Call Waiting Notification

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 23, 2006 Posts: 20

What does everyone's call waiting notification sound like? Ours is a very choppy, high pitched, beep, pop, generally unpleasant tone. Not the simple beep I was used to on the old landline and even my cellphone. It is driving my wife nuts.

I am on hold right now with customer care. They are trying to fix it but are not getting anywhere.

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 23, 2006 Posts: 20

Well since I was already using port 2 (port 1 never worked right) on the PAP2 adapter they are replacing the PAP2 with a Dlink VTA device. We'll see what happens.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 02, 2005 Posts: 8

It's terribly disruptive - I've turned it off.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've assumed the "beep" actually comes from the VoIP adapter. In which case I don't understand why they can't overlay a beep tone over the conversation, instead of a "hard switch" to a beep and "hard switch" back to the conversation, as it sounds like they're doing.

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 23, 2006 Posts: 20

what adapter are you using?

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 02, 2005 Posts: 8

68rustang wrote:

what adapter are you using?

Motorola VT1005V Voice Terminal acquired 06/01/04.

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 23, 2006 Posts: 20

I received the new adapter yesterday and installed it. Calls are clearer, call waiting beep is still bad. Your "hard switch - beep - hard switch" describes it pretty well. As soon as Time Warner completes their takeover of my cable company and offers their bundled services I am dumping Vonage. Their service is sketchy, and their tech support is only slightly better than useless.

Posts: 15 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 13, 2004 Posts: 15

I hadn't used the feature until recently. When I turned it on, the first time it went off I dropped the phone. It scared the hell out of me. I called TS and asked if there was something that could be done and was told that they had gotten many complaints and that a fix was in the works. I haven't heard anything new, nor have I noticed a change in this obnoxious tone. My MTA is a VT-1005 and I am not sure if its a MTA or Vonage Network issue.

Hopefully, they will get it fixed soon. I'm really over it.

Maybe if we're lucky, it's part of the recent firmware update. I haven't had it go off since I got back up and running. But then I dream.

. . . fb

Posts: 339 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 339

In all likelyhood, the sound you are describing is the Call Waiting Caller ID signal that accompanies the first Call Waiting tone. The Caller ID signal is essentially a 1200 baud modem signal and if your phone supports Call Waiting Caller ID it should mute the audio when the data is captured (so you don't hear the Caller ID signal) and display it on the Caller ID display. The phone adapter needs to mute the audio while this is played so that the phone is able to capture the Caller ID data (it would not be able to do so if the Caller ID signal was overlayed on top of the audio stream). However, if your phone is oblivious to the Call Waiting Caller ID signal, you end up hearing it.

You'll experience the same thing with any phone service which has Call Waiting Caller ID.