"known issue" still unsolved

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 28, 2006 Posts: 3

I am currently in Vonage hell. After having the service for the past 6 months, all was going smoothly. Now I wish I would have read the forums, the better buisness bureau listings etc. etc.

We have been 4 days with our Motorola stuck at "four blinks".
Nothing has changed in our network and first call to Vonage stated that it was a known issue with firmware that would be resolved in 12 hours. Each time I call, the customer service reps get worse and worse - claiming it is my ISP (I am calling them thru Skype), saying it is not their issue. Also, each time I call, I get another story - "you just need to reboot", "your ticket is not been processed" (what does that mean??) "it will be fixed in 12 hours", "it will be fixed in 24 hours". On and on.

I contemplated canceling, but have heard that process is even more painful. Any idea how to talk to these folks? What is a customer to do when they are quite sure they are getting the run around each time they call and in the meanwhile are not receiving the service they are paying for?

Posts: 35 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Aug 26, 2006 Posts: 35

It was easier to resolve on our own:
vonage-forum.com/ftopic16013-0-asc-10.html" target="_blank">http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic16013-0-asc-10.html

Posts: 1178 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1178

I am so thankful that folks out there have figured a work around to this problem for those with the vt1005 but it's still disturbing to know that vonage has not posted any solutions to their own firmware upgrade faux pas...

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 19, 2004 Posts: 4

I don't have a DHCP-enabled server; am static all the way, so I'm still stuck in this morass of incompetence.

Here's the very worst of it all: this could be quite easily fixed with a simple filename change on Vonage's TFTP server. Here's what a tcpdump trace shows (*.19 is my VT1005 MTA):

09:42:17.693791 192.168.0.19.1025 > 69.59.252.63.tftp: 46 RRQ "dmc3kfOSqL/motvt1000_566033f009cb.bin"
09:42:17.772432 69.59.252.63.tftp > 192.168.0.19.1025: 20 ERROR ENOTFOUND File not found." (DF)

If they'd simply place the right firmware revision in the filename the current firmware expects, this would all be over, wouldn't it? Who's running this show, anyway? The proverbial barrel of monkeys could probably do a better job of it ....

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 6

this REALLY concerns me.

I seem to have ongoing issues with my service, some returning quality problems and latency issues with my Vonage service.

When you hear about this kind of technical negligence, it kind of makes you wonder what other problems have been caused at Vonages end.

Posts: 414 · Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 7:59 am Post subject:

The Tier II Tech I know said that they are just as frustrated about this issue as you all are. From what he has told me, the network engineering staff has flagged the issue as "Resolved" about 3 times already saying that everything should be working fine now. When the Techs asked if they should be troubleshooting this issue, they were told not to as a fix would be pushed out to the devices within the next few hours(This was 3 days ago).

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 19, 2004 Posts: 4

xcrunxc wrote:

When the Techs asked if they should be troubleshooting this issue, they were told not to as a fix would be pushed out to the devices within the next few hours(This was 3 days ago).

I was told the same thing on Sunday.

This is bordering on sheer incompetence. I speak from experience. A competent IT organization never ever plans a rollout ("implementation") plan without an accompanying "fallback plan" (i.e. what do we do to restore service if every assumption fails?).

I've been without service for at least 96 hours now. Any NOC (network operation center) would look on a 96 hour outage as something to be avoided on pain of death.

Where's the fallback plan? Why hasn't it been executed?

Posts: 31 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 18, 2004 Posts: 31

This is NOT the first time a firmware issue screwed up the service. I called after having to reset my Vonage adaptor 3-4 times a day since this started. I called the helpless desk on Monday and asked flat out if they pushed a new firmware to my adaptor and they wanted me to do all this troubleshooting.

I have 3 servers, about 5 PC's, 2 replaytv's and of course Vonage all hooked into the same Internet connection. I explained it was not my service due to everything else connected wirlessly and hardwired was workign fine and only VONAGE was affected. So after doing all the wonderful troubleshooting after explaning NOTHING has changed on my network in 6 months and I have no outages do to web site monitoring they decide finally to transfer me to tier 2 support only to of course disconnect me.

Vonage support is lacking huge. I flat out asked about the firmware and they couldn't even say YES we did an update. The only times I have had issues is when they do firmware updates. PLEASE STOP DOING FIRMWARE UPDATES UNLESS YOU RECEIVE A CALL FROM THE CLIENT HAVING AN ISSUE THAT THE FIRMWARE FIXES!!!!!

There should be some type of notification if something is changed on the clients adaptor period. I am in IT and I can't get away with changes things that affect a client withotu notification

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

I was one of the "victims" of Vonage's firmware upgrade this past weekend. during my troubleshooting - since it was obvious that speaking to the guy at Vonage's Technical Sympathy Line was getting me nowhere, I found THIS forum, AND I found the answers HERE!

It seems that the root cause of the problem was/is Motorola VT 1000/1005's set to a static WAN address instead of dynamic. Who sets a static address? Usually someone smarter than the average bear... why? Because they put the MTA in DMZ, or side by side with their router, or summat. Many of these "smarter" folks are in IT, and have commented that they would be fired if they "inflicted" such a change on their users. Same here.

After reading so many posts about the ineffective advice that tech support is handing out, and the common thread being that an <evidently> untested upgrade was pushed out, I guess all I can conclude is that Vonage's engineers and processes leave something to be desired. Not to mention their technical support (or lack thereof).

Vonage MUST have known they had a major issue on their hands when the calls began hitting their call centers on Saturday. Certainly by Monday, managment reports regarding higher than normal call volumes and unresolved issues throughout the weekend.

Apparently, even after Monday came and went, some users are still off the air, and will be until replacement equipment that was sent out to "fix" the problem arrives. Think about a couple of those posts... the poor user finally found the fix here on this forum, but by the time he got his MTA upgraded (or ready to take the upgrade) - it had de-registered to account for the replacements sent in the mail. Now he's doomed until they arrive.

And then, even though I found the answer here in this forum, I have GOT to take issue with the propagandist who writes the Daily Digest of the forums.... Hmmmm. maybe if I keep ignoring that Elephant in the Living Room - the biggest single technical thread(s) floating around on this forum for the past couple of weeks it will go away. Nothing written about this issue in any digest since it popped up. Well, of course not, it would reflect poorly on Vonage.

With more players in the VOIP marketplace, Vonage is going to have to realize that PRICE cannot be a market differentiator. Comcast wants $39.99 a month for a comparable package. Believe me, if I thought THEIR service could be any better, I would consider switching.

What's the Bottom line, Vonage?

Pay attention to your business, don't treat your customers like idiots - especially in a case like this one where the customers that you <slopped> on were the more discerning of your overall customer base. Clean up your implementation processes and make sure you test the living daylights out of anything you push out but can't pull back. AND, if you do make a mistake, own up to it and work to help get your users back on the air, don't just keep hoping that the elephant will wander off.

Posts: 35 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Aug 26, 2006 Posts: 35

Elephant? What elephant? Wink

I think you guys have summed this up well. We're not idiots, yet there has not been an acknowledgment of the problem with the "Service Status" notification. Either the problem isn't very widespread and only a few of us are smart enough to realize the ineffectiveness of using a VT1000/1005 as a primary router or 'firewall' and use static addressing...
-or-
There are a lot of us that were affected and making a public statement would significantly impact Vonage's reputation as a leader in the home VoIP market.