Using Vonage Adapter in a Hotel

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 26, 2005 Posts: 9

I have been on the road almost continusly for the last 4 months. I have only found 1 hotel (a Hampton Inn) where I had problems with Vonage due to ports being blocked.

I ahev had some crappy WiFi connections and some good ones.

As far as authentication is concerned..the places that required it...I just plugged in the PC to the Linksys...entered the username and password, and poof! I was good for another 24 hours. The phone light comes on, and I have dialtone.

Good luck

Posts: 497 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Apr 29, 2005 Posts: 497

Radioman991,
How has the bandwidth been? Do you have any tips that may help in setting it up?

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 26, 2005 Posts: 9

I have never changed a thing regarding bandwidth. The only crapshoot I have ran into was a few hotels with crappy wireless. I have an ASUS WL-330 external wireless adapter/Access Point. I use that to pick up the wireless, and feed that into the WAN port on the Linksys Vonage box. I suppose I could try adjusting the bandwidth settings, if I get another crappy WiFi connection.

If the wireless is good, then I am golden!

If you land in a hotel with a CAT5 cable, it just works. Some of the Holiday Inns I have been at require you to log in. Once I logged in from the laptop, the phone light comes on, and life rocks!

Posts: 497 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Apr 29, 2005 Posts: 497

Well I got it set up at the Marriott Residence Inn and tested the call to a cell phone - the first call was great, but the following weren't as great, but they work!
See the testyourvoip.com scores.

Each room has a Golden Tree Communications vDSL modem which gives you the option to connect to the public network, advoiding the hotel's firewall (for VPN - or Vonage), or you can connect behind the firewall.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 1

Hi,

Im an engineer for Vonage

Your question does not include the model number of the device--So if its a linksys router,do a hard reset by holding the reset button for 10 secs and then release the power for 10 seconds .Connect the router back .Check for internet and solid telephone light on the front panel.If u get a solid light you are all set to use the device.

Ans
1)Your router has an inbuilt firewall turned on,which can secure your computer to a certain extend, but the security of the credit card depends on the website you are performing a transaction.All credit card transaction on Internet are vulnerable.

2)There is a chance that your hotel could block the voice ports on the router,so incase you are able to go online and not getting a dal tone or not able to make calls,contact hotel admin to open ports 5060,5061 & 10000.

Thanks and regards
Shaan.

I will be spending about a month in a hotel with high-speed internet and would like to be able to use Vonage to make and receive calls. I have a few questions:
1) Will the connection be secure (credit-cards, etc)
2) Will the hotel block it (it's a Marriott Resident Inn)

I do not want to use SoftPhone or SkypeOut if at all possible.[/quote]

Posts: 26 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 25, 2005 Posts: 26

It's extremely common now that hotels use an internet service though a national third party that hijacks your browsers homepage so even though you get an IP and can see "The Web" it is highly restricted so the web page you see when you open IE or Firefox or whatever is the hotels website with a box for an authentication code you have to get from the front desk (sometimes for a fee). COX seems to be very popular and international now. From NJ to Las Vegas all the hotels I stay in now are COX comunication and are restricted in the same way. There isn't an easy way around it although people have claimed to beat the system. It actually uses packet inspection and is able to control all in/out traffic to modify any web request and make it redirect you to a hotel/Cox website. The problem is once you authenicate it takes your machine and binds either to it's IP or it's MAC and will only allow that one comptuer on at a time (wireless or Lan doesn't matter). If your Vonage box isn't a router (the cisco box) you have to bring a router and connect you and Vonage behind it to fake the COX (or whatever) network into thinking you (really the router) are only one person and are on all the time. Then the Vonage box should work as normal (after using your laptop from behind the router to authenticate to the website). Important note; Every time you lose power to your router you have to go back into the web and reenter your daily code to get access again.