Vonage Quality Going Down?

Posts: 162 · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 9:01 pm Post subject: Vonage Quality Going Down?

What is happening with Vonage?

We can’t talk more than 5-6 minutes then the call drops dead. The situation got so bad, all our calls drop. Sometimes I can hear the person “hello? Hello?” I can hear them talking, but they can’t head me. Then they hang up in despair.

I look at my Motorola device and the light is blinking. While it’s blinking the line is dead of course…

This Voip idea is absolutely unreliable and I am contemplating the idea to return to Quest. Everything worked fine when we registered last summer, but now its unusable. I changed nothing on my side. Is it my ISP?

Last call I made a few minutes ago, it dropped 5 times over a 30 minute period!!!

Should I go back?

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 06, 2005 Posts: 11

I wonder how they stay in business. I've seen many posts around here recently about how horrible they are.

Posts: 222 · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 9:30 pm Post subject:

Certainly you wouldn't think this forum is a representative sample of experiences with Vonage, would you? A disproportionate number of people who register and post here do so because they're having a problem. What percentage of Vonage users who are not having problems do you think would ever read or post to this forum?

If there were a Verizon, or BellSouth forum, I expect you'd see a a disproportionately high number of complaints there too. That does not mean their service is bad. (There probably are such forums, but I don't have any problems with them, so I have never looked.)

I hope you get your problems resolved and your service working again quickly. Vonage stays in business because it offers a service that people want with a quality of service that a lot of paying customers find acceptable and at a price that is very, very competitive. That seems like a good business plan to me.

Admittedly, Vonage is understaffed for its own success right now, but the company is hiring 600 additional staff to improve customer service. That sounds to me like the company knows what it needs to do to serve its customers and is trying very hard.

Fletcher

Posts: 115 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 115

DigitalVoice wrote:

What is happening with Vonage?

We can’t talk more than 5-6 minutes then the call drops dead. The situation got so bad, all our calls drop. Sometimes I can hear the person “hello? Hello?” I can hear them talking, but they can’t head me. Then they hang up in despair.

I look at my Motorola device and the light is blinking. While it’s blinking the line is dead of course…

This Voip idea is absolutely unreliable and I am contemplating the idea to return to Quest. Everything worked fine when we registered last summer, but now its unusable. I changed nothing on my side. Is it my ISP?

Last call I made a few minutes ago, it dropped 5 times over a 30 minute period!!!

Should I go back?

happens to us here and there starting around late Dec or Jan. Goes in spurts - couple per day then none for a week. Well, since last week w/ the new linksys, and dropping QOS from 50 to 30, only had one since.

Posts: 508 · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:58 am Post subject:

Quote:

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Certainly you wouldn't think this forum is a representative sample of experiences with Vonage, would you? A disproportionate number of people who register and post here do so because they're having a problem. What percentage of Vonage users who are not having problems do you think would ever read or post to this forum?

If there were a Verizon, or BellSouth forum, I expect you'd see a a disproportionately high number of complaints there too. That does not mean their service is bad. (There probably are such forums, but I don't have any problems with them, so I have never looked.)

I hope you get your problems resolved and your service working again quickly. Vonage stays in business because it offers a service that people want with a quality of service that a lot of paying customers find acceptable and at a price that is very, very competitive. That seems like a good business plan to me.

Admittedly, Vonage is understaffed for its own success right now, but the company is hiring 600 additional staff to improve customer service. That sounds to me like the company knows what it needs to do to serve its customers and is trying very hard.

Fletcher

I have read soo many posts regarding noise issues or customer service issues, and I have had none of thes eproblems.. I found this forum kinda by accident actually, I was looking up Voip providers for a post on another msg board, and I found this forum, figues I'd check it out since I have Vonage and wanted to see what everyone else had to say about it..

but like mentioned above, the majority of ppl on a board are here to ask if other are having the same problems they are, to see if there are any fixes.. I frequent a cell phone msg board, with thousands of members, and in just about every provider forum, it's all complaints about stuff, that the majority of ppl out there do not have.. actually a bunch of ppl on that board have Vonage and I don't recall seeing any complaints about it there..

Posts: 162 · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:52 pm Post subject: Re: Vonage Quality Going Down?

winger wrote:

happens to us here and there starting around late Dec or Jan. Goes in spurts - couple per day then none for a week. Well, since last week w/ the new linksys, and dropping QOS from 50 to 30, only had one since.

I am currently on the line - waiting for support... nobody after 5 minutes... line still alive though... 10 minutes... (Last friday I waited 20 minutes then I hung up in frustration.) ... hope Vonage switch doesn't go into screensaver mode or something ... thier audio clip is reaaaalllly choppy and of poor quality ... 15 minutes ... still nobody... today my wife talked 20 minutes before her call dropped ... I feel the glitch is coming ... funny when I talk or make noise, their music stops... 20 minutes ... OK line still alive this time, but I'll call tomorrow... cuz now I have a life to live.

Posts: 34 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Feb 07, 2005 Posts: 34

Cheer up, I have been a Vonage only subcriber for 18 months and the quality of service has been exceptional!

People need to watch out for the path from them to the Vonage SIP proxy. If this has poor bandwidth or latency, you will lose.

Talk to your ISP.

Try the speed test to see how you're doing:

http://www.vonage-forum.com/voip-speed-test

My problem with Vonage is that they don't open their configurations, allow BYOD, and provide international service to Europe. So, I have Broadvoice account to take care of those issues....

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 06, 2005 Posts: 11

Fletcher wrote:

Certainly you wouldn't think this forum is a representative sample of experiences with Vonage, would you? A disproportionate number of people who register and post here do so because they're having a problem. What percentage of Vonage users who are not having problems do you think would ever read or post to this forum?

Of course not, but last night I finaly decided to talk to them about technical issues I've been having and spent 42 minutes on hold and gave up. At the same time out of curiousity it took me 10 seconds to get to soomeone in sales (option 1 that existing customers are not supposed to call).

These forums may not be representative, but surely they can't be that naive as to understaff their tech support that people have to stay on hold for hours.

Posts: 162 · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:36 pm Post subject:

jcmallery wrote:

Cheer up, I have been a Vonage only subcriber for 18 months and the quality of service has been exceptional!
(...)
Try the speed test to see how you're doing:

My Results (from wireless PC)
Download 2,421,704 bps
Upload 482,608 bps
QOS 92%
RTT 57 ms
MaxPause 63 ms

Again, I must point out that my service/quality was OK until about a month ago. I am still waiting on Anonymous Call Rejection - but that's another story.

Posts: 115 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 115

jcmallery wrote:

People need to watch out for the path from them to the Vonage SIP proxy. If this has poor bandwidth or latency, you will lose.

Talk to your ISP.

Try the speed test to see how you're doing:

http://www.vonage-forum.com/voip-speed-test

what do you mean "talk to your isp" ? What do you tell/ask them? I mean, can they configure your path to the Vonage gateway (same as what you refer to "SIP Proxy") ?