Last shot for Vonage

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 23, 2005 Posts: 12

I am THIS close to ditching Vonage and going back to SBC, much as I hate to do it. Our service has been dismal almost from day 1. I've talked with support numerous times, nothing improves. Most of the time the party we talk to can't hear us (whether they call us, or we call them) and when they can hear us, its echoy or with random beeps on their end. Its simply unacceptable. I've adjusted my bandwidth with no improvement. I ran the VoIP speedtest with acceptable results (Don't have them with me right now so I can't post them). It shouldn't be this hard to get a quality line. I ran the PingPlotter program and spoke with support yesterday. He did see a delay before our cable modem.
Since I was considering purchasing a new modem anyway (we lease our from our ISP) I went ahead and ordered a Motorola Surfboard 5100 which should arrive in a few days. Can anyone give me any hope that this will solve the problem, or is Vonage just trying to shift the blame?
Support yesterday ran a test and said things looked pretty good on the line. Last nght my husband got a call about a job he applied for, they couldn't hear him at all. This is not good! I'm the bad guy because I keep wanting to give Vonage another chance, he says "dump 'em".
The new cable modem will be the last try, after that I'm going back to SBC, much as I hate to do that.

Karen

Posts: 89 · Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 8:25 am Post subject:

What kind of modem do you have now? Who is your ISP? Can you please post your results from www.testyour voip.com . It may or may not be Vonage's fault. I think the Tech Support folks at Vonage must repeat "It can't be us" 50 times on the first day of training until it sounds un-rehersed.

After hearing " it is your isp, it is your setup, it's your phone, it is your hair cut" from Vonage tech support I finally switched to another VOIP provider and everything works great now. Funny thing is I didn't change anything at my end...huh... maybe it was Vonage Rolling Eyes

Posts: 89 · Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 9:58 am Post subject:

lewiedude2, how many threads are you going to put this post in? Your unhappy, we get it. But how does this help the person that started this post?? I myself have been guilty of ranting but at least I try to add value to the thread.

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 01, 2005 Posts: 11

The Vonage flu has hit me too! I have, though, enjoyed 5 months of FLAWLESS service. Lately, everything seems to have blown up. People (myself included) can't call my home or get a recording from some business. This "auto-mute" has gone from "never" to "rarely" to "half the time" to "use the cell phone". I'm not a techie, so in my mind, I'm attributing this to growing pains. I'm giving them 1 month and back to the evil empire (SBC).

Posts: 5 · Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 8:01 pm Post subject:

We, too, had all sorts problems with Vonage. For the first nine months we had service it was flawless, then it went bad. We had lots of dropped calls. Then we noticed our Internet was dropping. It would only drop for a few seconds, but it was just enough to cause Vonage to drop. I placed a call to my ISP. After a lot of time with talking to customer support they agreed to send out a technician. The technician found out our cable modem was both bad and outdated. He replaced with a new modem (which also was gave us faster Internet service - Wahoo!) and tested our line. He also found our signal strength was minimal which was also causing dropped Internet service. Once all of that was fixed our phone service has been perfect.

Short story: If the Internet (broadband) service is bad, Vonage will be adversly impacted.

FYI - We have a Time Warner cable modem.

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 23, 2005 Posts: 12

Well, things are considerably better now. Too soon to tell if we'll stay with Vonage, but we will give them some more time. I installed a new modem (Motorola SB5100) which had to be initialized by my ISP, which is Mediacom. If Vonage had the quality of technical help that Mediacom has, they wouldn't be getting so much flak. This guy walked me through everything. It was he who told me that I should have my telephone adapter installed before my wireless router, not after. Why couldn't Vonage have told me that when I called numerous times for help? So I don't know if its the new cable modem, or moving the adapter, but things are much better now. I'll give it some more time before making the final decision to stay with Vonage or not, but at least I'm encouraged.
BTW, Vonage's rep who had me email my PingPlotter results never emailed me back, take a lesson from Mediacom!

Posts: 5 · Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 7:43 am Post subject:

I have my phone adapter installed behind my wireless router. I want to be to know when I have Internet problems it is not due to the phone adapter. Like I said in an earlier post, once I got my new cable modem things have been great.

Posts: 318 · Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 9:53 am Post subject:

karrun,

I believe Vonage does suggest, in all of their installation documents, that the phone adapter be before any router you may have (at least with the RT31P2, this is because of its QoS features).

I am glad things are working well now for you. The Motorola cable modems seem to work well with Vonage.

Posts: 90 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 90

Abraham Lincoln said something about "you can't fool all the people all the time".

For Internet services, I think that has been adapted to "you can't please all the people all the time - it is just too damn expensive".

For a TELCO, who has to provide phone service by law, they have to send a tech out there and fix your phone. The tech does reserve the right to be late, sultry, and track mud on your carpets.

But they do eventually "fix" your phone service. For a fee.

I think for Internet VoIP, they expect a certain percentage of customers to not work out. Either there is a problem with the cable modem, the cable itself, some equipment incompatibility, or some other issue with the customer (whining about Internet security, for example).

From their cost/benefit strategy, it is better to just let such customers disconnect and go back to Ma Bell, rather than try to spend hundreds of dollars (or thousands) apiece making such customers happy. A typical customer service phone call costs the company $50 to $100 or more (for overhead, costs, labor), even if it is to Sanjay in Bangalore.

And you know as well as I do, that there are always a few customers who are NEVER happy no matter what you do. And we've all BEEN that customer from time to time.

So it is cheaper to just dump those folks. When you have 1500 people per DAY signing up for VoIP, you can afford to lose one or two unhappy campers. Even one or two hundred.

And frankly, it is a policy that makes sense. I prefer to shop at a store with a strict returns policy (no recept, no refund!) that has lower prices. Why should I pay extra for folks who are bringing back stuff they've had for a year or more, or worse yet, shoplifted goods.

And I'd rather fly on the airline that says "tough" to whiney passengers rather than throw away free flights and upgrades to try to appease these folks. I don't get a free lunch, so why should I subsidize others?

If Vonage, or any VoIP company tried to adopt a 100% connect policy, the montly service fee would easily double or triple. Then what's the point?

So my advice would be, if it works, it works. If not, send it back and go with a copper wire telco.

Chances are, though, if it ain't working, it's your cable, not the VoIP.

Posts: 492 · Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 4:36 pm Post subject:

I think you should read this. Your not the first person to experience this problem and you won't be the last. You'll have to get Vonage to make a slight adjustment to your phone adapter. This nonsense started with the last Firmware/Audio upgrade(?) although Vonage refuses to take responsibility for it. The attached will explain it all and what to do about it:
vonage-forum.com/ftopic5345.html" target="_blank">http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic5345.html