Is Vonage down again?

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 03, 2005 Posts: 2

My husband works with customers at a large, well-known, global company. One of his jobs is to communicate with customers when there is a problem with the product they have bought from his company. He works with people all over the world. He says that the one thing customers appreciate the most is someone from the company listening to them, understanding, taking responsibility, and letting people who have paid for the product know that the problem is being worked on. Most people are willing to have some level of patience if there is a responsive ear from a company to at least hear their frustration. One of the reasons I'm leaving Vonage is this arrogant attitude of taking our money and then being completely unavailable other than that maddening recording (which I am sure we have all memorized by now).

Posts: 429 · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:31 pm Post subject:

VonageTPA wrote:

Oh, if you only knew of the crap I've put up with from AT&T Wireless (now Cingular)... Vonage looks VERY good right now. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true.

This is off-topic, but since you brought it up....

Our cell package at work was with Cingular for a couple years and service was an abortion-- dropped calls, lots of no-signal problems even in the Tampa/Clearwater area, wrong billings, etc. Customer service existed only to "give us an attitude" every time we called with a legitimate problem. I swear every service rep had a chip on his/her shoulder.

Then the number portability law took effect and we fled to AT&T Wireless. Phone service was excellent, and customer service was orders of magnitude better. We were totally satisfied.

Then AT&T merged with Cingular, and (because of a service upgrade that forced us to change over to their "new" network) we were dumped right back with Cingular and have had problems ever since. We have a $900 (yes, nine hundred) billing mistake (in their favor, of course) that we've been going round-and-round with for nearly 6 months, and we're no closer to resolution today than when we started. UGH!!

Posts: 429 · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:45 pm Post subject:

KDWycha wrote:

The service over the past month has been EXTREAMLY substandard. Either I cannot get my voicemail or I just cannot make calls at all. 813 - Tampa

While it doesn't excuse the service problems, it makes me feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one seeing a dramatic increase in problems in the past month or so. After using Vonage for nearly a year, we've seen its ups and downs, but July seemed to be particularly problematic with lots of "all circuits are busy" and "ring forever, no answer" problems, plus substantially more clicks, pops, dropouts, and roll-to-network-availability number calls than usual, and this has continued into August.

For the record, we're also in the Tampa Bay area (a/c 727).... Road Runner 5M/384k.... Moto SB5100 modem, which I swapped out at the local Brighthouse office just to rule it out as the problem. Ping Plotter has been running non-stop for the past 33 days, polling every 10 seconds, and shows essentially 0% packet loss and consistently low latency. TestMyVoIP.com shows consistent 98-99% QoS. (I do that test every time we have a Vonage problem.) I'm confident in saying our internet connection is not the problem.

Posts: 429 · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:56 pm Post subject:

KDWycha wrote:

Well after viewing the Verizon website I think I have made my choice of changing VoIP provider and ISP. I can get Verizon FIOS internet in my area for 34.95 a month and then Verizon VoiceWing VoIP for 29.95 a month if I have FIOS. Sounds like a good deal to me Smile

Pffffffpphtttthhh!!!!!!! You lucky Hillsborough people with your fancy FIOS availability. We poor slobs on the other side of the county line are stuck with no other options than RR or DSL. Sad

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:18 pm Post subject:

fios is nice but I'm pretty impressed with roadrunner. the $10 student discount helps a lot too. on another note, I'm trying to find some preconstruction projects (single family homes) in pasco (mmm prewired fios) or hillsborough. the fios would be nice, but I'm looking at hernando too. if you guys have heard anything drop me a pm. thanks.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 09, 2005 Posts: 1

Many incoming calls go dirctly to voicemail & people on the other end can't hear me? It's been doing this for a couple days now.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 10:08 pm Post subject:

rebus wrote:

KDWycha wrote:

Well after viewing the Verizon website I think I have made my choice of changing VoIP provider and ISP. I can get Verizon FIOS internet in my area for 34.95 a month and then Verizon VoiceWing VoIP for 29.95 a month if I have FIOS. Sounds like a good deal to me Smile

Pffffffpphtttthhh!!!!!!! You lucky Hillsborough people with your fancy FIOS availability. We poor slobs on the other side of the county line are stuck with no other options than RR or DSL. Sad

It's not all that it's cracked up to be... search the other forums on the 'net and you'll find FIOS is still a beta-quality product. Oh yeah, part of their "installation process" is to REMOVE the copper lines that run from your house to the street (not just disconnect them). Apparently they have to share the copper with CLECs, but not the fiber. Also, once you've gone fiber, you're stuck with VoIP. I believe I read somewhere that Verizon's VoiceWing product is actually just rebadged Delta Three VoIP, so buyer beware. And yes, if the power goes out, you'll have a whole 4 hours (or less) of phone service AND the internet connection goes down immediately.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 06, 2005 Posts: 5

The 608 area code has been very spotty today. About 1/4 to 1/2 the time you get a "cannot complete this call" or "all circuits are busy" errror and don't get through or go to voice mail.

Is Vonage the new AOL? Ie. when AOL first started it got so popular so quick no one could get online because their access numbers were so busy. To me it looks like Vonage is having the same issues.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:03 am Post subject:

Hmm..werid. I just tried 2 calls to the 608 AC & had no trouble. Sounds like it's an issue between a phone company & Vonage.