i have some question to ask you guys


i dont know if you heard this or not about the Vonage phone system and if you using this system how you feel this is a good one or not ??

let me know how you feel on this one

thanks

Merci, Marc

It either sucks or it works, depending on your luck. Vonage and a couple of others depend on the internet to transmit your call, something that the internet was not designed to do. Voice quality can range from good to unintelligible so basically you get what you pay for.

Keep in mind that the reason it is so cheap is because these companies are not taxed by the government or have to collect the surcharges that real phone companies have to. That will soon change bringing the cost more in line with the phone companies. Then all Vonage will offer is poor service.

As you can tell I am not a big fan of Vonage or most anything VoIP. Most people I have heard from that tried it were not happy.

-Hal

[This message has been edited by hbiss (edited 02-15-2007).]

I have vonage. For a one man shop, I found it to be a pretty good deal, especially since I can check voicemails from any internet connectiona and forward the voice calls to my cellphone.

Tha said, I would not get it if I had to do it over again. Here's why.

1. You need a very good internet connection, high badwidth and all that
2. Low band width equals you sounding like you are talking thru a tin can.
3. Low bandwidth means incomlete or nonuseable fax lines.
4. Number portability. Go ahead, leave vonage, they keep the number.

I am moving my office to new location in coming months, I will keep the vonage line until the FCC requires them to release my number, but you can be sure that the local phone company will be getting my business.

Tomorrow we will be connected to one of their competitors due to package pricing. Optimum voice.
After some time, I'll try to let you know how it goes.

I have Optimum voice in my house, not a complaint out of me. The only difference I can tell from when I had Verizon is the bill.
My fax machine works flawlessly and the voice quality is good.
The only thing I didn't care for is the fact that if your power goes out so does your dial tone, to prevent this I have a UPS installed for the cable modem and my wireless router, so when the lights go out I can still be on my laptop surfing the web and talking on the phone, all by candle-light.

I've had optimum Voice for a while now (With optimum Online and Optimum IO Digital Cable total Package Price is About $155 without CT State Tax. I like the optimum online very fast and I'm on the computer alot . The Optimum Voice is also very good. Great voice quality all of the calling features you can ask for so me and my mom are happy with it and the price the only thing about VOIP you lose power you lose phone service or your modem breaks (Had that happpen But since you lease it if it breaks cable vision will take care of it

It poses problems for E-911 systems. Since you can connect from anywhere in the world where you have an internet connection, it can't really provide the location information that E-911 systems need. All is fine if you can talk and give your location, but if you can't then they have no way to locate you. Another problem is the funding that supports the operation of the E-911 system. Wirelines and cellular accounts have a fee that is charged on each months bill and this is sent to the local E-911 board to support the operations of the emergency dispatch system. Here in Illinois even the cell phone accounts are associated with E-911 system money problems. The monthly fee for a cell account is capped at $0.48 per month. The wireline fee is approved by the voters when the E-911 system is established and for small or systems with large rural areas, the fee on each phone line may be $1.75 or more. As more and more people drop their conventional phone service, another method will have to be found to fund the E-911 systems.
Don (E-911 board member)

That is another issue with VOIP and cable phone systems. Localized power outages can drop out your phone service. This does not happen as much with wireline systems as they have back-up power in their central stations.
Don

Several sites associated with my employer have used vonage. As Hal said, it is hit or miss.

When my lab was in Waltham, MA, my vonage line worked _perfectly_. I've since moved to Portland, OR. At home we have a vonage line that again works perfectly. However the line that I set up in my new lab worked terribly. An associate who set vonage up at home in Baltimore, MD had no luck at all. But then they moved the box over into a lab space, and it seems to be working just fine.

We did discover a bug in the box that they provided. Vonage provides a box that works as both the VOIP interface and as a router. The idea is that you connect the VOIP box to your cable/dsl/internet box, and then connect all of your computers to the VOIP box. This is supposed to let the VOIP box do 'Quality of Service' control and make sure that the voice channel gets enough bandwidth. Essentially you are supposed to be able to pick up the phone, and the box will slow down all of your other downloads and make sure that the voice traffic goes through.

Well it turns out that the QOS feature has a bug, and when it is on the box spends so much time processing packets that voice quality just falls apart. If you turn off the QOS feature, then voice quality improves dramatically. The very feature that is supposed to protect the VOIP traffic kills it. With the QOS feature off in my Portland lab, vonage is again acceptable.

There is also an important failure mode that anyone using vonage for business needs to know about: you don't have any indication of outgoing line quality. You can have a _perfectly clear_ channel for listening, but the person on the other end of the line can't hear you speak.

-Jon

Most people now days have cordless or otherwise powered phones that are a problem during power outages anyway, so I think the UPS would take care of the power outages as mkoloj advises. If you have a good internet connection and make a lot of long distance calls, why not save some money and embrace the new technology?

Another issue with the VoIP setup is that the cable companies are not required to meet the reliability standards that POTS do. Short of a local wire being knocked down, the phone service will stay up during power outages. I believe the phone system has a requirement to back in service in less than 24 hours, were as the cable service doesn't have such a limit. At my house, we lost cable for 4 days until the cable company could replace the power amp that was knocked down.

