Vonage VoIP Forum Digest - May 12

In the news, we'll see what Vonage's stance is about turning customer calling records over to the U.S. government. We'll also catch up on Vonage's E911 progress. Today is Friday, the day for our popular In The Blogs Feature. We'll also go over a Vonage VoIP Forum thread from one user about what they perceive to be seemingly unnecessary, automatic and repeated downloading of Vonage firmware.

In The News

Vonage: No Call Records Without a Subpoena

In light of the news that some phone companies have been supplying calling records of its customers to government agencies, Vonage has said they do not do so without a court order. "Our position on this issue as it relates to Vonage is pretty clear. We don't supply any government authority with call record data or any sensitive customer information without a subpoena, "a Vonage spokeswoman told USA Today.

Vonage Adds More Counties to E911

Vonage has announced that in less than three weeks, it has equipped an additional 200 locally-run emergency call centers, in over 70 counties, with E911 -. bringing the total number of calling centers with emergency 911 service to over 4500.

"In just the past month we have turned on E911 service in over 690 PSAPs and 175 counties," says Jeffrey A. Citron, Vonage's chairman and chief strategist. "Vonage will continue to work with the FCC, regulators, Congress and public safety until PSAPs across the nation are equipped with E911."

A list of the counties to which Vonage has added E911 capability appears here on the Vonage Forum at this address: http://www.vonage-forum.com/article2708.html.

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, we are going to give you a round-up of what the blogs we read have said about Vonage recently.

Here's what the VoIP bloggers have been writing about:

Andy Abramson of VoIP Watch writes about Vonage offering shares to customers as part of its Directed Share Program. 'Vonage is offering shares the day trading starts to their customers of record as of February, 2006," Andy writes. "It's not the first time I have heard of this concept, but it is clearly a way to make their stock somewhat more in demand.

On David Isenberg's isen.blog, makes several posts in which he reinforces his strong reputation as a net neutrality advocate- as is Vonage.

Preston Gralla of Networking Pipeline gives his opinion on how Vonage has been marketing its Directed Share Program to its customers.

Jeff Pulver of Pulver.com describes his travels to several trade shows in different parts of the world this week. Last week he linked to an article in which actress Alyssa Milano supports net neutrality.

Om Malik of Om Malik's Broadband Blog writes that he thinks that Vonage adding 283,000 subscribers in the first three months of this year is a competitive blow against traditional phone companies.

Tom Keating of VoIP Blog gives high marks to the Uniden UIP1869V Vonage phone system. "It is a very feature-rich and capable phone system," writes Tom. "In fact, of all the multi-handset wireless handset phone systems I have looked at, the Uniden UIP1869V is the system I would now choose for my own use, had I not already recently purchased the Uniden TRU-8885-2 anywhere in the world at a flat-rate."

Mark Evans of the Telecom .. and Tech blog (he's from Canada, which is a northern country, and writes more posts about telecom and tech) writes what he thinks about Vonage's Directed Share Program. Although Mark has some issues with the overall Vonage IPO, he calls the Directed Share Program "a brilliant marketing move because it offers Vonage's valued customers the opportunity - at least in theory - to cash in after the shares start trading."

Russell Shaw of the ZDNet IP Telephony blog writes his opinions on how Vonage has been marketing its directed share program to customers.

Paul Kapustka of the Paul Kapustka blog seems to equate several phone companies handing over customer calling records to the U.S. government with what he perceives as the fact that you cannot be convinced these companies will follow the objectives of net neutrality without legislation mandating that they do so.

Ken Camp of the Realtime-VoIP offers his assessment of the Vonage Directed Share Program.

Rich Tehrani of VoIP Blog mentions the Vonage Directed Share Program.

Cynthia Brumfield of IP Democracy admits that she has mixed feelings about the Vonage Directed Share Program, and the way the company is marketing it.

On Ted Wallingford's The VoIP Weblog, he doesn't write about Vonage this week, but he recently compared broadband Internet access providers that want to drive up the price of broadband to oil companies and what they are charging for gas these days.....

One of my favorite new blogs is written by Jack Decker. In his Michigan Telephone, VoIP and Broadband Blog (which isn't limited to Michigan-related telecom issues, by the way), he sounds a bit skeptical about the trustworthiness of phone companies to maintain equal access standards if there is no net neutrality legislation.

From time to time, we like to feature interesting and entertaining posts from Blogs that are not necessarily about VoIP, but mention Vonage. On a new untitled blog I just found, called Gizmo Of The Day, blogger Chief Gizmateer writes about the Uniden VoIP Phone System that works with Vonage service. "If you have a cable Internet connection or DSL at your home or business, you can use your constant broadband connection as a telephone line to call anywhere in the world," he writes. "The growing Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service allows you to access the Internet and make phone calls simultaneously. The Uniden VoIP Phone System uses Vonage service to connect you to any phone in the world with excellent low rates, even for international calls. Ideal for a home or small business, this phone set comes with a base handset and an extension, and once the base is connected to your broadband line, up to eight additional handsets (sold separately) can be connected, plugging only into an AC outlet." Here's the link to Chief Gizmateer's post.

On The Vonage VoIP Forum

"I've just got a new Vonage Wi-Fi F1000 phone in and when I switch it on, while my router has MAC Filtering on, the phone connects to the router and then downloads firmware and restarts every time," snowflakes writes. "When I switch MAC Filtering off it does the same once and then works fine. Did anyone experience such a problem? Or might it be from my DSL Provider?"

"When you turn on a Vonage provided WiFi phone, it will go to the Vonage config server and download your config information - same as the Vonage TA's. If the config file it downloads is different from the original config detail in the phone (guaranteed if it is a new phone since everything would have been defaulted), then the phone reboots to use the new settings," he writes. "When it starts up again, it gets the file again - but this time it should match."

"There is one case where the phone will continually download config information and reboot -- if the config file waiting for you on the Vonage server has an error in it that is outside the allowed range for the phone (like having "a" in a field that wants 0 or 1), then the new file will never match and the phone will always reboot," he explains. "If the AP puts in TFTP blocking as well as MAC filtering, then the config file is not downloading and the phone is running with what it had from the last time - with the errant setting returned to the default."

He then asks snowflake, "is it possible that you are blocking access to the config server in addition to MAC filtering?"

As we close out today's Digest, I'd like to remind you once again 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.

Vonage VoIP Forum Digest - May 12 - 14, 2006

In The News

In The Blogs

On The Vonage VoIP Forum