Dropped voice, static, noise over phone lines, ISP?

Posts: 831 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 831

outerfire wrote:

areamike wrote:

IRONICALLY, Comcast's Voip works on their ISP service, while Vonage has issues.

VonTechMgr wrote:

...
The FCC only just realized that these restrictions will impact competing Voip services, but not Comcast's own Digital Voice service. The FCC's late discovery speaks to the often glacial movement speed of the agency.

In addition to arguing the system was an anti-competitive weapon against other Voip, the FCC argued that because Comcast's Digital Voice service rides on a different layer from their broadband service and is not impacted by congestion management, ....

Not saying this is your specific problem. However re-read the full post above and your situation isn't ironic at all.

I found the part of the report:

"FCC argued that because Comcast's Digital Voice service rides on a different layer from their broadband service and is not impacted by congestion management, it's technically a telecommunications service -- and subject to regulation and assorted fees."

. . . even more interesting . . . perhaps a bit of leverage against Comcast?

Posts: 293 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 22, 2006 Posts: 293

I've been reading some of your previous posts, and I wish I had some more suggestions for you. For the speedtest results you've posted, you literally are all over the place. From that point, I'd run multiple tests without the Vonage connected. If the fluctuations don't disappear, then you've got a little more substance to go after Comcast. But unless you can test right on Comcasts server, you'd probably get the run around. However, it could be just the simple matter of ISP not playing nice.

These last posted results, while not stellar, don't have anything jump out, so it does seem to be sporadic.

Incidentely, what are you supposed to be getting for bandwidth. Any torrents running? (Maybe you've answered that)

Posts: 33 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: May 24, 2006 Posts: 33

outerfire wrote:

I've been reading some of your previous posts, and I wish I had some more suggestions for you. For the speedtest results you've posted, you literally are all over the place. From that point, I'd run multiple tests without the Vonage connected. If the fluctuations don't disappear, then you've got a little more substance to go after Comcast. But unless you can test right on Comcasts server, you'd probably get the run around. However, it could be just the simple matter of ISP not playing nice.

These last posted results, while not stellar, don't have anything jump out, so it does seem to be sporadic.

Incidentely, what are you supposed to be getting for bandwidth. Any torrents running? (Maybe you've answered that)

There is no P2P or torrent stuff or anything like that going on with my network. Never have done that kind of stuff. My wife will occasionally..maybe 6 times in her life download an album off of ITunes.

My speeds are "supposed to be" 12Mbps up/ 2Mbps up.

I ran the speed test from this site yesterday a bunch of times while my kids were on the phone. The speeds really did not fluctuate too much during that time period.

Here's the test again just now.
Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 6944752 bps
Upload speed: 2214264 bps
Quality of service: 69 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 117 ms
Average download pause: 1 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 70 ms
Average round trip time to server: 128 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 0.7 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 3.8 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: 37
Estimated MOS score: 4.1

I could do this all day Smile

Posts: 23 · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 8:53 am Post subject:

My Vonage service had become horrible with Comcast over the past two month. My calls would drop out or people could not hear me but I could hear them. I purchased the higher speeds from them and got a DOCIS 3.0 cable modem. That didn't improve anything. I switched to Verizon FiOS 10 days ago and my Vonage service has been rock solid since then.

Posts: 33 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: May 24, 2006 Posts: 33

milhans wrote:

My Vonage service had become horrible with Comcast over the past two month. My calls would drop out or people could not hear me but I could hear them. I purchased the higher speeds from them and got a DOCIS 3.0 cable modem. That didn't improve anything. I switched to Verizon FiOS 10 days ago and my Vonage service has been rock solid since then.

Too bad, Verizon FiOS is not available in my area. I am at the mercy of Comcast High Speed or no internet at all.

Posts: 72 · Full Forum Member Joined: Apr 27, 2005 Posts: 72

SB5120 has some known issues , some compatibility issue with Vonage. This causes occasional audio drop and robotizing the voice, even tho the tests seem to run fine. Suggest exchanging your modem from sb5120 to sbg900, they can do it free i guess. One thing to make sure is to disable firewall on sbg900 for Vonage to get dial tone and work fine! Good luck!

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 06, 2009 Posts: 2

I think it's a Vonage conspiracy.

I have the Netgear wireless N jsut like the first poster. I also have Time Warner Cable as my broadband provider. I signed up with Vonage about 3 years (maybe 2) ago. At that time there was no "vonage adapter" so I got the vtech ip8100 phones. Recently, I've been experiencing the issue of dropped calls, static on the line, all of that nonsense. No one at Vonage has been able to help me and their customer service has been horrible. They all say that I need to try a different phone plugged into the adapter... which I don't have because I'm a older customer. Then they say that I need to get one and that I don't qualify for the $9.99 or free one because I'm not a NEW customer. SO...... I've been with Vonage for 3 years and they want ME to pay $79.99 to remain their customer!? Bullocks.

Posts: 33 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: May 24, 2006 Posts: 33

sdforsythe wrote:

I think it's a Vonage conspiracy.

I have the Netgear wireless N jsut like the first poster. I also have Time Warner Cable as my broadband provider. I signed up with Vonage about 3 years (maybe 2) ago. At that time there was no "vonage adapter" so I got the vtech ip8100 phones. Recently, I've been experiencing the issue of dropped calls, static on the line, all of that nonsense. No one at Vonage has been able to help me and their customer service has been horrible. They all say that I need to try a different phone plugged into the adapter... which I don't have because I'm a older customer. Then they say that I need to get one and that I don't qualify for the $9.99 or free one because I'm not a NEW customer. SO...... I've been with Vonage for 3 years and they want ME to pay $79.99 to remain their customer!? Bullocks.

I can concur. Vonage is giving me the run-around. They have me doing all things I have done a 100 times. Then they have someone else contact me and run the same tests the previous tech had me run. That tells me their communication is lacking to say the least.

I also have noticed that my phone calls have gotten worse just in the last 3 months or so. Up until then it was pretty good.

I am still having issues. Dropped calls. Static, echo, delays. Also there are many times the caller cannot hear me but I can hear them.

It may be time to switch to Comcast Voip. Confused

Posts: 831 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 831

The sad truth is that if Vonage (and probably any other Voip service) will not work with Comcast, and you have no other option than Comcast Digital Voice or POTS.

Posts: 33 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: May 24, 2006 Posts: 33

I found out that Comcast Voip runs on different servers than their regular internet traffic. So, if you use Vonage Voip, it uses the regular internet service on Comcast. Which, IMO, is favoring Comcast's Voip.

Screwed again we are.