Very frustrated with tech support

Posts: 21 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 08, 2009 Posts: 21

I have been trying to troubleshoot an issue with getting calls that connect but there is no sound. Yesterday Vonage Tech Support told me that he suggested we set my call quality to Normal and not High. He said that High was only for Fax service which I wasn't using... My bandwidth is very good, about 1.7MB down and 1.2MB up. I can't see how 90K is going to put a dent in that. So he set it to Normal... I still had the issue today. So I called and was told the rep saw a problem with my settings. I should not use Normal I should have it set to High call quality. I tried to explain that is how it was set a day ago and I had the problem then.... the line went to music and in 3 minutes I had another rep on the line...

She explained that the next step in trouble shooting this was to hook my phone directly to the V-Portal. I am going along with this even though my home wiring is about 75% brand new due to some construction we just completed. Up until 3 weeks ago all worked just fine with Verizon.

Seems a simple issue of bad hardware and they won't own up to it. This is really frustrating since it has already taken up over 3 hours of my time working with them and my ISP trying to isolate the issue.

My bad for not spending the $10 bucks on a new unit... figured why not just get the free refurb... I have been lucky up until now with refurbs. Oh well my luck ran out.

RA

Posts: 163 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Apr 09, 2007 Posts: 163

Although I can understand dealing with technical support can sometimes be an issue, many problems people face are not due to Vonage or the hardware. I am not saying there aren't cases but if you read through other posts in this forum you will find that most problems lay in either the home network or with the ISP.

In any case, please follow the instructions in the sticky and post the results. In addition, please provide your network setup with make/models of the hardware being used as mentioned in the sticky as this will be important as well.

Many of the members on this forum are extemely knowledgeable and will be able to help you diagnose your issue and truly see if it is a hardware issue or something else.

Posts: 21 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 08, 2009 Posts: 21

First off, thanks for your offer of help. In my frustration of last evening I did not even see the sticky of "what to do when you have technical issues"..... My bad. Here is my info.

1. Long Island, NY
2. Optonline - Cable
3. Using Speedtest.net
Upload: 15MB Down: 1.98MB
4. Scientific Atlanta Model DPC2100 Webstar
5 V-Portal VDV21-VD
6. Tried both ways... Now it is:
Router---->V-Portal------>DIR655 Router
7. My issues vary from poor call quality with echoes and other anomalies to when the call is connected there is NO AUDIO at all. The call must be reconnected to be completed.
8. Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 10248568 bps
Upload speed: 2062368 bps
Quality of service: 65 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 133 ms
Average download pause: 2 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 67 ms
Average round trip time to server: 127 ms

VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 0.3 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 0.3 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: 35
Estimated MOS score: 4.3

The only piece of data in this test that is suspect is the QOS. In doing some minor research it seems that this can be affected negatively by throttling. I know that my line speed is throttled because Optonline does offer a higher throughput service.

I look forward to your suggestions.

Thanks,
RA

Posts: 14 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 03, 2009 Posts: 14

And what was the result when you connected a telephone directly to the phone port the Vonage TA?

Posts: 21 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 08, 2009 Posts: 21

Same results... and the tech support person (2nd level) who said she would call me today to follow up never did. Is there any info that can be determined from the info I posted?
RA

Posts: 21 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 08, 2009 Posts: 21

Does anybody have any ideas that could help?
Thanks,
RA

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

Can you tell us a little more about your network at home and if there are other things going on when you have these calling issues?

Specifically the type of connections that you have on your network (number of PCs, game consoles, etc.) and also what these things are doing.

It does sound like a QoS issue to me, specifically that all or most of your downstream bandwidth available to you. Things like downloading large files that would take your entire downstream bandwidth would do things like this.

If you don't get the problem all of the time, this is my guess. If you get the issues all of the time, or still get the issue when you know that nobody is doing anything else on the network, then its something else.

Posts: 21 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 08, 2009 Posts: 21

Very interesting observation... So far all of the occurrences have happened when nobody was even on line. Seems it may be QOS related but how??? What is causing the issue?
RA

Posts: 21 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 08, 2009 Posts: 21

Does the information I posted indicate any issue? How does one go about isolating what is causing this type of problem?
Thanks for any suggestions...
RA

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

you wrote that your network setup is as follows:

Quote:

Router---->V-Portal------>DIR655 Router

I am assuming that you meant to say Modem first correct?

If so, then the V-Portal is acting as the main gateway for the rest of your network. This typically ends up causing issues since these vonage devices are weak routers.

Is your DIR655 compatible with 3rd party firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato? If so, then I'd recommend that you flash it with one of them. That might help.

But your test results show minimal signs of issues. The main concern is the round trip time. That might be an issue. Also, running the speed test while you are on the phone might also give us some clues.

For now, take the test with only the network as follows:

modem -> Vportal -> computer

remove the DIR655 for testing purposes.

then post your results.

this will help us compare the results from your first test which I presume had your computer behind the DIR655.