Comcast vs. Vonage

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 44

Movado wrote:

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 don't really see where you added any addtional insight from your first post about this. At the risk of being guity of the same, my position is also quite clear. The regulators opinions will change as political pressure from the community changes.

In fairness, the problem seems to have been improved or eliminated over the last two days but I will reserve further comment until it is consistent or misbehaves again.

Posts: 2135 · Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:01 am Post subject:

dconnor wrote:

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...

and again... Slashdot: Comcast Accused of Blocking VoIP

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 2

I'm home all day and have seen no improvement- every call I make or recieve (day or evening) still has dropped audio. I've filed a complaint with the FTC and asked Vonage to return my monthly charge until I have the service I'm paying for. I guess I'll contact the FCC, too...I'm not a complainer, by nature, but this is ridiculous.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 2

Well I have both Vonage and Comcast in Atlanta. I have had a number of issues: call forwarding right to VM, problems with outgoing calls, bad call quality, ringing after someone picks up, and static. Minor issues like static and the ringing, honestly I am prepared to live with for the major reduction in costs. But the recieving and sending calls issues has to be fixed.

I called Vonage twice for support, the one thing that was telling was my uplink speed was very poor, lower than Comcast advertised rate. So I called Comcast support with no mention of VOIP just the uplink speed issue. They stated they were having a number of issues with Internet service and to be patient.

Since then, I have had a few minor issues, no major issues. I have more problems with my cable modem dropping the link with Comcast and needing a reset. The issue there is you don't know it until to attempt to make a call or access the Internet. So you have people calling but unable to get through. I wish there was some way of alerting someone when this link drops.

It a not always the best but considering my service will BellSouth was over $100 a month, I'll take these minor headaches and working with both comapnies to make it better.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 3

I havebeen a Vonage customer for a couple of years now. At first my service was terrible: incoming calls where the phone would not ring, choppy voice due to packet loss, slow Internet connectivity while using the phone. I was able to improve the situation enough to make the phone useable by placing the Vonage box behind my router instead of in front of it and setting the bandwidth to the lowest setting on the Vonage web page. Things improved more when when I bought a DLink 524 router to replace my Linksys WRT54G...and got rid of the 2.4 gHz cordless phone.

Then I switched to WideOpenWest. The problems recurred, and could not be resolved. I ended up using their VOIP service, which was wonderful, if a bit too expensive. It showed me what VoIP can and should sound like.

Since then I have moved to an area that is Comcast-only, still in SW Michigan. In four months I have made only one call where my voice was so choppy I could not be understood. Yeah, people think I'm on a cell phone a lot. Yes, Comcast does offer phone service in my area. Yes, my Internet connection **** from time to time. But I can make and receive phone calls any time of the day or night and be understood.

This is not JUST a Comcast issue. Comcast is just the biggest target.

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

I seek to understand the geographical differences in Comcast support, infrastructure, etc. I have Comcast is PA, and I've had absolutely no problem whatsoever, as compared to the issues in the Midwest. My question is, how can Comcast be so crappy in one part of the country, but be stellar in others? Also, IF they were implementing some sort of "traffic queueing" , why wouldn't ALL Comcast customers see this, instead of just isolated areas of the country? I'm asking because I think we should break this down, and understand how Comcast is organized.

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

Oh, and BTW, how many posts to a topic does it take to make that topic it's own monster. We may have to get a separate domain name for this one topic. Very Happy

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 1

Movado wrote:

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.

Dude, you are so off base it is silly. Obviously you have not paid much attention. The last time this happened to Vonage they complained to the FCC, the cable company was told to stop it, which they did, and then had to pay a fine. There was no "work it out in the marketplace"

As for your analogy for how it is "100% vonage's fault" That is way out in left field. That is like say that it is the US' fault for someone holding you at gun point and you getting shot because the US did not pay a ransom. The fault is the person holding the guns, the greedy person that does not want to just accept the fact they are being paid to provide a service. They want to be paid to provide a service and then get paid by the other end. It would be like if one of the baby bells tries to charge both people for the cost of a long distance call.

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

hmm.. I like the idea of putting my VoIP router behind my LAN router. BUT with the RTP300 it has QOS and I've found it to be problematic when I move it behind my DLink-784. I was told it was due to the QOS on the Linksys. However, I see you can disable QOS now in the 300. Don't believe it was there before. I now have firmware .60. So.. maybe now I can move it behind my DLink?

Any tech thoughts on the QOS? My internet access performs much better when my DLink is behind my cable modem so I'd rather have this option.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:56 am Post subject:

SBMongoos -

I'd give that a try, especially if the DLink actually HAS working QoS.