Vonage, TiVo, and Alarm Success !

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 20

After a year of struggling with Vonage, 2 TiVOs, and my alarm, I got rid of my Linksys PAP2 Phone Adaptor and replaced it with a D-Link VTA-VR Phone Adaptor and a D-Link DI-102 Broadband Accelerator and all my problems went away. Everything is working perfectly now ! Read on for details.

Equipment:
DirecTV HD TiVo (HR10-250)
DirecTV TiVo (Samsumg)
ADT Alarm System (Ademco box, 12 years old)

Old Setup
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I got Vonage a little over a year ago. I got a LinkSys PAP2 Phone Adaptor that lasted about a month before dying. It was replaced by another one that was DOA, and then replaced with a third one. The third one died last week. Three Linksys devices going bad in a year, and my other experiences with LinkSys, has me a strong believer that LinkSys is total crap and I will never buy another product.

Vonage phone service has been fair. Many times I hear echo and my wife doesn’t really considerate it that useable. Sometimes it’s good sometimes it’s not. My alarm seemed to work pretty reliably and I guess that it’s because it’s 12 years old and has a slow modem.

My TiVos have been a problem. I spent a lot of time reading discussion board and trying things and finally settled on settings such as:

Phone Number: 212-277-3895
Dialing Prefix: 12122773895
Call Waiting Prefix: *70,,#019,,

My Direct TV HD TiVo (HR-250) would make about one successful call in about 7 tries. My Direct TV TiVo (Samsung) would make one successful call in about 15-20 tries. The TiVos also try to call a DirecTV 800 number, but with the dialing prefix it would try to call the 212 number instead. This would mean about 20 calls per day trying to get to the DirecTV 800 number that never succeeded. Since I have the 500 minute Vonage plan I had to keep my TiVos unplugged until I got nagged enough to call. I also could not order Pay Per View via the remote even if I plugged the phone line in.

In summary, I have fair phone service, my TiVO could not reliably call in even using the 212 phone number, I could not order Pay Per View, and I had to keep the phone line unplugged from the TiVos all the time.

New Setup
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With the 3rd LinkSys PAP2 dying and since LinkSys is crap, I set out to find another phone adaptor. I found the D-Link VTA-VR Phone Adaptor and got it at Comp USA for $49. In my research I found a device called a Hawkings HBB1 Broadband Booster that is supposed to help Voip performance. I looked into it and it sounded interesting. I found that there is also the new D-Link DI-102 Broadband Accelerator that does the same thing. I thought about getting one of these and leaned toward the D-Link DI-102 Broadband Accelerator because I was getting the D-Link VTA-VR Phone Adaptor but they cost like $50-$80 and got mostly good but mixed reviews. When I went to CompUSA to get the
D-Link VTA-VR Phone Adaptor several days ago I saw that they have the D-Link DI-102 Broadband Accelerator on a Manager’s Special for $39. I bought them both.

I hooked up D-Link devices and started testing. The phone now sounds great. I have not heard any echo, static, etc, so far. My wife said the phone is not great for calling her mother long distance.

The alarm works fine and I noticed that the time it took to communicate with the ADT central office was about ¼ as long. ADT called me back much quicker.

Now for the TiVo. Both TiVos were able to make a successful call first time every time. I had no failures on either TiVo for about 5 calls each. They worked first time and they were fast !

I then went one step farther and tried to see if I could dial a load number with my TiVos. I took out the dialing prefix and call waiting and tried a local number. That worked too ! So, my current TiVo settings are:

Phone Number: 443-583-XXXX
Dialing Prefix: (none)
Call Waiting Prefix: (none)

So that means my Vonage line is working just like a normal phone line. The phone sounds great. My alarm works great. I have both TiVos connected all the time and they call in perfectly every time and I can use the local number with no extra dialing options. I can keep both TiVo connected all the time without having it use up my 500 minutes by trying to call DirecTV 20 times a day. And, I can once again order Pay Par View via the remote control which I have not been able to do for a year.

Right now I’m 100 times happier with Vonage. I’m not sure if the improvement came from the D-Link VTA-VR Phone Adaptor replacing the crappy LinkSys PAP2, the addition of the D-Link DI-102 Broadband Accelerator, or both.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 08, 2006 Posts: 7

HMMMM interesting, I have Directv and I have used all the phone number tricks in the book and I unplugged the units from time to time since they kept trying to dial out when I was on the phone. Eventually it led to the Pay Per View not working and has all the same symptoms you are describing.

I recently upgraded my cable to a better upload package and switched routers to my old reliable Dlink DI-614+ from the DI-624 and all of them have eliminated most of the echo on the Vonage, but no change to the Tivo repeated dialing issue as expected.

So was it the new phone adapter or the booster that REALLY fixed the issue? I am curious to know since I don't think I need any type of signal booster, I can test 99% QoS using the Voip test above with my current setup.

THANKS for the info and any additional you can provide!

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 20

I should have followed up.

1) I returned the booster. It didn't seem to to anything.

2) I forgot that a month or so ago Comcast doubled my upload speed from 384K to 768K. I didn't think to test Vonage until my Linksys adaptor died.

So, it's probably some the new D-Lilnk Phone Adaptor and more the faster upload speed.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 08, 2006 Posts: 7

Good to know thanks for the info.

My upload is 865 solid so I am pretty sure that helped me also since I am noticing less echo during calls.

The adapter must've fixed the Tivo modem connection issue. I have the HD10-250 also and have been looking for a solution to this madness. So you're not using any filters or anything on the line. Just a plain connection from the Tivo to the Phone adapter?

With your Vonage account - how did you change the device on your account?

THANKS!

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 20

No fitler, nothing. I changed the device online at vonage.com/activate it was easy

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 08, 2006 Posts: 7

THANKS for the info - I'll snag one tomorrow and see if it cures my issues too!