Frequent Problem: Callers cannot hear us speaking

Posts: 31 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Sep 16, 2005 Posts: 31

Hi,

The Vonage system is becoming really frustrating for my company with the high failure rate of incoming calls. Sometimes it is a case of us being able to hear the customer breathing on the end of the phone but they can't hear us. Other times, we can't hear them but they can hear us.

We work from 3 houses within a 10 mile radius. There is one person in each house. Two houses have a Telewest Cable modem broadband connection and one house has a BT broadband connection. Everyone has 2MB download speed. The upload speed is about 27KB/s.

We all use Linksys RT31P2 routers and the phones are set to ring simultaneously although we have also tried changing the set-up to ring each phone after about 8 seconds.

The other problem we have is, sometimes, when we try to make a call, a recorded American female voice will say: "lines are temporarily busy, please try again later". This suggests to me that the problem is with the Vonage servers that control incoming and outgoing calls and not necessarily the ISP.

Is there anything we can do to reduce the number of failed incoming calls ? If it cannot be solved we will just have to go back to using BT land lines.

Regards,
Mark

Posts: 45 · Full Forum Member Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 45

I would love to say:

"Check your QOS settings" etc etc

but myself and other users have recently had these problems here in the UK.

I have had issues with calls being cut and the one-way audio issues you have described.

Have you raised a support call regarding this...

Keep us all posted if you get anywhere!

It seems as if there is a global problem with this:

http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic10037.html

they seem to having the same issues in the states.

Posts: 110 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 30, 2005 Posts: 110

I have occassionally had this problem; it comes and goes.
Vonage technical support are no help other than suggesting recycling the router. Clearly not much good for the caller who can't get through. Or for me who hasn't got 30 mins to wait for tech support to tell me nothing.

Posts: 31 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Sep 16, 2005 Posts: 31

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. Yes, I have spoken to Vonage tech. support who have been next to useless.

They have either told me to re-boot the Linksys router and the BT and Telewest routers but that has never made any obvious difference.

Whenever I call them I seem to get the same yawning american who has drawn the short straw for the graveyard shift covering the UK.

Posts: 76 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Oct 17, 2005 Posts: 76

Is the Vonage box connected directly to the cable modem?

Out of interest, I'm on Telewest and have never had the one way audio problem. Maybe I just don't use the phone enough to catch it. I also remember reading this on the Vonage site:

RTP (Voice) Traffic: Ports 10000-20000 UDP. When a call is made, a random port between 10000 and 20000 is used for RTP (Voice) traffic. If any of these ports are blocked, you may experience one way or no audio

Posts: 31 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Sep 16, 2005 Posts: 31

Hi Bassplayer,

Thanks for the reply. I think these UDP ports are open by default. However, just in case, I've set up a profile in the router for them.

Regards,
Mark

Posts: 76 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Oct 17, 2005 Posts: 76

Cool. Let us know how you get on. My thinking is that if you've got anything between your Vonage box and the Internet then its a prime candidate for the dropped call problem.

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 27, 2005 Posts: 20

Unless you are using a new equipment set-up then i think that this is simply an intermittent problem with Vonage and any third party equipment is not to blame. My own set-up has been in place and working ok for several months but I have experienced it a great deal in recent weeks together with a problem that if i pick up the phone, although I get a dial tone, when I then dial out the call simply does not connect and I am left hanging. I can then re-dial the same number and it will eventually go through. Over the last few weeks i would estimate that I have had one or other of these problems on about 50% of calls. I have tried all the usual - re-booting the linksys device, my own router etc... but the problem persists. Generally the quality of Vonage's UK service seems to be deteriorating - at least for me - and I will have to think long and hard about whether I will continue with this product when i move shortly.

Posts: 7 · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:47 pm Post subject: Incoming

I have the same issue in the states which started this week.. All outgoing calls are very clear. ~50% of incoming calls are like real bad cell phone connections (but coming in from POTS and Cell lines). Tech support blows me off!

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 07, 2005 Posts: 9

Hi Symes

I'm getting exactly the same problems you describe and have been for the last couple of weeks. It really is hopeless as I'm using the line for business.
Vonage need to sort out their act if they want to keep business customers - right now the line is only fit as a kiddies plaything.

Does anyone have a tip for another UK Voip provider that offers the same functionality as Vonage but with a mature system? This is my main issue - when I researched the market about 4 months ago I couldn't find a suitable competitor offering a system with the same features that works without the PC being kept on.