Comcast, outbound dropouts, questions - Resolved

Posts: 533 · Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:17 pm Post subject:

Gina516 wrote:

Wow, I'm stunned.... all those stars after the senior forum members names...... they should know these forums are where people come to get help, not to be patronized. Plenty of people have been having problems for months that they're pulling their hair out across all the chat boards. We all loved our SB5120's - they're a kick butt modem - but something changed and there is a problem to be addressed. Had you gentlemen misread or misunderstood that or were you just compelled to post combative remarks in this thread? Being senior members I'd of hoped for more positive insight and input to address these issues - which are quite real.

Quite a few people posted quite a bit to try to help you out. I'm not sure what you interpereted as combatitive or patronizing, but when there are wild claims about "serious problems" and class action lawsuits, without any real data to back any of that up, some people are going to question that.

Posts: 34 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jun 20, 2006 Posts: 34

I am with Gina516 on this one, EZCO. This isn't even really helping anyone!! If you don't have anything else to add ....

Posts: 34 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jun 20, 2006 Posts: 34

sumner wrote:

I am a new Vonage user. Experiencing excellent and clear voice signal inbound. Clear signal on outbound voice, however, frequent drops 3-6 seconds). People tell me that it sounds as the phone is dead. It happens on every conversation.

Did extensive troubleshooting with Vonage tech support. Cable bandwidth seems to be more than adequate. Vonage tech support suggests that its the Motorola SB5120 cable modem, indicating that other Vonage users have had the same problem. Recommended I go to Cox and try to swap out the modem, but Cox said this is the only modem they now offer (although they support many others). I am free to purchase a new modem, and they will provision it.

I ran the Voip test 3 times. Twice got very good data, but once got a 16% packet loss. My worst test results at the bottom of this message.

Has anyone had similar experience, and what was the resolution. Will a switch out of the cable modem correct the problem? Any recommendations on what modems might work best.

Current configuration: Motorola SB5120-->D-Link DI524Router-->D-Link VTA-VD

Thanks.

Voip Test Results:
Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 4183280 bps
Upload speed: 517824 bps
Quality of service: 57 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 122 ms
Average download pause: 8 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 100 ms
Average round trip time to server: 103 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 3.7 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 9.1 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 16.6 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported Voip lines: 6
Estimated MOS score: 3.5

It is interesting how this modem keeps popping up, perhaps their is a problem with the modem, maybe not...

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 20, 2006 Posts: 2

Hello! I have Vonage, and have for almost a year now. It would occasionally mess up on outgoing calls. The dial-tone would cut out three times or so, then you could finally start dialing the number. A few months back, though, whenever my mom was making calls to international numbers, specifically El Salvador, the call quality was horrible.

I called Vonage up. I didn't even consider it was my router or modem. Right now, my service quality has been reduced, along with my speed and happiness with cable, ever since our area was swapped from Comcast to Time-Warner (Road Runner).

Anyway.

I called up tech support, finally, about two months ago, and she did something really simple.. but it worked great. She switched the Linksys PAP (Phone Adapter) I have to Line 2, and Line 1 is disabled. Things have been great since then.

Just thought I'd mention that.

Posts: 31 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 31

Yup, after 4-5 months of battling Comcast - I swapped to a Linksys modem and my phone has been PERFECT since... can also video conference again and do that real time stuff that became impossible after years and years of successful operation. Something to do with the 'new' firmware for the SB51xx's modems, good deal we all found the forums to get sorted out as Comcast will never admit it. They can't appear to fix it and certainly aren't going to the expense of swapping out everyones modems - or ooooh - class action suits owing people for months of inadequate service..... but then they tell you 'they don't support Vonage'.... but if their network ran right - they wouldn't have to would they?

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 20, 2006 Posts: 2

Yeah.

The only thing I *really* can't stand is how easy it is for them to pass the blame to run you around in an infinite circle. However... maybe someone else is passing the blame.

The modems are annoying. Let's face it. It's popular because Comcast or whatever other company gets paid more money to sell more of a specific product. Let's face it--they're a company. Satisfy stockholders first, then the people who actually buy your stuff second.

