Call straight to VM w/o Ring; VM not stuttering

Posts: 220 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 19, 2003 Posts: 220

Folks:

Have an email in to support but wondered if others have had this problem and if so what fixed it. Starting yesterday that I can verify, two calls have gone straight to voicemail. One rang once to the caller, the other not at all. Neither rang on our end.

The caller last night then called our regular line that's not been transferred. She said she'd left a VM. I picked up the vonage handset and there was no stutter tone. I went to the dashboard and there were no messages. Then I got an email saying there was. Still no stutter tone. Dialed VM and was able to hear it -- along with two other messages from people I have no idea who they were or who they were calling. Those two message never sent an email notification or stutter tone.

I tested from my cell right afterward and everything functioned properly. Phones (calling and receiving) rang five times. Voice mail picked up and message was recorded. Stutter tone indicator immediately functioned.

My husband called just now. First time it went directly to voicemail. He called back and line rang here normally.

Voicemail is set to pick up after 30 seconds. To my knowledge, this hasn't happened before with called being routed straight there. The stutter tone was working fine previously too and I checked it several times during the voicemail problems where the messages were being erased, etc.

thanks for any insight. We're going to tell everybody that you should not go directly to voicemail without at least three rings -- but ti does make me nervous because we have kids and you never know when it's an important call.

tia,

laurel

Posts: 220 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 19, 2003 Posts: 220

Antipas:

We're using a Linksys BEFW11S4. There wasn't any wireless activity during both incidents in the last 24 hours (my notebook computer has been off).

I've seen the discussion on forwarding ports, but so far didn't think I had to pay attention because things were working well. I now have to admit I have no idea how to do it. I assume it's something in the router menu, however. The first question my husband will have is what is it going to do to his frame rates for Aces High, of course.

Is the problem caused by not enough bandwidth or too many resources or what?

Currently we're also using a netgear switch to plug our other two hard-wired computers into the system. We've found an 8-port with WAP router and also could of course put wireless cards in the extra computers. Just don't want to trade one problem for another and have seen some folks having problems, it seems, with wireless too.

thanks!

Laurel

Posts: 220 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 19, 2003 Posts: 220

Antiapas:

Wow, are you the man or what?! Lol

Just showed this to Rich. He and I are not sure we understand all of it yet, but we will by the time the weekend is over. Gee, I've got a switch (now a paperweight) and a second Linksys Router (also a paperweight). Any suggestions on which hub to get?

We have a different Motorola Modem -- we have SB4100. Assume that will work anyway? Also, it appears by setting this up it will just automatically detect a second IP? (I'm assuming so because of the way you worded this.)

I'm trying to think what would be the hazard of the ATA out in the open. Can it be hijacked and calls placed on our account or something? I assume if any real threat to the ATA were to develop we'd hear about it from Vonage and quick, though, right?

Rich and his buddies love anybody to join them in Aces High. He's been flying the skies over Europe in Air Warrior and now AH forever. And yes, you got the right site and he is already drooling on even better frame rates. He builds our computers and is always in search of speed!

Thanks so much. I will come back and ask specific questions if we have them once we start trying to put these changes in effect.

Laurel

Posts: 220 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 19, 2003 Posts: 220

Antipas:

Hey, I think we did it. We got into the router menu (I had to read the help file to see that you have to disable DHCP before you can see the forwarding tab. I told you I wasn't paying attention before!) Anyway, we just forwarded to the ATA what you said and forwarded to the fly boy the ports you said AH suggested. He's now running downstairs to see what happened with his frames. Very Happy

Only thing left to try is the wireless. I had it all working beautifully in the beginning when I daisy-chained everything together with the second router -- until I fired up the notebook. Sent the whole network into the dirt.

I've still been having trouble with my notebook communicating with the desktop. I keep getting specified network name no longer available or something like that. It seems to be a speed issue. I guess I may have to direct some ports to the WAP too or something if this change doesn't help.

Our LOA transfer will hopefully be complete soon. Then it will be baptism of fire and we can see what works and what doesn't. Even with its warts, I love to be cutting edge. Of course occasionally that means you bleed, but we can live with it. Wink

thanks again! We'll let you know how it works!

Laurel

Posts: 220 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 19, 2003 Posts: 220

antipas:

bummer. fired up the notebook and it didn't have an address. its attempts to grab an IP address are failing. I will have to try to figure out why, I guess. Sigh. it's always something!!!

laurel

Posts: 220 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 19, 2003 Posts: 220

antipas:

finally got into the guts of the wireless setup and put in a static ip and it's online. I'll just have to remember to change it when I'm on the road and there's wireless available.

thanks again,

laurel

Posts: 220 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 19, 2003 Posts: 220

Antipas:

if you're not sick of me yet, I have a few more questions for you. I'm confused how, if you've disabled DHPC, you can count on the computers to always grab the right IP address and not conflict with what you've forwarded to the ATA. Do you have to check every time the power goes off, etc., to be sure the ATA grabbed the same port? it seems once you disable DHCP you almost have to go static with all the computers.

What prompted my query, I had my desktop lose its connection today while I was out. Don't know why, but suddely 169. I couldn't seem to get it to rehook so I stupidly reset the router (hey, i used to ALWAYS reset the router when things went weird.) Of course it cleared all my forwards. AND when all settled the ATA had changed from 100 to 105. Oops. 105 was what I'd set the wireless card in the notebook to for a static. Oops.

Well, I knew the notebook wasn't going to work anymore so I reset it to obtain automatically and it worked. This time it grabbed 100, what the ATA used to have. Rich is static at 103, but what's to keep the other systems from grabbing 103 if he's powered down when one of them turns on?

I'm thinking I should have set him at 100 static, somehow coherce the ATA into grabbing 101 and then set the range for the auto detection at 102 and above (if you can even do such a thing).

So I guess what I'm thinking is maybe I missed the part where you explained how I could keep from shooting myself in the foot at least three times a day with this. Embarassed

the good news is our call waiting works correctly now!

tia,
laurel

Posts: 40 · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 12:18 pm Post subject:

I "solved" this problem for me -- albeit indirectly -- w/ an Uniterruptible Power System (UPS); a.k.a battery backup.

As I wanted to be able to use my Vonage service during short-term, local power outages, I needed to keep my ATA and router running during blackouts. (My Cox high speed digital cable stays "up" for 6 hours during local blackouts)

So, my cable modem, router and ATA are all powered through an UPS. (it is also much "easier" on the broadband hardware to have a source of good, solid power)

Therefore, as the modem, ATA and router all stay up during blackouts, the ATA keeps it's IP address as it never goes offline. My other "non-UPS'd" hardware -- which does shut-down -- simply obtains the first avail IP address from the router via DHCP after power is restored.

... and for a long outage ... if the UPS does die, the modem, router and ATA come back online first -- everything else requires a manual restart -- and obtains the first -- and correct -- assignable IP address (in my case "111")

Posts: 83 · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 7:37 pm Post subject:

DHCP, here's the final scoop:

You can lock down DHCP to just answer to the ATA and serve up a single DHCP address.

I use Reserved DHCP which locks the Vonage ATA-186 MAC address to the same IP address no matter what. So restarts, power failires, resets makes no difference.

I use Windows 2000 Server running DHCP services, not my router for DHCP.

It's the same as static addressing.

Posts: 1 · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 6:37 pm Post subject:

would the above setting also apply to linksys router befsr41 ?