Vonage CS Refuses to Ship RTP300

Posts: 68 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 14, 2005 Posts: 68

If it's broken and they're refusing to fix it (1 of the lines isn't working, which hinders the service since in order to get another line they'd need to order another box)...

Still, if you're having problems, ask to speak to the supervisor -- you still might have to haggle with them a bit, but they'll eventually forward you to a 'tier 2' person I think it's called, thing is they were probably the people that you originally would speak to when you called vonage..

Of course since they have so many more customers nowadays, they needed more CSRs, and it seems these ones were a lot cheaper to hire Wink

However that goes, the first person or two you speak to probably won't be able to replace the box, so keep on truckin' till you get someone that does.

Posts: 57 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 23, 2005 Posts: 57

Called Vonage CS AGAIN today. He told me he would ship the RTP300 no problem! Phone call was like 20 seconds long!!! And even the wait time was nothing....

Man, maybe Vonage is actually starting to get better...

Posts: 1389 · Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2005 10:35 am Post subject:

VonageTPA wrote:

I want to know when Vonage is going to start shipping the free Cisco 79xx series IP phones instead of these adapters. Razz

I do agree with the "ain't broke" mentality on many things...but the RT31P2's that Vonage sent me definitely were broken, at least there's no way I could live with that much static on my line and not using data devices (modem/fax/tivo/etc) with Vonage. I am curious to see if the Motorolas will materialize. TI chipset, 'though I'm wondering what advantage there would be for Vonage in bringing the Motorolas on board. I'd imagine the Linky gear to cost less than Motorola, but I could be wrong. Then again, I could be right... as I stare at my $600 Motorola 2-way radio.

Exactly...I went through 3-4 RT31P2's...I have had MUCH better quality and stability with the 300.

Posts: 277 · Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2005 2:19 pm Post subject:

Trowski wrote:

VonageTPA wrote:

I do agree with the "ain't broke" mentality on many things...but the RT31P2's that Vonage sent me definitely were broken, at least there's no way I could live with that much static on my line and not using data devices (modem/fax/tivo/etc) with Vonage.

Exactly...I went through 3-4 RT31P2's...I have had MUCH better quality and stability with the 300.

<shrug> I know that there were a lot of "teething pains" with the RT31P2's, with the "white noise" problem apparently being the worst. It now appears that they've gotten through their early bad times though, and for those who are still using them, are now quite solid (at least as adapters, not so sure about the router functionality.) Mine works great, doesn't have an unacceptable amount of noise, hasn't been reset in close to 2 months now, and faxes and my Tivo calls work just fine with it.

OTOH, the majority of the problem posts here these days deal with the RTP and its wireless cousin. Unreliable caller ID display, unreliable voicemail indicators, wireless networking is broken, etc...
Is that because there are already a lot more RTP300's out there than RT31P2's and PAP2's? Somehow, with the relatively short time that the RTP has been shipping, I doubt it - I imagine there are still a whole lot more Sipura chipset units in the installed base than new TI-based units.

My guess is that Vonage has now shot themselves in the foot for the second time. The RT31P2 and PAP2 were released before they were stable and reliable, and there were LOTS of problems with them. Just about when they finally were getting to stability with the those, they released the RTP way too early, and are right back to where they were with the early RT's.

I confess it causes me to chuckle a bit when I keep reading how much better and more reliable the RTP's are, often from the very same posters who are complaining about caller ID problems, voicemail indicator problems, and begging for the next firmware release in hopes that all the issues will be fixed. I seem to remember a lot of similar postings early in the life of the RT's, hoping and praying that the next firmware release would fix all the problems - oh, and not introduce a bunch of new problems at the same time!

Posts: 1389 · Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2005 3:41 pm Post subject:

Well, I think that Vonage does some pretty good testing I am sure prior to releasing their adaptors. But nothing can be actual market testing with alot of people actually using the adaptor and Vonage's system. I highly doubt there will ever be an adapter that works 100% right out of the box everytime. There are so many different setup options for people, between cable, dsl, wireless, etc and some have extensive networks and some have minimal networks if any at all...

Posts: 57 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 23, 2005 Posts: 57

In my humble opinion I think Cisco sent out the RTP300 to Vonage so that the Vonage users are the pretesters.

I don't know if anyone knows this, but the RTP300 is not available to the market yet. Distributors can't get their hands on them "until the end of the year." I'm set up with Ingram Micro, and that's also their estimated initial ship date.

Hardware wise the RTP300 seems a lot more solid. Compared to the RT31P2 and ESPECIALLY compared with my antique VT1000 or VT100, whatever it was.

Anyway, lookin forward to the RTP300. I have two at 2 other locations and they are working great.

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

DallasFlier wrote:

OTOH, the majority of the problem posts here these days deal with the RTP and its wireless cousin. Unreliable caller ID display, unreliable voicemail indicators, wireless networking is broken, etc...
Is that because there are already a lot more RTP300's out there than RT31P2's and PAP2's? Somehow, with the relatively short time that the RTP has been shipping, I doubt it - I imagine there are still a whole lot more Sipura chipset units in the installed base than new TI-based units.

My guess is that Vonage has now shot themselves in the foot for the second time. The RT31P2 and PAP2 were released before they were stable and reliable, and there were LOTS of problems with them. Just about when they finally were getting to stability with the those, they released the RTP way too early, and are right back to where they were with the early RT's.

Keep in mind that the RTP300 is the hardware currently being shipped for _new accounts_ . I should think that we would expect more problems being reported from new accounts than from established ones. That means we should expect to see more problems involving RTPs even if there were absolutely no issues with the unit.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2005 11:41 pm Post subject:

There's still no doubt that the RTP300's were shipped well before they were ready. C'mon, they didn't even have proper call progress tones, call waiting disable, bandwidth saver, or a bunch of other features working when they first shipped.... which indicates to me that they did NO in-house testing of these before dumping them on the public. Even the techs were surprised that there were new adapters out.

I STILL would like to get a real answer as to why they suddenly started shipping the RTP300's. The only explanation I can personally think of is that they needed them for VonageUK, since they're still using them over there & I also was able to get Vonage to set up my RT31P2 to 100% mimic a British Telecom line, right down to the multiple dial tones, ringing cadence, even Caller ID was BT-spec instead of US-spec. Otherwise, it's beyond me why they rushed them out so quickly. I do appreciate having the extra LAN port, 'though I've only ever had one device plugged into it (laptop, when on the road).