Satellite VoIP Discussion Board

[david13579]

I ordered Vonage and for the first few days it was amazing but then I decided to transfer my landline's number to it and since then I've had tons of problems. CID does not work properly and the sound quality is horrible ( lots of noise on the line, as if it were raining); it used to have amazing sound.

[dellsweig]

1)Are you using a home router in front of the vonage TA?

2)Do you experience the noise issue with a phone DIRECTLY connected to the TA (no house wiring). Also - have you tried this with a wired phone (not wireless).

Digital telphoney is somewhat immune to noise.Most times the noise is on the analog side (your handset) or house wiring.

Bandwidth issues are seen as jitter, echo and one sided conversations.

Have you called Vonage tech support - they can be quite helpfulIt is possible a bad setting was made in your configuration and loaded to your TA when you transfered your number - support can look into that for you.

[david13579]

It is behind the router, just like it was when the audio was good. ( my router is also my modem so I have no other choice and I don't plan on getting a new router because I'm fine with mine).

Wireless- connected directly to the adapter.

[dellsweig]

The "sounds" you are describing would point me to the analog side. As I said, this could possibly be a bad setting in the TA configuration that was made when the re-provisioned your adapter.

Another thing I would try is a different phone - preferably hard wired.

Is your wireless phone 2.4Ghz?

[PX Eliezer]

Dellsweig has provided some good points to consider.

This is funny, I am usually a Vonage critic, NOT a Vonage defender. (This relates to business plan, not to their service).

However, I think that your title "Is Vonage a scam?" is rather inflammatory, borderline libelous.

Vonage has millions of customers, and is the largest independent VoIP operation. By independent, I mean not run by a cable company, and not run by a major telco.

Vonage certainly has some customer turnover, but the fact remains that they have a very, very large number of customers.

VoIP quality issues are also in many cases related to your ISP. Is your ISP Optimum/Cablevision, which often has problems?

How do you fare on:

http://www.speedtest.net

and more importantly:

http://www.pingtest.net

Those problems relate to your ISP, not to Vonage.

PS: If things got bad after your number ported, this perhaps is a CLEC issue, and again, talk to Vonage customer service.

[david13579]

By "scam" I meant something on the lines of " it works well while you are under the 30 day money back thing then starts having problems when you are stuck with it for a year"Hell no, I'd die before getting cable internet.

47 ms ping 35ms jitter 0% loss.

I usually get 32ms ping to google and under 30 when verizon is having a good day.

[epro]

Keep a close eye on their billing. I have been with them for awhile, and had a few billing issues that used a bit of energy to resolve. They seem to debit your account every 29/30 days and over time eases your auto-debit payment forward.

The service qualityhas been decent and directly tied to the quality of your internet connection. Don't get fooled by high download speed test... it is quality that counts.

[PX Eliezer]

That is a lot of jitter and certainly can make for bad VoIP.

Jitter generally matters more than ping.

What grade and [b]what MOS score do you get on http://www.pingtest.net?[/b]

[dellsweig]

Once again - based on the OP's description of the symptoms - noise on the line - I would have to defer to my background in EE and Computers and say this "noise" is happening on the Analog side - which could also effect the CID functioning.

Jitter tends to give "choppy" VoiP conversations - the sound quality would still be clear - as in no "noise".

Routing issues, latency tend to give echos and one sided conversations - still with clear sound - as in no noise.

I repeat my advice...

1) rule out the phone with a WIRED directly connected phone

2) have Vonage support check the provisioning settings on the TA.

[alancurry]

That sounds odd to me. I've been billed on the 11th of each month since I became a customer in 2005.