Comcast vs. Vonage

Posts: 81 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 81

Quote:

It is Vonage that is at 100% fault. If they were to pay up or reach an agreement with Comcast I am sure within minutes the situation would be resolved.

Why should Vonage pay? I pay Comcast for my service and they are preventing ME from passing VoIP traffic. VoIP doesn't use that much bandwidth so they can't say I'm over utilizing. Once Comcast hands off my packets to whatever backbone provider they use, it's out of their hands. Why should Vonage give them money?

Posts: 409 · Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 7:07 pm Post subject:

(d) Service Outages Due to ISP or Broadband Provider Blocking of Ports or Other Acts. Your ISP or broadband provider or other third party may intentionally or inadvertently block the ports over which the Service is provided or otherwise impede the usage of the Service. In that event, provided that you alert us to this situation, we will attempt to work with you to resolve the issue. During the period that the ports are being blocked or your Service is impeded, and unless and until the blocking or impediment is removed or the blocking or impediment is otherwise resolved, your Service, including the 911 Dialing feature, may not function. You acknowledge that Vonage is not responsible for the blocking of ports by your ISP or broadband provider or any other impediment to your usage of the Service, and any loss of service, including 911 Dialing, which may result. In the event you lose service as a result of blocking of ports or any other impediment to your usage of the Service, you will continue to be responsible for payment of the Service charges unless and until you terminate the Service in accordance with this Agreement

This also is in vonages terms of service, make of it as you will.

Posts: 409 · Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 7:18 pm Post subject:

I don't know if that portion was in the original terms or an updated version.

If it was from the original then Vonage knew this issue could or would arise.

Its a chance they took while making sure there company would not be held responsible.

Granted they will work with you if this issue arises.

If all attempts do fail to resolve issues of port blocking ect. with isp providers then as a customer of vonage you are left with two final options. - 1.terminate your isp and take a chance with another. 2.terminate your vonage service

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

"If all attempts do fail to resolve issues of port blocking ect. with isp providers then as a customer of vonage you are left with two final options. - 1.terminate your isp and take a chance with another. 2.terminate your vonage service"

Or how about number 3: Change to ports that AREN'T blocked? I think they do this, don't they?

Posts: 199 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Mar 26, 2005 Posts: 199

Man... what ever happened to provided service that you're paying for. I don't mean to sound like I have my head in the sand but it's sad that blocking service may be taking place. We should simply get what we are paying for. It stinks that you can't make good quality calls. Escpecially if it's business related or what if you need to dial 911 with an emergency call!

That's scary.

Here's something I recently discovered today. I haven't had enough time to see if this will make the difference. I wasn't able to login to my Vonage account earlier to check my Bandwidth Saver settings. I typically have it set to 90k but I know I bumped it down to 50k since my girlfriend has the service to. When we chat on the phone the connection is so loud. So, going 50k seemed to help. HOWEVER, when I was finally able to login this afternoon I noticed the Bandwidth Saver was set to 30k. The lowest. No idea how that happened. So I pushed it all the way up to 90k and even power cycled all my hardware. Remains to be seen. We've both had audio issues while using the internet. That wasn't a problem before. When on the phone people cannot understand us at all if we browse or check email while on the phone!

CID is showing different information these days to. Seems to be related to the firmware. It's been different ever since .60 on the 300 model of the Linksys. I've seen this happend with firmware updates before.

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

You know, the first time one of these lame-brained ISP's are blocking service in the U.S., and they are proven to be blocking, and they block someone's 911 call, I'd hate to be them. Can you say GIGANTIC lawsuit?

Posts: 409 · Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject:

navydavy2001 wrote:

"If all attempts do fail to resolve issues of port blocking ect. with isp providers then as a customer of vonage you are left with two final options. - 1.terminate your isp and take a chance with another. 2.terminate your vonage service"

Or how about number 3: Change to ports that AREN'T blocked? I think they do this, don't they?

I don't know if technical support will work with a customer in respect to changing ports, or if its up to the customer that is knowledgable in doing all that.

I myself am not, I'm on my last try with vonages exec. supports help in getting this isp/vonage issue resolved. If and when another problem with my isp and vonage arises we will work on it knowing my router is brand new (excluding it as an issue).

If my phone starts to disconnect and keeps up after the next issue we are finished. Vonage has exhausted all attempts to resolve with me.= ( I didn't say that because im angry with vonage its a decision that vonage Exec. Support and I came upon.)

Posts: 2135 · Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:51 pm Post subject:

Often certain threads on our forum make the major press, here is a link to this one:
Some Vonage users are frustrated about Comcast connection quality

Many eyes are watching this thread...

Posts: 33 · Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 3:28 am Post subject: Comcast vs, Vonage

Midwest Comcast and Vonage Customer
Motorola SB5100 Cable Modem
Comcast Gold Tier Service
Max 768 Kbps upstream and 25 Mbps down-stream
LinkSys WRTP54G and RTP300-VD routers
Each Router with its' own WAN IP address
One Vonage number on each router

Due to the fact that I have been affected by the intermittent call quality issues along with the many friends and family who I have referred to both Comcast and Vonage, as reported in this thread, I have done extensive testing and analysis of the results and determined that the up-stream from Comcast to Vonage is where the troubles most likely exist.

Due to the rapid growth of the Vonage Customer base capacity issues with Comcast may be the cause and explain the state of the trouble being intermittent. I have read many other theories as to what the trouble may be but the jury is still out and we will never know for sure until Comcast and Vonage work together on these very serious call quality issues. I am hopefully optimistic that this situation will be resolved before some Vonage/Comcast customer/s looses their life due to not being to reach 911 during an emergency.

Forget damage control and finger pointing, we, the paying customers need some answers as to what Comcast and Vonage are doing or have done to correct the trouble/s. Exclamation

Today I didn’t experience trouble with any of my calls!

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Feb 16, 2006 Posts: 27

as I have stated in past threads it is very evident that Vonage and Comcast are well aware of the issue at hand. As a former employee when the issue had first presented itself Vonage was being flooded with calls (6 out of 10 calls would be because of this issue). Vonage knowing there is a proble I am sure is not just sitting on the bench. I read somwhere that test revealed calls made through Vonage devices are routed differently (not blocked) than when using a regular router without vonage. Technically if this is the case then Vonage is not being blocked and Comcast could claim that they needed to restructure thier routes for better performance for thier customers since vonage is causing disturbance on their lines. If this is the case then it is totally up to Vonage to figure out how to make it work right. Also when I was employed at Vonage we were told to tell customers that we Voonage was working on a solution to the issue. So I am sure they know what is happening and clearly have been in contact with Comcast who clearly has told them where to go as per an article on the February 16th where Vonage downplayed the issue at hand saying there was a small cable provider blocking their service quoted by Jeffery Citron. It also stated that complaints were made to various agencies in which Vonage was told that since they have deemed themselves a Data Carrier that THEY (Vonage must work it out in the market place). Therefore the ball is in Vonage court, meaning they will have to do as they are told by the persons who own the lines they ride on in which since the situation has not been resolved leaving only one conclusion - Vonage has no intention of budging and will leave it up to angry,and victims of possible tradgedy to be the determining factor of who will make who do what. I do not see how anyone could not see this any clearer. If it were any other way both sides would be appoligizing and assuring their customers a solution is being worked on which is certainly not the case so what else could really be going on with all that is known.