Now, down here, I don't know what happened, but SpeedBooster went away. Some people complained, saying it was a useless feature. I realize now how much I miss it, and it's hard to say it, but I miss Comcast. Near the end, our relationship was rather disappointing. The prices kept going up, and the service wasn't really changing. Then Time-Warner or whoever came around. My IP address still says gibberish.ipaddress.comcast.net, and Time-Warner sent me a cheesy mailer saying I have RoadRunner and I'm going to be excited...

Except... Comcast offered great speeds. On AVERAGE, not during off-peak hours, but at any hour of the day when I ran a speed test, I easily got 7-8Mbps, the actual speed I'm SUPPOSED to get, and the speed I pay for, more and more, gradually, as the promotions fade away.

Now, I can barely even hit 4 Megs. FOUR.... megs..... per second. The more I read about all of this, the more disappointed I become. I have spent over four hours in the past two days just going from site to site, seeing what the general consensus is, as far as what users think is the problem.

We all have to be more open-minded, otherwise the big companies won't listen to us.

I saved this to a Notepad document to post later (now), and I just was on the phone with Time Warner. I was on hold for almost 26 minutes... at 1 in the morning. The rep. was agreeing with all that I said, and discovered some disturbing things about my account.

1. My cable package is 6Mbits/sec., and not 8Mbit/sec., like I originally signed up for... and now am being charged more for....

2. I am paying $82.99 for the Gold Package, which includes two premium channel groups (HBO and SHO), when, as stated on the contract, in the second year, the price is supposed to be $39.99 instead of $29.99...

Not cool at all... Sorry for getting off topic. Vonage is awesome! Smile

Posts: 31 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 31

Oooooooh, not nice at all.... but all companies do lie. When i worked at the phone company if the party you wished to talk to person to person wasn't there - I had to ask if you'd like to talk to the person who answered instead. Most said yes. I was NOT allowed to tell you it costs the p/p rate of 3 times more than hanging up and dialing yourself. I just booked a Disney vacation and noticed the package price came out too high from what I'd broken down in my head - they slip $119 insurance in to save you a $50 or $100 fee if you have to change of cancel later - take it off. Booked a rental car, they quoted me a Sedan with added insurance i didn't need - I cut that in half by demanding small and no ins.! Bottom line is you have to be on your guard with everyone, speak up and don't give up. Sounds like you have lots of credits to put in for with all their billing 'errors'. So far as speed you should get the package to package difference for credit - but alas - I'm supposed to have 6 and barely get 4 myself - they do have the disclaimer - speeds are NOT guaranteed. We supposedly have the speedthing but I'm not seeing any better pull on downloads at all. It's love/hate to be sure - at one point I was ready to rip every wire off the house and go dish and DSL but there are NO high speed alternatives here - I need power and speed! Keep up the good fight! And check not only here but broadbandforums as well - just the Voip posts are here - over there you'll find everyone else complaining over video conferencing, gaming, VPN etc all from the same problem affecting you.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 13

Comcast is having MAJOR problems here in the NW Suberbs of Chicago, IL. At times the Internet is completely unusable, can't surf, can't make calls, can't ping anything, a few seconds and it comes back fine. This makes Vonage, Xbox Live, and VPN not worth using at all.

Signal from the cable company and modem are fine, as confirmed by a Comcast tech, this IS an upstream router issue.

It's interesting that whenever it goes "out" you can always still hear the person on the other end of the call, but they can't hear you.

There is a thread on dslreports.com confirming the same thing. Comcast is just plain unusable at this point, and it's been going on for days now.

Posts: 159 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 05, 2005 Posts: 159

I can confirm that! I've switched over to Wide Open West. Since then, no problems in the NW suburbs in Chicago!!! Then again I also switched Voip providers too. Smile

No more Vonaged. Working great with Voip!

Posts: 31 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 31

It sad this thread pretty much died off here - there was a super one over broadband forums (dslreports) that was a simple poll for those having the problem we were all experiencing, asking ISP, modem, location and the results were enlightning - and nationwide - anywhere Comcast provides service. If you search my posts you'll find the link to it in one of them. Sadly, I think a lot of folks here gave up, or dropped following the issue once they swapped out their own modem and solved their problem. This started back in April so we've all sorted ourselves by now, I still check in to save people from getting jerked around for 4 months like I did!