Vonage VoIP Forum Digest - April 30, 2007

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April 30, 2007

By Daniel Connor

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

Today in the news we will come to know about how companies like Vonage can offer better utilities to consumers for their bigger operational size, and then on the forum we will discuss a thread by a new member who wants advice on going mobile with Internet access and phone. This will be followed by the Vonage stock price update.

In The News

Bigger the Operational Size, Better the Utility

For companies offering essential services, the size and scale of their operations are among the most significant factors for success in the long run. Since the time when electricity, natural gas, communications and water became mass-distributed services, companies spread their operations enormously to become more profitable. In this subject a recent Article by Roger Conrad published in The Market Oracle, a leading online daily Financial Markets Forecasting & Analysis publication provides greater insight. Conrad has shown how companies like AT&T and General Electric emerged as leaders in their fields since the first days of essential services.

Vonage, the most admired VoIP service company in the country, has also emerged a leader in its field by scaling up its operations and following a well-planned marketing strategy. Established in January 2001, the company has been able to acquire a subscriber base of over 2.4 million within a short span of six years, making it one of the most successful companies ever in the US telecommunications sector. By increasing its operational size Vonage also offers its services at the most economical rates to its customers. According to Amole Sharma and Dionne Secrecy of the online Wall Street Journal, Vonage said it benefits consumers by providing competition.

In addition to providing economical services to VoIP users, Vonage had also adopted its advertising strategy whereby it educates the users about VoIP and its benefits. As Damian Clarkson of the Every investor, an online independent financial journal reports, Vonage has recognized that a lot of people still view VoIP as intimidating and technical, and so designed its product to work just like a normal landline, making it ideal for the technophobes out there. Consumers can often benefit from companies that has bigger operational size and has worked toward consolidation of its operation.

In The Vonage VoIP Forum

Cheezehed, one of the new forum members, required some advice, as she was about to go mobile. On this context she started a new thread titled, "Need Mobility, can use some advice".

Cheezehed stated the query as, "Hi guys, we're about to live full time in a Motorhome and want Internet access plus telephone. Would it work to have a Sprint wireless card for our laptop or PC and then Vonage for the phone? I've been reading about the issues with Vonage, so I'll be watching that closely. I understand it wouldn't be available where there's no coverage but it seems like the best bet. Just curious if it will work."

Nicegurl was the first person to reply cheesehed. She said, "i believe Vonage still works with that however you'll be needing the v phone since its a wireless connection". Cheezehed concluded that night saying, "Thanks I will look into it tomorrow, we only have a few days to decide". Xcrunxc the Vonage Forum Evangelist replied, "With a wireless EVDO card like that keep in mind that Vonage will most likely not be supporting this setup from what I have seen. Also, with a card like that latency(internet delay) is a fairly large issue as is lack of adequate bandwidth. If you already have the card I would run the forum VoIP speed test and post the results here so we can take a look and see if you are getting sufficient stats to have a good quality Vonage setup. I would even go so far as to point you toward some of the Vonage with satellite threads across the forum, as this is the closest comparison to an EVDO card that is talked about in detail on the forums".

Cheezehed after running the speed test posted, "Hi guys I ran the speed test and here are the results: Download 930,144 bps Upload 151,320 bps QOS 83% RTT 258 ms MaxPause 156 ms Now our biggest problem is how to connect since it's a USB aircard ... dunno, we're perplexed lol. Card is Sierra Wireless Aircard 595U Thanks again, Penny". Xcrunxc following the speed test put up by cheesehed replied, "Those speeds look ok to support one single call, might have problems with the upload on call waiting or 3-way calls(each call uses 90kbps, second call doubles to 180kbps and so on). The max pause and especially round trip time are relatively high. This might cause some audio issues for you, I would need to see the full results though that include jitter and MOS scores. Re-run the test if you would and make sure you get the full results, which are under the advanced tab".

He added, "As for the connection, this is why a V-Phone was recommended. It is a software based phone. The software comes installed on a USB drive, you plug it into your computer and it loads up and you see a dialpad on your computer screen. It comes with basically a standard cellphone headset with mic. This would not require any advanced config to hook it up, it would be working right out of the box. Now, if you really want a standard phone adapter you can do that too, however this solution will be more complex and prone to failure. In windows there is an option called Internet Connection Sharing(ICS). This allows you to share an active connection from one network interface on your computer to another. So, theoretically you could enable that on your EVDO card, have it shared to your wired ethernet port of the computer and plug a standard Vonage adapter in there. This will definitely take some tweaking to get it set up correctly though".

Cheezehed re-ran the test an enlisted the result, "Thanks it does look like a Vphone would be our best bet. I reran the test to get you the full results, of course it will change as we move around but we're prepared to deal with no service occasionally. --------------------- Download speed: 943552 bps Upload speed: 260416 bps Quality of service: 76 % Download test type: socket Upload test type: socket Maximum download pause: 203 ms Average download pause: 35 ms Minimum round trip time to server: 307 ms Average round trip time to server: 1301 ms VoIP test statistics -------------------- Jitter: you --> server: 16.9 ms Jitter: server --> you: 11.8 ms Packet loss: you --> server: 1.8 % Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 % Packet discards: 0.0 % Packets out of order: 0.0 % Number of supported VoIP lines: 4 Estimated MOS score: 3.5". Nicegurl after a long interval said, "That's great news cheezehed. Hope vonage will work you".

Cheezehead seems to be satisfied with the help gained online as she said, "Picked up the Vphone yesterday, and it works okay. Best part was that Bestbuy had som e kind of $40 instant savings so it was free". This week along with Xcrunxc, roscopco was very helpful for all the new members who came up with big or small issues on the forum. "Where to buy VT2542' posted by Birdie was replied by roscopoco. He also gave helpful information to Rebus and Kabla21.

Vonage Stock Report

On Friday, at the New York Stock Exchange, Vonage stock closed at $3.11 a share, which is a dip of 0.28 cents (-8.26%) from Thursday's closing price, $3.39 a share. The day's lowest price was, $3.11 per share. The total number of Vonage shares traded was, 2,703,900.

Once again our Vonage Forum can be reached through vonage-forum.com/forum15.html">this link.

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