Stay away from Vonage phone svervice

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 12

My friend referred me. I also saw the ads all over the printed materials. So I decided to give it a try and ordered the service.

The package came in last Thursday. Well, could not place any outgoing call after setup. Called the tech support, wasted two hours, nothing happened. Call the tech support the second day, another person answered the phone, spent another hour, nothing happened. But she did politely create a ticket for me (the guy I talked with on Thursday did not even bother to create a ticket) and told me tech people did not work during weekend, and I had to wait until Monday, and someone would call me. But what is the use of a ticket if nothing is solved?

Waited whole day on Monday, no one called. So called the tech support on Tuesday morning. This gentleman looks like he knew something: I spent about four hours with him and his buddy. They dramatically changed the phone adapter (changed the dialing tone (to starter tone?), took out something about voice mail and etc). Finally I was able to place the outgoing call each time. However, after the change, I was not able to access the voice mail through the phone. Voicemail service did not recognize any phone key I pressed and kept on asking for password.

Called the tech support today (Wed), spent over one hour, nothing happened. Another ticket was created and I was told to wait.

Heck, are people at Vonage competent to handle anything? When I had my land line and cell phone, I just picked up the phone and call. Never talked with tech support people in my life for any phone problem.

I think I have to return the Vonage phone package. But heck, I have to pay the shipping charge myself. I have wasted so many hours on it, and I have to pay the shipping. What a heck?

So any new users who are reading this forum, please stay away from Vonage. It is a waste of time and money.

Posts: 352 · Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 5:43 pm Post subject:

Maybe for you it didn't work. For me, I have had no problems except internet connectivity problems which were NOT vonage's fault. There was a bad node in the area that was causing intermittent internet outages.
My Vonage had worked exceptionally well since the internet connectivity problems were repaired. My phone calls are as clear as my Verizon ever was at less than half the price.
I tried different setups on my Vonage and router to find out which worked better.
Maybe if you would try asking some people on the forum, they could give you suggestions to alleviate your problem. Tech support is horrible in all tech sectors. I was almost ready to get rid of my cable internet (Charter) because I knew more that the so called "tech support" people. They sit in front of a computer and input your problem, and the computer gives them the response, which most times is ignorant. Vonage tech support is not any better. You need to get a hold of someone who has some knowledge in tech matters to resolve your problem. There are some great people on this forum that could give you some great advice. It is much worth it.

Posts: 1327 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1327

Have you done the Voip speed test on here? Would be good if you did this and posted the results.

You can enable or disable voice mail on the website and when it ask for password the default password is 1,2,3,4,5. To check your voice mail once you have it activated dial *123 from your Vonage phone.

I am sure people on here could help you out more if you provide the details. I have had Vonage for almost a year and I am very happy with the service and with the price.

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 12

I hope the tech support is good when they advocate their service, since I have never placed a tech call to my land line techs. They asked my cable modem and router each time I called even though it should be in the call log. They even sent me an email on that. After I answered the email, no response whats so ever.

I have called *123 dozens of time since yesterday, but the problem is that when I keyed in the "1234", it kept on asking for password. It looks like it did not detect that I have entered anything. I knew if I keyed in *, it supposed to ask me for anothter voicemail, but it did not recognized that I have pressed * either.

Here is the information:

Cable modem: Motorola Surfboard SB5120, ISP is Cox communication

Router: Belkin F5D7230-4

Vonage adapter: Motorola VT2442 refurb

speed test at www.speedtest.net: download is around 7MB, upload is around 490 KBS.

Posts: 1327 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1327

After you run the test please post this information:

1. Your location
2. Your ISP name and type (cable, DSL, wireless etc)
3. Upload and download speeds
4. Modem make and model
5. Type of Vonage adapter used ie RT31P2 or PAP2
6. Setup of Network ie Modem---->Vonage Adapter-->PC
7. Issue you are experiencing ie dropped calls, choppy audio etc
8. Run this Voip Test: After the test has fully completed, in the Advanced Tab, click on "View Text" in the lower right hand corner. Copy-N-Paste that data into your post.

This will help you get the answers/resolution faster if you can post that first..

Your speeds are excellent, but please post other required information. I notice that you have a refurbished adapter, did you have to pay the extra $9.99 to upgrade to that?

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 12

1. Area code 949, Orange county, California
2. Cox communication, Cable Modem
3. download is around 7MB, upload is around 490 KBS.
4. Cable modem: Motorola Surfboard SB5120
5.Vonage adapter: Motorola VT2442
6. Cable modem->Belkin F5D7230-4 ->Vonage Adapter
->PC
that is PC is connected to Belkin router, not the Vonage adapter.
7. Before Tue. morning, 8 out of 10 outgoing calls got busy tone: dial a number, 7-10 seconds silence, then busy tone. After Tue. morning, can place outgoing calls, but after dialing *123 to access the voice mail, it did not recognize the password I typed in. It looks like it did not recognize that I even typed in anything. I overheard over the phone that tech people removed/changed some things in my phone adapter related to voice mail so I could make outgoing call. Basically they solved one problem by creating another one.

8. Do not know where and how to perform the test you mentioned? In Vonage web site after I login in? Where?

I did not pay the $9.99 to upgrade. The refurb one is free.

Posts: 1327 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1327

Here is the link on here for the Voip speed test.

http://www.vonage-forum.com/voip-speed-test.html

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 12

Here is the test result for: PC is connected to the router through a wireless. The phone adapter is connected with routher with ethernet cable.

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 1540120 bps
Upload speed: 516152 bps
Quality of service: 93 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 121 ms
Average download pause: 8 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 92 ms
Average round trip time to server: 104 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 3.7 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.5 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported Voip lines: 8
Estimated MOS score: 3.9

====================================
Following is: phone adapter is connected to router with ethernet cable, then PC is connected to phone adapter with ethernet cable.

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 1488712 bps
Upload speed: 513320 bps
Quality of service: 59 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 96 ms
Average download pause: 10 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 87 ms
Average round trip time to server: 110 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 4.8 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 29.8 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported Voip lines: 8
Estimated MOS score: 3.7

Posts: 38 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 38

Try using the VT2442 as the router and take the Belkin out of the network. I have two locations using SB5120s & VT2442s with Comcast and they work perfectly. A have an Access Point connected to one of the lan ports on the VT2442 for wireless access.

Make sure you power everthing down for 30 seconds before reconnecting.

Steve

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 12

I used the VT2442 as the router and took the Belkin out of the network, but no effect on the problem.