Overall bad and unreliable service

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 13, 2008 Posts: 1

I have been using Vonage for a few month. I am still with them simply because I am too lazy to rewire my house with traditional phone service. These are the issues that I have encountered, these issues happen frequently.

- Sent to the wrong numbers when dialing international numbers.
- Dropped in other users conversation (ie I could actually listen in a few conversations this morning but the users could not hear me. That sounds like a serious security breach!!)
- Impossible to dial some cell phones in France. (I get a message telling me that I need to replenish some account>?!)
- Line doesn't connect me right away to my correspondant leaving them hanging w/o hearing me.
- Inconsistant quality of calls.
- Impossible to sync e-mails or use collaboration tools when using the phone (ie the line gets reallybad)
- Phone doesn't ring when people call me (goes staright to v.mail)

Overall it is an unreliable service that I would not recommand if you use your phone for work or serious matter. It can be an okay solution to save a few bucks and you have understanding firends and familly... but then why not use Skype. Anyway as soon as I find the time I will switch back.

Posts: 185 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Dec 18, 2005 Posts: 185

olivier123 wrote:

I have been using Vonage for a few month. I am still with them simply because I am too lazy to rewire my house with traditional phone service. These are the issues that I have encountered, these issues happen frequently.
[...]
Overall it is an unreliable service that I would not recommand if you use your phone for work or serious matter. It can be an okay solution to save a few bucks and you have understanding firends and familly... but then why not use Skype. Anyway as soon as I find the time I will switch back.

Holy crap, first learn to spell,

olivier123 wrote:

- Line doesn't connect me right away to my correspondant leaving them hanging w/o hearing me.
- Inconsistant quality of calls.
- Impossible to sync e-mails or use collaboration tools when using the phone (ie the line gets reallybad)
- Phone doesn't ring when people call me (goes staright to v.mail)

then go over to your web account and turn down your bandwidth saver, these issues are usually bandwidth and latency problems.
Do you have a US account? Where is your Adapter located (geographically)?

olivier123 wrote:

- Sent to the wrong numbers when dialing international numbers.

Go to http://www.countrycallingcodes.com/ and make sure you're dialing properly. Make sure you're using the origin as where your account is, not where you physically are. So if you have a US account but you are in Europe or South America, you still need to place the call as US origin.

olivier123 wrote:

- Dropped in other users conversation (ie I could actually listen in a few conversations this morning but the users could not hear me. That sounds like a serious security breach!!)

Are you on a cordless phone? hooked up to house wiring? This is nearly impossible with Voip. Its possible that their server is breaking into a POTS trunk thats already in use, but highly unlikely unless it happens outside of vonage's network.

olivier123 wrote:

- Impossible to dial some cell phones in France. (I get a message telling me that I need to replenish some account>?!)

This one is interesting. The way Vonage works is that it uses multiple providers of wholesale telephone minutes to find the cheapest way to route your call. If Vonage is no longer using a provider but still has it mapped as a call route you would get a message like this. The only thing you can do here is to fight it out with tech support till you get Tech 2 in new jersey, and have them route a ticket to the engineers / Tech 3. Odds are they already know about it, but you never know.

Go to the sticky and post your details and test results here so we can troubleshoot the rest.

Posts: 352

olivier123 wrote:

- Dropped in other users conversation (ie I could actually listen in a few conversations this morning but the users could not hear me. That sounds like a serious security breach!!)
- Line doesn't connect me right away to my correspondant leaving them hanging w/o hearing me.
- Inconsistant quality of calls.
- Impossible to sync e-mails or use collaboration tools when using the phone (ie the line gets reallybad)
- Phone doesn't ring when people call me (goes staright to v.mail)

That sounds like an ISP problem, not Vonage. When I had those problems, my internet service was AWFUL. Exactly the conditions that you describe. Once my ISP fixed the problem, my Vonage experience has been nothing but SUPERB.

Quote:

Impossible to dial some cell phones in France. (I get a message telling me that I need to replenish some account

I read somewhere, in other countries, the originating caller to cell phones pays. If that is true in that country, that is why you cannot call cell phones.

Posts: 830 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 830

"I read somewhere, in other countries, the originating caller to cell phones pays. If that is true in that country, that is why you cannot call cell phones."

Actually, Vonage bills you for the cell phone connect charge. I think the earlier explanation of routing is more accurate.