Is Vonage better now than it was 2 years ago?

Posts: 183

I had Vonage for about 2 1/2 years until I dumped it in late 2006. I had constant problems with calls dropped mid-conversation, calls incompleted, incoming calls with no caller's voice, outgoing calls where I wasn't heard, garbled auido, etc. It was awful, but I grew accustomed to the smart voicemail, simultaneous ring, and features like that.

At the time I had Adelphia cablemodem service, about 3meg down and 384k up, or something close to that, certainly adequate according to Vonage, if I understood their India-based support (if you want to call it that) staff.

Today I have Verizon FiOS 20mb down and 5mb up.

I should also add that I had the early Motorola V1005 adapter. Today I'd opt for the newer one with the display, what ever it is called, or a better one if recommended. It will definitely live behind my FiOS router, and won't service any ip devices, just the phone.

Can anyone who has had service since those early (April, 2004- November, 2006) days comment on their improvements, if any, or degradations. I already know their tech support is horrible, and their customer service almost as bad!

Thanks in advance,
AJ

Posts: 66 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jul 20, 2006 Posts: 66

almahix wrote:

I had Vonage for about 2 1/2 years until I dumped it in late 2006. I had constant problems with calls dropped mid-conversation, calls incompleted, incoming calls with no caller's voice, outgoing calls where I wasn't heard, garbled auido, etc. It was awful, but I grew accustomed to the smart voicemail, simultaneous ring, and features like that.

At the time I had Adelphia cablemodem service, about 3meg down and 384k up, or something close to that, certainly adequate according to Vonage, if I understood their India-based support (if you want to call it that) staff.

Today I have Verizon FiOS 20mb down and 5mb up.

I should also add that I had the early Motorola V1005 adapter. Today I'd opt for the newer one with the display, what ever it is called, or a better one if recommended. It will definitely live behind my FiOS router, and won't service any ip devices, just the phone.

Can anyone who has had service since those early (April, 2004- November, 2006) days comment on their improvements, if any, or degradations. I already know their tech support is horrible, and their customer service almost as bad!

Thanks in advance,
AJ

I had WOW internet the first year and my Vonage service was bad.

I switched to Road Runner over a year ago and Vonage service has been great.

Posts: 17 · Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:31 am Post subject:

When I first got Vonage (mid-2005) I had all sorts of problems. I had to be careful not to have anything consuming significant bandwidth during phone conversations or else calls were dropped or the quality was bad. I had the cable company out several times to check my connection speed, modem etc and no problems were found. I have the Uniden 1869V system which can serve as a router if you choose. Over time quality has improved considerably and I now consider my Vonage phone as a reliable and quality component of my communications system. But I don't think it has much to do with Vonage.

My ISP changed out my cable modem and that seemed to improve things a little. But the real improvement came when I switched to a router (D-Link DIR 635) that had very good QOS capability. I had tried using the Uniden as a router (it supposedly had built in QOS, which Uniden tech support confirmed) but it did not give me good call quality. There was no way in the Uniden to alter the QOS settings. They were not accessible by the user. I also used the Uniden behind a Netgear 624NA router with no improvement. So I tried the Uniden in front of as well as behind the router and essentially got no where until I had a router that had good QOS functionality.

With FIOS you have enormous bandwidth available. But if you have a lot going on (such as P2P or streaming video) with no way of prioritizing the Voip packets then you may still have issues IMHO.

I guess what I'm saying is if you have the right infrastructure in your network and adequate bandwidth, then you should have no real issue with Vonage. I still have an occasional dropped call, but I have more dropped calls with my Verizon cell phone than I do with Vonage.

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

I have only had Vonage for a little over a year, but overall the quality has been good (I use road runner). I have a VT2142 and have it right after the cable modem, then to a switch to a PC and to a another switch and access point and other machines off of the 2nd switch.

I am of the opinion putting the Vonage device first prioritizes it over the rest of the network through it's built in QOS.

I do not game nor do I use peer to peer. However I do a lot of automated backups from web servers via FTP, use VNC and a FTP accessed from the web through the VT2142 with no problems.

No dropped calls, but every once in a while a little echo.

Posts: 174 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Dec 06, 2006 Posts: 174

Most problems with Vonage can be traced back to the ISP.

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

I haven't noticed any change in the Vonage service in the couple of years that I've had it. It's always been pretty good for me.

Posts: 86 · Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:32 am Post subject:

Signed up August 2005

I had intermittant issues in the first year or so with changes in the router firmware that was automatically downloaded. Vonage released v5.01.04 and the firmware has not changed for more a year and has corrected any issues I had.

I also have had issues with the RTP300 router/phone adapter, but everything has been rock solid since January this year. I am not convinced that there was anything wrong with Vonage or the router when I had these problems as Comcast was increasing the bandwidth in my area and the internet connection may have not been as stable as it is now.

I am confident enough in Vonage now to recommend it, and I would not say that a year ago.

Posts: 1179 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1179

from your description almahix, I would also argue that those are symptoms that are ISP related. I got Vonage in 2/06 and haven't had any of those issues except when comcast was going through the upgrade. all kinds of issues popped up for me. here in charter land, i have had the same kind of problems only when my ISP was working on something. so far, very minimal issues with Vonage directly. the first yr (2006) was occasionally rough but Vonage always had their service announcement updated on a real-time basis.

Posts: 26 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Oct 29, 2005 Posts: 26

I have Vonage for 3 years and it is as good today as it was 3 years.

Posts: 323 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jan 29, 2006 Posts: 323

I've had service since 2004 and I think its better than it was at the start, although as most others have said I think most of my issues in the past were due to ISP issues not Vonage itself.

Once I learned how to give QoS priority to Vonage (first with a Hawking Broadband booster, and now with Tomato firmware on the router) I haven't had any issues. Back in the day I used to hear more echo, but that hadn't happened for a few years.

I still think the best thing I ever did for call quality was to move to 3rd party firmware with great QoS options.