No Dial tone, No Connection in San Diego Area Code 858

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 7

No Dial Tone, No connection.

1) Location: San Diego, California – area code 858
2) Time Warner Cable – Road Runner for TV and Computer
3) Upload / Download using “speedtest.net”: Up; 5029 kb’s, Down; 493 kb’s (wireless)
4) Modem – Time Warner Supplied Motorola Model SB 5100
5) Wireless Modem – Linksy’s Wireless G Broadband Model No. WRK54G
6) Vonage modem – Vonage supplied; Linksy’s Router Model RTP300
7) Set Up; Cable > Motorola SB 5100 > Linksy’s WRK54G > Linksy’s RTP300 > Home phone wiring
Cool

Issues: Vonage Customer now at least since September 2005 with the above set up. Currently we cannot get any dial tone and there is no apparent connection.

Since day one we have intermittently needed to reboot the Vonage system because of brief outages say about twice a month or so. Back then it was a casual nuisance but we had our cell phones as back up and lived with it. For the last three months now the need for reboot has increased significantly. Sometimes as often as nearly 5 days a week. I am not sure if using my computer has any effect on causing these down time events.

Recently now from about 10/10/07 to 10/10/07 Vonage has been down every night. For the last three days reboot does not work anymore.

Normally a reboot sequence shows the Vonage supplied Linksy’s RTP300 “power light” come up first, followed by the “four internet” blue lights flash momentarily, followed by the “two telephone lines” flash blue momentarily, followed by “Internet In” light flash blue. Usually the Internet in line will do a stutter blink and within 5 to 10 seconds the “telephone line in use” will light up blue and we are in business. Now the telephone line does not light up blue anymore.

This evening after moving wires around and making numerous reboot attempts and hooking a single telephone to the Vonage modem, I was able to briefly get a blue light to light up for the telephone line and I got a European voice that said: “telephone line is not sufficient for use, please try the other line.” There were intermittent reboots in the past where this same computer voice would say: “vonage device cannot connect with the Vonage network.”

Three days ago before this latest round of “no connection, no dial tone”, if I called my Vonage line with my cell phone I got a busy signal. This should not happen because I had the Vonage options set to forward any inbound call to another cell phone number. After those call attempts some 10 to 15 minutes of time delay our Vonage line would then ring. Very strange.

I know that Time Warner has a Voip service for about $16.00 more than Vonage charges. Could Time Warner somehow be screwing with the line?

Does anyone have any ideas?

I will have to post results of my speed test later. It seems in my zeal to test the broken Vonage system I have “hit the maximum permitted traces for the period. Please try again later”

Go figure!

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

First, please post the detailed results of the forum Voip speed test. That often helps us see what's going on.

You did the right thing by plugging a phone directly into the Vonage box. Also, if you're using a cordless phone, use a wired one, if possible, during testing, and leave house wiring out of the picture until you get to the bottom of this. If your current phone is cordless, is it a 2.4 GHz phone? These can cause problems with wireless networks.

Your next step is to temporarily remove the WRK54G from the setup and plug the RTP300 directly into your modem. Plug your computer into the LAN side of the RTP. Does it work now (phone and computer)? If so, run it that way for long enough to convince yourself that it is or isn't stable in that configuration. If the phone doesn't work that way, does the computer at least connect to the internet?

By the way, where is your computer plug in with the current setup, or is it strictly wireless? When you're having problems, does the computer continue to work?

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 7

Vonage® Voip Speed Test

Vonage Voip Analysis
Given your current Internet speeds, we estimate that your Internet connection can support a maximum of 6 simultaneous high quality Vonage® Voip connections.

My Results
Download 1,500,968 bps
Upload 501,744 bps
QOS 97%
RTT 100 ms
MaxPause 96 ms

Thank you for your response. Last night I could not run the test as I noted at the end of my post because they said I used it too many times.

Above are todays results. I should let you know that after having all devices off for the night, everything booted up and all day so far Vonage is working. All with the original wiring setup I have had for over two years now.

Last night when everything was down, I have previously performed all the items you suggested including using an old telephone directly into the RTP300. I cannot see any pattern while using the computer either wireless or direct connect. And yes when Vonage is down the computer and TV are working excellent with great download speeds.

For now Vonage is working twelve hours straight now. Very frustrating to see these intermittent kind of failures.

Thank you very much for you ideas. Keep them coming.

Steve

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

It sounds like the RTP300 may be heading south. To be clear, you did try removing the WRK54G?

By the way, you can get more detailed results from the Voip test on the advanced tab, I think it is.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 7

During the troubleshooting phase I did bypass the WRK54G and plugged an old telephone line directly into the RTP300. At that time nothing worked until 0600 hours PDT on October 19.

Currently the entire system is up and running again and no glitches for a straight 36 hours now.

I also thought the RTP300 was failing but for now all is well. You mentioned something about 2.4 Ghz telephones. I have two wireless phones that are the older 900 Mhz type. Good thought though.

Well for now all is well but I sure do wonder why their are episodes when Voip seems down. Usually when my internet goes down I can count of some down time with Vonage but when my Internet is working excellent why would a Voip line go bad?

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 7

Oh yeah, for the life of me I can't find that advanced tab on the test sight. I get to view all the tests results (which appear to me to be excellent) but it does not all cut and paste into this forum.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 7

Doh!! I found it. Here is todays results: I see the quality is low right now 1630 PDT. Lower than it has measured even when sevice was down. However my system is still working and quality of sound is good.

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 1274960 bps
Upload speed: 502160 bps
Quality of service: 56 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 192 ms
Average download pause: 21 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 108 ms
Average round trip time to server: 110 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 2.9 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

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

Overall, those results look pretty good.

Since things seem to be working better now, the problem may be a thermal issue that goes away when you power down for awhile during testing. Make sure that the RTP300 is getting adequate ventilation.

Posts: 17 · Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 8:13 pm Post subject:

I'm in 760, really close to 858 and I have an RTP300, My service is out...

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 7

A follow up for Steve Gray and others who may wish to know. My system seems to be stable now so far. I moved my RTP300 away from all wire bundles and relocated the power converter for the unit away from all other electrical outlets. I have noticed in the past that the RTP300 seems to react to other electric wire bundles. I thought I had it in a location that was acceptable until the last couple of months when the system got worse. Anyway, moved it away from all wires and everything seems stable now. I hope this helps others.

Steve
San Diego

Latest Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 1242424 bps
Upload speed: 501264 bps
Quality of service: 44 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 273 ms
Average download pause: 21 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 100 ms
Average round trip time to server: 102 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 2.5 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.4 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