Rings...but no voice!!

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 20, 2003 Posts: 4

Just got my ATA-186. I have a wireless ISP (>800kb consistently). Netgear RP-614 router.

Setup went normally.

My Vonage performance is erratic. Usually it rings both ways (call in or out) but no voice at all.

It has worked twice over the last 3 days of installing the equipment.

Vonage (after waiting for support for usually 45 minutes 3 times) tries hard, but cannot get it to work.

my ATA-186 is hooked into a NetGear RP-614 router. The router hooks to my Waverunner modem which hooks to the antenna.

The router has the 4 port forwarding settings they recommend.

Vonage says it may be a latency problem.....I'm seeing 50ms. They say it may be packet loss (not choppy voice...I have NO voice). I see usually < 0-15% loss. (running pingplotter as they recommended).

My ISP ran tests using 1400 byte packets, they saw no loss.

I often lose my dial tone. I can get it back by toggling the port forwarding settings off-on in my router. Dunno why.

I often get a fast busy both ways or immediately into voice mail when calling in from another phone. Vonage says this is a communication from them to the ATA-186 problem.Anyone else solved the no voice problem???

It all gets shipped back Monday. I really want this to work.

Regards

Mike

Posts: 83 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2003 9:00 pm Post subject:

Mike,

Problem is with Vonage not your setup. I've had Vonage for more than 8 months now and I have had the exact same problem PLUS no dialtone since last night.

To say that I in a black rage is a gross understatement.

Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2003 8:45 pm Post subject:

We have encountered the same problem with the Netgear and the problem goes awa if we bypass the netgear. I think it is a port forwarding problem in the netgear itself, but have been unable to confirm this. We even got Vonage to send a new netgear but it did not fix the problem, so for the time being our ATA is in front of the netgear and the computers are behind it (we have more than 1 external IP address so we can do this).

Guest

The Netgear router doesn't have any kind of SPI (stateful packet inspection), does it? I have an SMC router that has SPI, and with SPI enabled, it blocks the torrent of UDP packets that I assume is the audio. With SPI enabled, I can't send or receive audio, but it rings to and from (just no audio). With SPI disabled, it works like a champ (even without forwarding any ports).

I'm using a SMC2804WBR 802.11g 4 port firewall/router.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 20, 2003 Posts: 4

yes it does have SPI and it is enabled. I now have that off.
Thanks!

Another thing that was probably a problem for me, my IP was assigned by my wireless ISP. My real external static IP was not NAT'd in heir router. It now is and I have given Vonage my external static IP (different form what I thought was my IPthat I had given them)

If Vonage support ever contacts me again...waiting for that, haven't responded to emails lately.....perhaps we can test again.

Mike

Posts: 5 · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2003 9:56 pm Post subject:

FYI...

I have Vonage at home. It has worked peferct for me for a month now. Not a single problem (except lossing voice mail greeting---all well).

I decided to try the ATA at work behind a Sonicwall SOHO firewall. I could not get the damn thing to work (and I am the network admin). I opened all the ports etc. but no luck. I even redirected 5060 and 5061, no luck. The Vonage technician was extremely helpfull in working with me. Though it took some time to get him on the line, he repeatedly tested and re-tested after I would change a setting. Turns out the problem was actually a screwy LAN to LAN TCP traffic block that the firewall was initiating.

Make a long story short...the way we figured it out was to turn on every log record available. After each failed call in or out, I immediately checked the log for blocked UDP / TCP traffic.

I think that the problem you are having, as well as ALMOST EVERY other problem reported on the message board, can be nailed down by simply looking at a complete log of blocked traffic.

Once I figured this out...it was a piece of cake to get it working perfectly, even behind a SPI firewall with every in & out port closed, except for those required to run the business...and get Vonage to work.

Just my 2 cents.

PS - Kudos to the technician who helped me out. And is the sign of a GOOD technician, he took the extra time (after it was working perfect) to confirm the things we did to make it work...for the next Sonicwall customer who called in.