Larry C

let me know how you feel on this one

When Comcast can keep my modem up for one week straight, we'll consider Vonage or CDV (Comcast Digital Voice.)

EDIT: Oh yeah, also when my local Comcast Office get's some good service guys to install it instead of contractors. (yeah, like that'll ever happen.) Can you tell my family doesn't like Comcast or anything they do, despite my father working for them?

Ian A.

I'm with Ian on this one. My Comcast connection has been down for about 36 hours and they are saying Saturday now.

I have never lost my phone, even through a half dozen hurricanes. I also only own one cordless phone, actually my wife's. The other 6 have "Western Electric" on the handset. Those things will be working after the nuclear war that kills the cockroaches.
I still have 2 rotary dial phones hooked up.

Another thing to consider is the cable companies do not have eniough lines to carry peak time calling, so when someone calls you they may get an office busy, it took me 2 days of trying to reach someone, and he was not using the line, this will vary from area to area, but don't expect them to improve the number of lines any time soon, and once you sign the contract, your another victim.

We dropped our land-line telephone line completely and rely entirely on cox cable for TV and internet. We use internet for communication more than phones anyhow. I have my computer, router and cable modem on UPS- if I shut the PC down to conserve the battery, it will power the WAP for many hours, during which time, we can use our laptops. For longer outages, the generator has no problem powering all the TVs and computers in the house.

If cable goes out, I have a Treo700p PDA Phone which I can use to access my email and the internet in general. I can also tether it to my laptop via bluetooth and use it as a broadband modem (3mbps!); with my laptop set up as ad-hoc wifi proxy server, my wife and I can both get online with it at the same time So, if we lose cable, we're still up on broadband internet


I use Skype a lot to video teleconference with my parents (who FINALLY got DSL in their area!)- lets them see their grandkids, they like that The quality isn't perfect, but it's not all that bad.

[This message has been edited by SteveFehr (edited 02-16-2007).]

While your UPS can take care of your power outage, the cable companies have pole mounted equipment that requires power between you and their central equipment. Loss of power on any one of these points will result in loss of service.
Don

I have two Vonage lines at the house. One is used for the business and the other for the house. I also have an AT&T land line for the business fax.

In my mechanical room in the house where all of the equipment is located, I have a phone that is connected to the fax land line. In case Vonage goes out I can still make calls or dial 911 from in the house.

Before we had kids we disconnected our land line. My wife and I just used our cell phones. When the kids arrived, so did the land line....

Don't confuse Vonage with voice services provided by a cable company. Apples and oranges. Vonage uses the internet, a cable modem only uses the cable lines for VoIP. At their head end or office their switch connects you with normal telco provided facilities. Usually cable voice service is quite good.

-Hal

Hal,
But in many cases the internet is provided by the cable company. In my area the cable is run out from the main office in fiber and connected to coax in the neighborhoods. Loss of power for the media converter results in loss of cable service and internet service. We have many areas of town where the only broadband choice is the cable as the homes are over 15,000 wire feet from the central office and won't support DSL.

Don

Sounds like my neck of the woods Don. Luckily verizon signal is strong at home...

"While your UPS can take care of your power outage, the cable companies have pole mounted equipment that requires power between you and their central equipment."

Many telephone companies such as Verizon are using remote concentrators which require power. These are installed in curbside cabinets. They have the same problem the cable companies do: If the batteries fail, the equipment doesn't work in a power outage.

"Many telephone companies such as Verizon are using remote concentrators which require power. These are installed in curbside cabinets. They have the same problem the cable companies do: If the batteries fail, the equipment doesn't work in a power outage"

Verizon switches in curb boxes will last for a week, the cable pole mount amps will usually last 3 to 4 hours at best, if they remembered to replace the batteries, they have a lot of pole amps without batteries in them, not all cable companies invest in the equipment needed to deliver the bandwith, or even provide a good service, IMO the number one concern is money comming in every month for overpriced services.

A residential phone bill decreased every year from the first day phone services were marketed, then one year after deregulation, the increases started, and it has been a study up slope in charges, they trainned the public well, to accept less for more.

Before dereg, you could get service in days not weeks.

But in many cases the internet is provided by the cable company.

You're not following me. Voice or telephone from a cable company is not carried by the internet. From the cable modem it goes back to their head end or office using their coax and fiber then out to the local telco central office using the usual telco methods. This is why service is good.

Vonage utilizes the internet to go from the cable company to the Vonage switch, wherever in the country that might be. This is why service quality varies greatly.

With either carrier you are going to have to contend with loss of power causing your service to go down. Cable companies have backup batteries in all their plant power supplies as does the telephone companies. Both have generators to keep the central office and cable head ends up and running. You can always provide a UPS for your modem. I know that with an extended outage you will still go down but you need to keep that in mind when considering the service vs price.

