage Voip Forum

Sometimes, a Vonage Voip Forum Member starts a thread with an interesting question. Someone else posts the answer, and then the thread sits around for a few months 'til another Member notices it and starts another flurry of posts.....

That's a good thing, and a key reason why we keep all of our threads around and searchable.

This revival of an old thread is going on right now, as a matter of fact. Back in March, 2005, Vonage Forum Member AndrewJuskelis started a thread that he named, Questions about multiple adapters. A systems administrator for a small business, Andrew wrote in part:

"We will need to run two adapters (PAP2 I assume; I use this at home and I'm comfortable with it). We'll have three lines in total: one voice and two data. I'm trying to figure out the logistics of using two adapters on the network. The network is domain based running off of Windows Server 2003. This server also serves as a firewall and it runs NAT for the network."

Andrew said that he "would like to have both adapters "behind the server so that I can monitor it's bandwidth usage through MRTG, as well as use Server 2003's QoS to ensure the quality of the calls. I don't want to put any other gateway or router in front of the server for logistics reasons. However, I don't know how to handle the port forwarding on this."

(By the way, Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG) is a tool to monitor the traffic load on network links).

He assumed that all adapters use the same port ranges, so he also thought there would not be a way to forward the ports to both adapters behind the gateway.

As an alternative, he asked if :there a way to change the ports used on either/both adapters? If so, this is the only way this solution would work. The easiest and most logical solution is to have both adapters in front of the server."

"I have 7 static IPs with our ISP so I would just connect the DSL modem to a switch and have the server run NAT off of one IP and then connect the adapters to the switch with their own global IPs. Is there an easier way of getting both adapters to function BEHIND the gateway?"

That post was made back on March 9. But guess what! Just in the last couple of days, this thread has been revived with some very helpful answers from Vonage Forum members 7echno7im (twice!) vtex, VonageTPA and jnuzzi. Just goes to show, no thread is "too old" not to be revived with some excellent suggestions!

In a new Vonage Forum thread called Is this right? Caller ID name not showing, Forum Member ZipZilla writes:

"Whenever I call someone, my number displays, but the name field says "unavailable." I can live with it, just want to be sure that's the proper behavior."

Once again, Forum Member jnuzzi offers his help. He excerpts an explanation on the Vonage site that says:

"Vonage's Caller ID with Name feature is identical to traditional Caller ID, except for the fact that on outbound calls (calls you make), only your phone number (and not your name) will not show on Caller ID with Name units of the party you are calling."

Well, it sure looks like today is another lively day on the Forums!

Before we end today's Digest edition, I'd like to remind you about some more options you have to receive the Vonage Voip Forum Digest every day. If you go to this page: http://www.vonage-forum.com/syndication.html, you will see a list of RSS Newsreaders from which with one or two clicks, you'll be able to get your Digest delivered directly to your Newsreader each morning. The Newsreaders we've linked to on that page include such reliable and trusted services as Bloglines, Feedster, My Yahoo!, Newsgator and Feedburner.

I am open to add others, just contact me with the info of the Newsreader.

That's what's hot about Vonage today. Check with us Thursday morning for the next edition of the Vonage VoIP Forum Digest!!