Vonage VoIP Forum Digest - July 29 - July 31, 2005

July 29, 2005

By Daniel Connor

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

In today's edition, we'll look at what Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron thinks needs to happen to preserve Vonage's rights should a telecommunications reform law pass that minimizes regulations now in place on phone companies whose lines now carry Internet services of competitors. We'll explore a key regulation that affects competitors to Vonage in Canada. In our Friday "In The Blogs" feature, we'll look at what some of the Blogs we read regularly are saying about Vonage this week. We'll explore Vonage VoIP Forum threads on problems some users have been having over the last day or so with Vonage's voice mail, as well as its Click-To-Call feature.

Vonage In The Headlines

Vonage Concerned About U.S. Telecom Reform

I know that many of your eyes glaze over when you read about what politicians are saying and doing. Ye the truth is that Vonage and companies like it, have some direct and powerful competitors. Sometimes, these competitors feel that to compete, they need powerful rules in place that either allow them to do so, or no fewer rules in place to hold them down.

Take for example an effort by many traditional companies to get the U.S. Congress to rewrite telecommunications law. One provision the phone companies would love to have would be the elimination of rules that say must share their Internet networks with competitors. By that, we mean rules that make it mandatory for these phone companies to carry your Vonage conversations over their DSL lines.

Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron says Congress must maintain requirements that the Bells connect their networks to those of their competitors. Otherwise, the Bells would be able to shut out phone calls from other carriers, he says. Vonage depends on links to phone networks to connect many of its calls. ``Anytime you have either one asset that creates a natural technical monopoly or market power, you may need some rules for a little while,'' says Citron.

Vonage Competitors Want Relaxed Rules In Canada, Too

Yesterday, four traditional phone companies in Canada asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to overturn a ruling that these companies feel prevents them from being competitive with companies like Vonage. As it stands now, BCE, Telus, Saskatchewan Telecommunications and Manitoba Telecom Services are not free to set their own price on VoIP service while companies like Vonage can. The phone companies feel this ruling limits their flexibility to compete, and would like that law overturned.

In The Blogs

We read about 15 VoIP and IP-telephony-related Weblogs. Some we read more than others, but we enjoy most of them. Face it, bloggers are opinion-shapers. So today, as we do each Friday, we are going to give you a round-up of what the blogs we read said about Vonage during that week:

Mark Evans of Mark Evans Blog writes about his belief that Packet 8, a leading Vonage competitor, may not be as successful as the fact that they added 16,000 new customers in the first quarter of this year would appear to make them be.

Russell Shaw of the ZDNet IP Telephony blog talks a lot about a new solution being recommended for VoIP security, as well as the extension of the time the FCC is giving Vonage and other companies to hear back from customers that they understand the limitations of E911 service.

Andy Abramson of VoIP Watch writes his thoughts on the announcement this week that Vonage is adding the Motorola adapter, as well as why he thinks that Skype may be becoming a more direct competitor to Vonage.

Rich Tehrani has redesigned his VoIP blog, and is very attractively laid out. More important, he writes at length this week about Vonage and E911- especially that big announcement about TCS, in which E911 calls that cannot be routed directly to an emergency services center will be sent to the TCS call center for routing by a live operator. Rich writes: "This is a major step in the right direction as it ensures that callers are always connected with a live agent. In the event of an emergency, this is exactly what is needed to happen. Hats off to TCS and Vonage for really starting to solve the 911 issue." Read his post here.

On Ted Wallingford's The VoIP Weblog, Ted has an article that comments about, and then links to our own very popular post called I have instructions on how to UNLOCK Linksys PAP2 Adapter.

Tom Keating of VoIP Blog has some thoughtful commentary on the Motorola VT2442 & Vonage deal.

BroadbandReports.com has a post from one user who was attracted by an offer from a VoIP provider whose service sounded cheaper than Vonage- until the reader experienced problems that made it obvious he'd have to fork over some extra money for what he thought were basic services.

Om Malik of Om Malik's Broadband Blog also gives his thoughts on the FCC granting an extension to Vonage and other companies to get all of their subscribers to acknowledge they understand the current limits of E911 service.

Jeff Pulver of Pulver.com announces that Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron will serve on a panel during the Fall VON show in Boston September 19-22. Pulver.com puts on the VON shows.

EriK Lagerway of SIPThat.com blogs about how a future edition of Vonage's SoftPhone could benefit from an upgrade to the VoIP P2P SIP (Peer-To-Peer, Session Initiation Protocol) standard.

On Voxilla, Carolyn Schuck writes about the implications of the FCC telling VoIP providers like Vonage that by August 30, they need to cut off customers that don't respond to the advisories they are sent asking them to acknowledge they don't understand the limitations of E911 over VoIP.

As far as our own site, the Vonage VoIP Forum is as busy as ever. Let's hop over there and read what you are talking about today:

On The Vonage VoIP Forum

Sometimes when there are problems with the Vonage service, you can find out about these issues here on the Forum before even Vonage knows about it. Chances are if one Member reports a problem, and other members quickly post that they are having similar problems as well, you know something up. As a matter of fact, checking the Forums before you call Vonage tech support can sometimes give you a leg up on giving you excellent background information that you can use when you file a thorough report with Vonage's support folks.

This actually seemed to be happening this morning. On a new Vonage VoIP Forum thread named callers hear delay before voicemail starts, new Forum member fotochik writes that callers are hearing a long delay before the voice mails fotochik is leaving for them starts. "I'm concerned that folks are hanging up before they hear my outgoing message," fotochik writes. "Anyone else experience this?"

Forum Members RikMar67, arcking and Laureltn also reported delays in various aspects of their voice mail service.

Turns out they were all correct. This morning, we posted a Vonage Service Status report on the Forum that contained this information from Vonage:

"At this time customers may experience a slight delay while retrieving voicemail. Our engineers are aware of the issues and are working to resolve it as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank for your patience."

On another Vonage VoIP Forum thread called Click-to-Call does not work, new Vonage Forum Member E-Gads (creative name!) writes, "When I attempt to use click-to-call to connect with a third party, it rings my cell phone but not my vonage/home phone. If I answer my cell phone it immediately disconnects without connecting me to the third party. I tried removing all call forwarding/simulring options so that it would be configured generically and it simply does not work (i.e.: does not ring anything)."

Several other Forum Members including SaltAquatics and the always-helpful paul248 have posted questions to E-Gads that they hope will help narrow down the problem. When I checked last, the issue was still being looked into by Vonage tech support. If you have insights as well, feel free to go to that thread and make a post!

I'd like to add that when I saw that post, I decided to make a Poll called "Do you use click-to-call?" If you want to vote in this poll, you'll find it at the very top of the Click-to-Call does not work thread.

That's what's hot about Vonage today. Have a great weekend, and check with us Monday morning for the next edition of the Vonage VoIP Forum Digest!!