-Hal

Again, I agree with Hal. The cable internet service (Comcast) goes out all the time around here and we usually expect it to be gone for weeks after a big storm. They get the TV cable going much sooner than the broadband.
- sign me still down in Estero, 2 days and counting. I am waiting for a callback from Embarq on my DSL installation.

Or sometimes, as one person put it, make you sound like a morphing walrus!


Don,

E-911 aside, wasn't there some fuss about regular 911 service through VoIP a while back?

Obviously with VoIP numbers available in distant cities there wouldn't be a lot of point in having 911 go to a center in Manhattan just because you have a 212 area code if you actually live in California.

If I recall correctly, the FCC wanted to push through some rule which would mean that all VoIP operators must ask subscribers where they want 911 calls routed, and if they did not receive a response were to terminate all service completely.

At least that's how I remember the story.

We have DSL running here on lines which are 5 miles from the C.O. as the wire runs (admittedly at reduced speeds, typically 0.5 meg).

Don't confuse Vonage with voice services provided by a cable company. Apples and oranges. Vonage uses the internet, a cable modem only uses the cable lines for VoIP. At their head end or office their switch connects you with normal telco provided facilities. Usually cable voice service is quite good.

I know the difference, just when Comcast can keep my cable modem and TV up for a week-straight... (Once again, it's the end of the world as we know it, and i feel fine.)

Ian A.

The cable company in my area has no power back-up for any of the equipment after it leaves their head-end. An outage that takes out any amp or media converter between you and the head-end takes out your service. If you have any type of phone service via the cable system, either cable supplied or internet supplied you are out of service until that power is restored.
Don

Paul,
Our phone company won't give DSL over 15,000 wire feet and only give the higher speed connections, up to 6 meg, to about 9,000 feet.
You do have to set it up to route the call correctly, but you can take your phone service anywhere in the world and there is nothing to make sure that you re-route the call when you travel with your VOIP phone. I would like to see the FCC require that actual GPS location information be transmitted with all VOIP and wireless 911 calls.
Don

They must have a lot of batteries in that Verizon equipment.

A rough back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that if Verizon's curbside equipment takes 96 watts, that is, 2 amps at 48V, it'll take a minimum of twenty (20) 70-amp hour 12-volt batteries to keep it running for a week. A 70-amp hour 12-volt lead acid battery is physically about the size of a car battery.

Some phone companies use an outside enclosure with batteries, hydrogen tanks and hydrogen fuel cells. The batteries are for the few minutes until the fuel cells get going. The ones I saw at a trade show could use a number of H2 tanks to provide the required run time.

Don

"Some phone companies use an outside enclosure with batteries, hydrogen tanks and hydrogen fuel cells. The batteries are for the few minutes until the fuel cells get going. The ones I saw at a trade show could use a number of H2 tanks to provide the required run time."

And there are a lot of the older switches, and remote centrals, that even with power loss, will still switch but loose ring voltage, you still have service, with all the different phone companies out there, they all pretty much have good equipment, with the exception of some of the smaller private companies. For the newer switches, and fiber holes, they are pretty much using the fuel cells now.

Don,

Vonage, and the cable companies remind me of remote centrals they used back in the 50's and 60's when the production housing was in boom stage, we had 2500 homes served by a central remote with 12 lines, busy busy busy, and it looks like these so called bargin phone services are still trying to get away with a few lines as possible, in my area in the peak usage times, I get office busy when I try to call anyone with cable phone services, the outbound works, but not eniough lines for the inbound calls, and just about the same for a lot of cell providers.



[This message has been edited by LK (edited 02-17-2007).]

The only compressed gas tanks I've ever seen connected to any telephone equipment are the nitrogen tanks Verizon (former GTE) used to keep moisture out of their paper-insulated cable that should've probably been replaced years before.

Brian,
The tanks are in the enclosure.
Don

If you live in western Canada for $10 more a month Shaw Cable will activate a QOS (quality of service) option to improve the voice quailty of Vontage or any of the other internet phone services that use the public internet.

Shaw also has their own digital phone service which does not travel over the public internet to access a telephone switch and is not subject to this charge.

Last I heard Vontage was going to the CRTC (Canada's version of the FCC) to have Shaw remove the QOS charge.

I have some friends that have the Shaw telephone service and other than a few outages the voice quailty seems to be ok when I call them.

Fair enough, but I would expect that such equipment would need a vent to the outside, which again, I don't see on any Verizon remote concentrators. If this is new technology, then that explains it, as these concentrators are at least 10 years old if not older.

The service I have with Vonage is acceptable, but my major gripe is that they are switched in the US which means I cannot dial any Canada-only toll-free numbers.. This includes several government offices.

Vonage Canada customer service claims they are working on it.. But it's been a problem for 2+ years.

I've been setting up our construction trailers with Vonage now. What I like about it is I can get 2 phone lines for half the cost of comparable Bell service, and when the site closes down, I can pick the box up and move it to the head office, or to a new job site.

And if I recall correctly, Cogeco also offers the QoS charge.

Brian,
It is new stuff, but there were no obvious vents on the enclosures.
Don