Comcast vonage dispute

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 10, 2006 Posts: 1

I scored a 2.9 on this test. I wonder where my problem lies.

6% packet discards. .8% packet loss.

Ouch.

-Bill-

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: May 10, 2005 Posts: 3

I had this problem for a few months. I can hear people no problem. They tell me I sound like Im calling from a cell in a bad area constant cut outs and such. The only way I was finally able to resolve the problem was to lower my Vonage quality to the lowest and add the $10 comcast speed tier to get the higher upstream bandwidth. Without the higher tier my testyourvoip was 2.1/4. With it is now 3.5/4.4.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:43 pm Post subject:

Comcrap strikes again, eh?

I haven't experienced any connectivity issues, but I've been on my Verizon DSL connection for the past week. Smooth sailing here so far.

Posts: 17 · Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 7:54 am Post subject:

It has been smooth sailing for me here in NJ on Comcast. Except for some caller ID problems, no name showing up on some calls.

Posts: 276 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 276

Living in Du Page County and having Comcast, I've had no problems whatsoever, knock on wood. In fact, a couple months ago I got Comcast to up my speed to 8 megs and lower my monthly bill to $29.99 for this, without me even being a cable TV customer. Not bad for just having their Internet service.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:15 pm Post subject:

oh man, I wish... Comcrap charges $45/mo (pre-tax) for a 5M/384kbps pipe down here and that's if you're a cable customer. I wouldn't feel AS bad about the bad service if it was "only" $30/mo.

Posts: 276 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 276

There's no need to pay anywhere near that amount. You can get it lowered with a little persistence, believe me.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 12:22 am Post subject:

Please do tell... there's no competition in this area and Sprint charges the same for a 1.5M/384kbps connection.

Posts: 1

I'm new to Vonage (one week) and am having similar problems as others in this forum with outgoing voice quality. I am able to hear people just fine, but they say that words and dropped and connection is very bad. I have Bandwidth Saver set to Highest on my Vonage account, but clearly that's not helping.

Here's my hardware & ISP info:
NetGear WGT624 Wireless Router
Linksys Vonage PAP2 Phone Adapter
D-Link DCM-202 Cable Modem
Comcast Cable HighSpeed Internet

After reading a post about Comcast maintenance in the Chicago area, I ran the test from speedtest.vonage.com and got a 1.3Mbps download result. Ran it a few minutes later and got 3.6Mbps. Just ran it again and got 1.94Mbps. Pretty inconsistent.

I also ran a test on TestYourVOIP.com and got the following results:
MOS Analysis From You TO Boston:
3.4/5.0
(Best with G.711 is 4.4)

Degradation Sources
Codec 0.58.35.4%
Latency 0.11.6.9%
Packet Discards 0.94.57.7%
Packet Loss 0.00.0.0%

Round Trip Latency -- 248ms

Packet Discards -- 4.5%

Packet Loss -- 0.0%

Loss Periods
Min: 100Ms
Avg: 160 ms
Max: 220 ms
Burst Loss

Jitter
Min: 0 ms
Avg: 10 ms
Max: 121 ms

Signaling Quality
Post-Dial Delay: 110 ms
Call Setup Tim: 125 ms
Media Delay: 282 ms

MOS Analysis FROM Boston To You
4.4 / 5.0
(Best with G.711 is 4.4)

Degradation Sources
Codec 0.57.89.7%
Latency 0.07.10.3%
Packet Discards 0.00.0.0%
Packet Loss 0.00.0.0%

Round Trip Latency -- 248ms

Packet Discards -- 0.0%

Packet Loss -- 0.0%

Loss Periods
Min: 0Ms
Avg: 0 ms
Max: 0 ms
No Loss

Jitter
Min: 4 ms
Avg: 6 ms
Max: 12 ms

Signaling Quality
Post-Dial Delay: 149 ms
Call Setup Tim: 129 ms
Media Delay: 184 ms

Not really sure where to troubleshoot next. The three times so far that I've used my Vonage phone (and had complaints from call recipient each time about sound quality), I was downloading files using BitTorrent. I know that's taking up bandwidth, but wondering if that's the sole culprit. The fact that broadband tests bring back unsatisfactory results points to either Comcast or to my router setup. My router is locked down and I rarely use the wireless feature -- my main computer is a desktop with a direct ethernet connection to the router.

Can anyone with more experience advise me on what to do? Do I go after Comcast? Do I play around with my router? Do I get rid of Vonage while I still can?

Posts: 276 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 276

VonageTPA wrote:

Please do tell... there's no competition in this area and Sprint charges the same for a 1.5M/384kbps connection.

Every friend or relative who has done this has been successful.

Call Comcast's customer retention #. If you don't have it, call their main # and choose the option to cancel your high-speed service. When a rep. gets on the line, tell them you have received information from Verizon that they are offering you fiber optic high speed Internet at a much lower cost.

Tell Comcast you can get service as good as theirs, or even better, for much less than what you're paying now, and that you do not wish to continue with them at your current price.

How you word your conversation is up to you, but don't just call and ask them to lower your bill. Make them think you're going somewhere else and they'll lower it.

I did this last summer and they lowered my Internet bill to $29.99/mo. for 6 months. Then after the 6 months were up, the price went up again, so I called back to complain. They credited me the difference in the increase and renewed my pricing for another 6 months. In fact, the rep. told me to call back in another 6 months to continue the same "special price."

FYI, their monthly bill for Internet service alone, with no cable, runs around $60-$65. If one has cable, it's $45. I don't have their cable--never did--but I pay $29.99/mo. for their Internet service and am very happy with it.