Canceling Vonage and here's why

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 16, 2010 Posts: 5

I've had Vonage now for about a month and I still cannot get rid of the occasional audio dropouts and choppiness. There is literally no network traffic on either my LAN or my WAN which would be causing this. Here are the three reasons why I've decided that Vonage is not ready for prime time yet:

1) Unexplained high latency to the VDV22 device. Examine the screenshot (at the below URL) and you'll see that with no one on the phone and zero network activity that the VDV22 device has upwards of 100 ms ping response times to it at around 11:00 am. Even in the middle of the night it has around 50 ms response times. This is no doubt why I am experiencing choppy audio and there is no reason for this at all.

2) If you have the WAN and the LAN ports on the same VLAN (i.e. broadcast domain) the VDV22 device will simply not function. Say I have two NIC's in my PC and I have them connected to the same switch as the VDV22 device. This will enable me to ping the external WAN connection simultaneously while logging into the web interface at 192.168.15.1. Nope, won't let me do that. The VDV22 device will simply malfunction and refuse to connect to the configuration server.

3) My Panasonic answering machine sets its time based off of incoming phone calls. When I receive a phone call from my VDV22 device my answering machine is mysteriously set to GMT. Yes, I have my time zone set correctly via the Portal.

"http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/Fleebob/VDV22responsetime.gif"

I may give Ooma a try but I've heard even worse things about trying to get it to work.

Posts: 17 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 13, 2008 Posts: 17

Are you sure your issues are Vonage related and not due to the internet somehow?

I don't know technical stuff, but I've been a customer for over three years and never had any issues whatsoever. I can honestly say the call quality has been no less than Verizon. The only time the service went down was when Comcast went down. I'm paying at least 25.00 month less than Verizon for the same services. I haven't had to deal with customer service yet, so I can't comment either way.

By the way, for all those people concerned with alarm systems, I use ADT for the past 2 years and never had a problem. They send a test signal once a month and it has always gone through.

So far, I've been happy with the service.

Jenn

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 16, 2010 Posts: 5

Vlatman, what device are you using? The VDV22 or something else?

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 16, 2010 Posts: 5

I have 6 Mbps down and 768 Kbps up DSL.
I have 9 ms latency times to my DSLAM and upstream router.
I have a gigabit switched network.
I have little to no network activity at the times of the choppiness or dropouts.
There is ZERO reason why this should be happening. It's frankly inexcusable but you get what you pay for.

Posts: 17 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 13, 2008 Posts: 17

I have a VDV21 set up after my Netgear router. I can't explain your issues. I use Comcast 16 down and 4 up. These are my lastest numbers (all good):

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 4.4 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 6.0 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Estimated MOS score: 4.0

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download quality of service: 95 %
Upload quality of service: 97 %

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 08, 2011 Posts: 4

Have you tried connecting the Vonage adapter directly to your cable modem and the router to the VDV21?

I have an old Linksys WRT54g/Vonage combo box, and the wireless router part is starting to go bad. I contacted Vonage earlier this week to ask if they still sold voice adapter/router combo boxes. They don't; instead, Vonage is sending me a VDV22 and has advised that I purchase a third party router and connect it to the voice adapter- the opposite of your set-up. BTW, They are also giving me a $40 credit on my account to offset some of the cost of the router purchase, since they no longer offer them.

Like Vlatman, I have always had excellent service- except for a period of about six months last year when I had serious issues with my cable provider, which not Vonage's fault. I've been with them for nearly five years now.

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

MikeSTL wrote:

1) Unexplained high latency to the VDV22 device. Examine the screenshot (at the below URL) and you'll see that with no one on the phone and zero network activity that the VDV22 device has upwards of 100 ms ping response times to it at around 11:00 am. Even in the middle of the night it has around 50 ms response times. This is no doubt why I am experiencing choppy audio and there is no reason for this at all.

I have had Vonage for over three years, and generally no problems. Latency is not an end point problem, but may occur on any of the hops to the destination. Have you done a traceroute?

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 25, 2011 Posts: 4

What cable modem are you using? How old is it? Several years ago I had mysterious problems with Vonage. I've forgotten some of the details. I had an early motorola cable modem on the system. On a hunch I persuaded the Comcast tech to swap out the cable modem and the problems went away. Not long after a sister of mine, also on comcast and with a similar or identical modem started having the same problems. She got her cable modem box changed and the problem went away.

I wish I could remember more details but your cable modem device could be a suspect.

Posts: 229 · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:16 pm Post subject: Talk with your Internet provider.

As a Vonage customer since 2004, I think the technology has matured quite a bit. Every now and again customer service upsets me to the point that I consider leaving, but they always manage to bring me back. Technology-wise, it's rock-solid.

I would first talk with your Internet provider and ensure that your ISP-provided equipment is working properly, and then have them run a line test to see if there aren't any anomalies with the lines connecting from your home to their network. They may also need to run additional checks through their network to their upstream provider to see if they're the source of any problems.

If you get nowhere with your ISP, then contact Vonage and talk with a technician. They're pretty keen at nailing down the source of your problems, and in many cases can re-configure your Vonge device to work around any issues to deliver the best service.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 25, 2011 Posts: 4

It's unlikely your problems are something Vonage can do anything about. When I have no network problems Vonage is flawless. Now I notice you have ISP service from the phone company so probably you have a DSL modem that runs over the copper phone lines. Try and persuade the ISP to swap boxes with you, even temporarily. That was my mysterious problem mentioned above but with a cable modem running over coax.

Do you use any other Voip service? You might try google voice or skype and see if there is a similar problem. It's doubtful that Vonage servers or backbone is the problem or many more people would be howling.