Vonage VoIP Forum Digest - May 16, 2007

May 16, 2007

By Daniel Connor

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

Today in the news we will come know about the new growth road that Vonage is about to take up and would then go to the forum where a member queries about the outgoing call qualities. As usual we shall conclude reading the Vonage stock price update.

In The News

Vonage Holdings on new growth road

As Wal-Mart expands its Skype Calling options, Vonage Holdings Corporation stands to gain from a larger user base.

The expansion of the Skype calling options by Wal-Mart along with launch of the prepaid Skype cards and Skype hardware products will, in turn, help Vonage and the VoIP Industry, to step further, as opined by Brian White writing for Bloggingstocks.

As Brian White puts in Bloggingstocks, both Skype (and Wal-Mart) and Vonage are set for growth, that chiefly rests on the expansion of customer base by making broadband internet connection facilities available to larger internet user community.

Brooke Schultz, the Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications for Vonage adds, "Vonage is definitely looking at getting into new offerings". The company hopes to unveil a dual-mode phone by the year end. It has also rolled out 700- number services, which subscribers can call to receive and forward news headlines and weather information, reports Kelly M. Teal writing for New Telephony.

In The Vonage VoIP Forum

A New Forum Member begins a new thread titled, 'Newbie here, choppy outgoing call quality'. Kwickone seeks help saying, "I use my Vonage line as a home office line. As such I am having calls with clients on a regular basis. During these calls I also use my computer for Live Meeting presentations. I am experience choppy outgoing quality ( e.g., I get consistent comments on how bad it sounds and "could you repeat that"). I am live in the Denver metro area, and use Comcast Cable as my provider. My layout is as follows:

Internet --> ARRIS TM50G (Comcast Cable Modem) ---> Checkpoint/Zonealarm Z100G Wireless Router --> Motorola VT1005V (Vonage Device) NOTE: Our home line is Comcast Digital Voice and we have no complaints on that line, but that comes directly off the TM50G device. I am guessing it is either the Router settings or the VT1005V. Any initial thoughts?"

He continued adding "Speed test statistics --------------------- Download speed: 1459816 bps Upload speed: 365616 bps Quality of service: 96 % Download test type: socket Upload test type: socket Maximum download pause: 57 ms Average download pause: 9 ms Minimum round trip time to server: 98 ms Average round trip time to server: 134 ms

VoIP test statistics -------------------- Jitter: you --> server: 11.6 ms Jitter: server --> you: 12.8 ms Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 % Packet loss: server --> you: 0.4 % Packet discards: 0.0 % Packets out of order: 0.0 % Number of supported VoIP lines: 6 Estimated MOS score: 3.6"

Bmerdinian replied to the thread saying, "The first thing to do is to log o Vonage's site and lower the voice quality to 60 or 30, probably you are on 90 that give you less usage for the Bandwith, other than that, check your internet speed, when you are using the Vonage phone or any other Voip service + you are using your PC with the Data flow that you have depeneds on the up and down stream, so the more you use or if you use video on your PC the less your Vonage phone will have to use. Got the point? message or PM back if you need help"

Steve48 also tried to give add some suggestions by saying, "Kwikone, basically your test results are good but not stellar. Do you experience these issues if you don't use the computer during the call? If not, then you may be running into a bit of a bandwidth limitation. Does the Z100G have any QoS capability? If so, set it up to strongly favor the VT1005. How about cordless phones? A 2.4 GHz cordless can cause problems with the wireless router."

Kwickone concluded saying, "Thanks for the replies guys. No 2.4GHz phones. I have set the Bandwidth to 50, vs default 90. And I will check out if the Z100G can handle QoS. If I notice anything significant, I will post back here for others to find on searches."

Vonage Stock Report

On Tuesday, at the New York Stock Exchange, Vonage stock closed at $3.16 a share This is a dip of 0.19 cents (5.67%) from that of Monday's closing price of $3.35 a share. The lowest price on Monday was $3.12 a share and the total number of Vonage share traded was 1,729,100.

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.