VPN with Vonage devices- mission impossible?

Posts: 79 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Dec 28, 2004 Posts: 79

Its a little bit of a step up, but you might want to look into an Epygi Quadro 2X.

Don

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 19, 2005 Posts: 9

My phone adapter is built in with wireless router (WRTP54G). It has wireless 54G, 4 jacks for connecting PCs and 2 ports for connecting phones. so no separate phone adapter.

Posts: 9 · Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:03 pm Post subject:

Folks, I just spoke with one of our corporate Real Smart Guys. This guy is super Cisco savvy (Cisco Certified Everything) and also a Vonage customer.

I told him about the DMZ / outgoing call problems and here is what he told me to do:

Cable | Old Linksys | ==> PC
Modem ==> | BEFW1154 DSL | ==> Vonage box ==> Phones
| Router* | ==> PC

*It does not have to be a BEFW1154 router, just anything with that functionality. I may replace it with a newer Voip friendly router.

This configuration provides the firewall capabilities of the old router (excellent and solid) and allows the DMZ function on the Vonage box to stay disabled. I asked about the packet priority on Voice packets and he said with 4M / 384K ISP service, the lack of priority on voice packets will not be an issue at all.

I will try this tonight and let y'all know how it goes.

BTW, another issue on using the Vonage box for VPN PC connectivity on the occaisional work-from-home day, is the frequent changing of my laptop's IP address. This means I have to change the DMZ setting on the Vonage box to reconnect via VPN.

If anybody else tries this, please update the thread with comments.

Posts: 102 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jul 04, 2005 Posts: 102

im able to VPN into the job with no problem. we use Secure ID tags. i can vpn on 2 or more pcs and be able to make and receive calls without altering any changes in the box. i have the rtp linky box and wrt54gs router. i even use zone alarm pro

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 19, 2005 Posts: 9

seems I found the issue, ok this is what happened :

I told LinkSys about the problem I am facing, they asked to forward the ports and disable the firewall etc. spent around one hour with those guys and they agreed it doesn't work.
They gave me RMA number and hence replaced my router/adapter.

I got new WRTP54G, called Vonage, they transfered my service to it. Called Linksys, they told me again to open ports and disable fire wall...and IT WORKED !!! Yes, call and VPN at same time.

BUT, I was loosing my dial tone after every 4-5 hours, reset it and I get the dial tone. Other problem was that I pick up the phone and get dial tone after 5-6 seconds.

I called Vonage, they updated the firmware to 1.00.43 (earlier it was 1.00.37)
And the problem came back with it Surprised

( no longer the luxury of call and VPN at the same time.

This is definetily issue with Vonage firmware. I am going to call Vonage today and see if they have any solution. Otherwise I will have to cancel their service.

Posts: 233 · Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 3:15 pm Post subject:

Here is what my experience has been:
Prior to getting my PAP2 I had zero problems. My company using UDP ports as its primary VPN connection. Once I installed the Voip my primary UDP VPN connection would not work. The Voip was consuming those ports. My company has a back-up VPN connection using TCP. It works great! I've had ZERO problems other than I have to use TCP for my VPN rather than UDP. Confused? If you are not the person who set up the VPN for your business, company, etc. you may want to see if your IT, IS, or whatever you call it manager can set up a VPN using TCP. It was all plug-n-play type action for me. Guess I got lucky.