Motorola VT2442 Ear splittingly loud inbound

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 09, 2006 Posts: 6

Just received the VT2442 last week. At first was running it downstream of a Netgear Router. Incoming our outgoing calls ...the earpiece volume is deafening even at the lowest setting. I then moved it so that it's the main router off the cable modem...same problem. Called Vonage and waited the obligatory 20 minutes. Mentioned turning down the volume internally on the VT2442. Ten minutes later the guy is back saying it is done. It seemed better for a few days. It's now back to the point I have to hold the receiver way away from my head to avoid ear drum damage. Changing phones has not helped.

Using Adelphia cable. Upload is 4425kbps, download 433kbps through speakeasy. The connection is rock solid and always consistent - it is not the problem.

What to do? I'm at the point of cancelling and getting my money back unless something can be done. Is there a firmware update or some other setting that can correct this problem? Otherwise the phone and service is useless.

Thanks

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject:

the setting is controllable only by Vonage as you can see. they don't allow access to the inner workings to end users. something evidently happened to reset your settings. you can call them again and hope it doesn't recur too soon. actually you're pretty lucky you got it taken care of so quickly, on the first call no less.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 09, 2006 Posts: 3

I am having this problem on my VT2442 also. I will attempt to phone Vonage tomorrow to get it taken care of, but I really hate spending the 3 hours talking to the morons in Bangladesh.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 09, 2006 Posts: 6

I wonder if it's a systemic problem with this unit. It's enough to make me cancel and never go back to internet phones. It's totally unusable, and like some of you have said I'm far less than impressed with the ridiculous wait times on hold for subpar tech support. I had to tell the guy what to do based on what I read here, otherwise his only solution was to turn the handset volume down.

For $34.00 I have a hunch the Verizon Voicewing service will work more effectively.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 09, 2006 Posts: 6

Oh well, close to 1 hour waiting on hold. 30 minutes with customer care, than 20 minutes waiting for "technical" support that involves them switching the active line to Port 2. I cannot believe that will make any difference whatsoever.

Looks like I'm cancelling and I cannot recommend Vonage to anyone. The customer service is attrocious, the Technical Support uninformed, and the entire process excruciating.

There were several problems from the start:

1. I can't dial a number quickly..aka, like using a redial button as Vongage doesn't register the numbers in time and rings a fast busy.

2. The first 1-2 seconds of every call is loaded with static then rapidly clears, but it's useless for calling people that don't know you as they immediately think it's some type of telemarketing.

3. Unreliable calling to certain extensions.

Overall, I give it a D-. F would be only if it didn't work at all.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 09, 2006 Posts: 3

11:34AM Alright, trying to contact Vonage right now to fix the loud volume issue on the VT2442. Other issues I'm having that I Will attempt to get fixed on this call are:

1. My caller ID isn't showing up when I call people and
2. When I reset the box, (either in the software or pulling the plug) it loses my Port Forward Settings

Note on the loud volume issue: it seems that people on land lines call me and are at a more normal volume, the real problem is when I get called from a cell phone or call a cell phone.

11:35AM Sick of the "Press # system, I pressed 0 to get an operator.

11:37AM 2 minutes on hold listening to Musak, Got someone in India, allegedly called Joseph who I am certain will not be able to help me. Requested transfer to Level 2 support.

11:38AM The joker in India finally transferred me to L2 support, after my explaining that I already know he won't be able to help me and giving him my account info. Only had to spend 1 minute with him, not bad... back on hold.

11:48AM Still on hold waiting for level 2 support. Time to read /. news. Funny, /. news has an article about Voip Cell phones coming soon. Ironic?

11:52AM Got Roger, clearly an American. Hopefully, he will be the MAN!

12:06PM Roger changed some settings on his end, and the call definitely got softer, but not quite soft enough. He's changing the Volume again.

12:12PM Roger reset the volume even lower and VOILA, it's perfect. He set the RX GAIN to -7 and the RX Gain ANALOG to -38. He is starting a system ticket so that all of the Vonage people will know what the deal is with the VT2442 and is motioning Vonage-Forum as a reference source.

12:23PM Apparently Vonage has policy that they can only help you in L2 support for half an hour. So here's the status, My Call Volume is perfectly normal now, and my Port Forwarding settings are miraculously fixed (this may have had to do with the fact that I had 3 separate voice gateways in the system so none of them were provisioning right).

The only problem I have left is my outbound-caller-id not showing up when I call people. Sadly, Roger had to transfer me away because of the stupid Vonage 1/2 hour policy. You'd think that a business customer could get a little better support, but here I am, back on hold, waiting for some random person to pick up the phone to help me with my caller-id problem.

12:34PM Still on hold with no idea where I'm going. So, one hour and most of my issues are fixed, not bad. Not all that great, but not bad. Back to the /. news.

12:45PM Don't know what's going on with the hold, but I'm betting someone in India can actually solve my little caller-id problem and that I don't really need to be on hold. Hanging up.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 09, 2006 Posts: 6

My probably definately related to cellular users as well. It was MUCH worse taking calls from or speaking with cellular callers.

Unfortunately for me I got someone at Tech 2 that thought it was a bad phone port. I asked straight up how that could possibly effect volume but gave up after a minute or two. I'm not sure I'll bother giving Vonage another shot. This was a simple fix, I had to tell the first Tech 2 I got a week ago, and today neither Tech 1 or Tech 2 had ANY clue what the heck I was talking about. Pretty sad when a 5 day old Vonage customer knows more about their product than their supposed crack tech teams.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 09, 2006 Posts: 3

If you call them back, just have them set the RX GAIN to -7 and the RX Gain ANALOG to -38. Then you'll be all set. The biggest problem is that you wound up in the initial rollout of the VT2442. It's an early adopter thing. Just like software, there are bound to be problems.

Anyhow, hope you can get it working, I've been on Vonage since early '03 and love everything about thier service except thier L1 support being in India.

-S

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:33 pm Post subject:

schatley's right on this one -- the VT2442 is brand new, hasn't even been out for a full month (that I'm aware of). Unfortunately, "beta testing" with consumer products anymore isn't done and they figure they'll just release firmware updates (if the VT2442 takes them? the VT1005 doesn't) and hope for the best.

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:58 am Post subject:

where did you get that information from? there are several posts with references to different firmware versions of the mta on this site, and there's also mention of it at vonage.com
http://vonage.com/help.php?article=122