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April 19, 2007
By Daniel Connor
Welcome to today's edition of the Vonage VoIP Forum Digest.
Today ‘In the News’ section we will come to know about Vonage’s confidence in taking up the new challenges and would then go straight to the Forum where a new member needs some recommendations on a router problem. Finally comes the daily stock update of Vonage.
In The News
Vonage is facing little competition from the Cable-TV operators. While Vonage provides its services independently, cable TV operators offer their services over their own networks. However, Vonage is quite confident to take challenges from other emerging service providers in the VoIP industry and this upbeat mood is also reflected in the public talks being delivered by the executives at Vonage Holdings Corp.
According to James S. Granelli of the Los Angeles Times, Vonage executives have said that the Company is most likely to announce new technology to bring its basic services to the subscribers. As on December 2006, while the Cable TV companies together have 65% of the market under their control, 23% of the market is held by Vonage alone. Vonage is also expecting more subscribers under its fold as its services are quite economical and aimed for every user. The calling features of Vonage, available with the low-priced service package, allow a subscriber to control calls from his computer.
A subscriber can select his own area code, direct calls to a series of numbers, can send voice messages his e-mail and also carry his phone and telephone adapter with him while on tour. Vonage has an impressive 2.2 million customers as on December end, which was 75% higher than that of a year earlier.
Granelli has also stated that Vonage plans to roll out new calling features by this quarter. The new feature is expected have facility that will allow subscribers to turn voice messages into e-mail text that can be read on computers or cellphones. Vonage also offers high-speed Internet connections in partnership with companies like the EarthLink Inc., and also offers phone service over EarthLink's wireless broadband systems in several cities.
Vonage co-founder Jeffrey A. Citron, 'who is also the Chairman and interim Chief Executive of the Company has recently said in an interview that Vonage had a phenomenal business in the past and established a great plan. He is very optimistic about the future of the Company. "We will compete on a national basis," Citron said. "We don't have to be No. 1 in every market for us to be a very big operator."
Uconn1992, a New Forum Member has started a discussion on a Router and hence he begins a thread titled as, “QOS Recommendations”.
Uconn1992 puts up his query as, “Hi - I currently have a RTP300 Vonage device, configured as a router and connected to my DSL modem. I recently have installed a slingbox and when I am streaming video to an external IP address I have seen a degradation in my VOIP service. I have about 420kb/s upload from my DSL provider (Slingbox can stream up to 400kb/s) and clearly I will need a QOS scheme to remedy the problem.”
He added, “So I'm looking at 2 QOS routers, the DLINK DIR-655 and Linksys WRT150n. Does anyone have any experience with these devices specifically the QOS features? Any recommendations?”
NateHoy as usual recommends helpful information. He says, “I've had good luck with the Linksys WRT54GL and aftermarket firmware, though the built-in stuff isn't half bad either. Just be sure it's the GL, and not the G, that you get. As far as QoS itself, here's a little something I typed up some time ago which may help you with what QoS is, and what it can and cannot do, and why (unfortunately) it doesn't work on your RTP300.
http://vonage.nmhoy.net/qos.html ”.
Mjstraw adds up to this information saying, “Also consider adding a separate QoS unit between your modem and router. The Hawking Tech HBB1, d-link di-102 and a similar unit from Linksys are all based on Ubicom's "stream engine" technology. Can often be purchased inexpensively on ebay or when newegg.com is having a sale.”
Uconn1992 gladly replied, “Your feedback is very helpful, thank you.”
Miked2, a Full Forum Member also tried to help Uconn1922 saying, “In one house, we have the D-Link DI-102; we added Vonage after we already had a router. It works great; no complaints. In our second house, we have the D-Link DIR-635 (which is a predecessor to the DIR-655, thus similar technology). Also works great; no complaints.”
He further added saying, “I've stress tested both in two ways. While my wife is talking on the phone, I've down Internet speed tests that specifically test upload speeds, and the phone doesn't break up. I've also FTP'ed large files to a web site, and the phone did not break up then. Thus, I can recommend either product. I like the DIR-635/DIR-655 best, inasmuch as so long as you buy compatible (read D-Link products in the same family) adapter products, you get really fast wireless speeds, with great range. In our second house, I originally had just a standard 802.11g router, and it was dropping out at the margins of our house due to interference from the neighbors' Wi-Fi. No such problems with the DIR-635 -- though, I did add huge antennas to it in lieu of the existing ones. They're like 14-16 inches in length. I think I can get coverage a few blocks away.”
Hopefully Uconn1922 have earned benefit out of these suggestions.
On Wednesday at New York Stock Exchange, Vonage stock closed at $3.11 a share, which is a dip of 0.20 cents (-6.04%) from Tuesday’s stock price that closed at $3.31 a share. The day’s lowest price was $3.00 and the total number of Vonage shares traded was, 2,146,050.
Once again our Vonage Forum can be reached through vonage-forum.com/forum15.html">this link.
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