Help Me Switch To Vonage!

Hey Gang,

As I sit here paying my $65 SBC phone bill for:

9 long distance calls (all under an hour and only 4 that would constitute actual conversations)

25 local calls

I realize how much I need to get SBC's dick out of my ass and fight back. I don't care if the quality is worse for Vonage, it's now a matter of principal.

Here's my current setup - Comcast cable, one entrance into the house through a motorla surfboard cable modem. From there I either hook up the USB cable to my computer or the ethernet cable to my playstation.

With this being the case, I obviously have to switch to wireless. What should I get so I can run Vonage? I'll also need a router now, correct?

Don't think that I'll be offended if you talk down to me here, I'm really in the dark on home networking.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Kevin

I have Vonage.

It's INCREDIBLY easy to set up. Quite literally "plug and play." Plug it into your router (or let it act as your router if you don't have one already) and off it goes.

The quality is just fine, and usually only drops if I'm using the bandwidth for other stuff. The Vonage router will actually adjust itself to balance quality and bandwidth availablility. I've only noticed it sounding "digital" when I was on the phone while playing World of Warcraft.

My setup is:

[ ] - CABLE MODEM
|
[ ] - WIRELESS ROUTER
|\____[] - LAN
[ ] - VONAGE

When you sign up for Vonage they sell you a router with two phone connectors.

It's a linksys.

You connect the route to your cable modem, then connect your network to the router.

If you want to connect a wifi access point, you can connect it to the router if you want.

I suggest Vonage greatly. Never had a problem with it. We're on the $14.99 plan and we've never gone over our 500 or so minutes.

Damn, I spent too long typing it seems, sorry for posting just about the same thing.

No apologies necessary. Thanks for the helpful first hand testimonials. I'm picking it up this weekend.

$60 a month for a handful of phone calls. SBC can blow me.

I heard you can not use a Fax machine with Vonage, is this correct? I have Verizon DSL now but could switch to Optimum Online Cable if it made a difference.

Now I did have Optimum Voice but it was horrible, it dropped a few calls a day and many, many times you could not dial out or the person calling you just got busy signals.

That is untrue. They actually offer an extra fax line special for $9 more a month.

From Vonage.com:

When i had cable it didn't work. but now that i have DSL it works fine. BTW bellsouth local and unlimited long distance with dsl and directv is cheaper then paying the cable company for it (its also more reliable). I only use the vonage line for International calls. Long distance calls within the US are free with my bellsouth line as well as the local calls, and it stills works when the power goes out unlike vonage.

Couple questions as well. Did they ever get that 911 issue resolved? Also, what if you have a house alarm that's hooked up to the phone line?

" I heard you can not use a Fax machine with Vonage, is this correct"

I use my fax machine over the same port that my regular phone is on (via a standard radio shack phone splitter). Works fine. I'm not paying the $10 or whatever for the separate fax line. I just set my fax machine to 9600bps, and dial *99 before the # I'm faxing. This solution, of coures, assumes you don't need a dedicated fax line since your house phone and fax are sharing the same line.

The *99 simply bumps the quality setting to "highest" for that call only.

EDIT: Oh yeah - I'm using Vonage on Adelphia cable. Works great! I'm using the Motorola ATA provided with Vonage as my main router now since my Netgear MR814 v1 SUCKS (just using it as a WAP now).

Been using it for four months, and one move later and it has been absolutely painless. No drop in quality, even if I'm downloading. Forwarded all my calls to my wife and I's cells during the move, they would ring at the same time, no problems at all. So far we have been very pleased with Vonage. We have the 24.99 unlimited plan, and we call long distance, local, whatever for less than $28 a month. Can't beat that.

I got a new router through them. I use Comcrap as well and it's been no problem with my phone. Just plug your modem into the router, plug one cable into your comp, one into my PS2, and one phone port into my phone and I'm golden.

I fax over a regular Vonage phone line all the time, I don't even dial *99.

Also, I believe someone said that they will sell you a router with 2 phone ports....they don't sell it to you, they send it free.

"Also, I believe someone said that they will sell you a router with 2 phone ports....they don't sell it to you, they send it free."

Yeah, but the second port is for a second line (additional cost). If you only have a one line set up, that port is not used and you need a splitter anyway. At least that the way it works with the Motorola ATA they sent me a long time ago. Maybe the other newer ATA's work differently. no biggy.

And their 911 issue really isn't the issue that the media makes it out. Basically, when you sign up w/ Vonage, in order for 911 to work, you have to turn it on. It's not on, automatically. To do that, you have to register your physical address. They give you good, clear directions on how to do that.

Then, if you call 911, you must tell the operator your address, in addition to the problem. Their equipment may or may not be able to trace the call to a physical address, the way they would w/ a landline. So all you have to do is be clear when you call them, and it's a piece of cake.

I've been w/ Vonage for about 3 months, and haven't had any problems with them. My company has been using VOIP for almost a year and a half, and there have been very little problems with it (most were at the very beginning, and that was Cisco's problems, not ours).

Does anyone have a home alarm? How does that work when you're on Vonage?

It shouldn't be any different. A home alarm is plugged into your phone line. Heck, there's a chance you'd end up with even better security, because what burglar is going to think to cut the cable line? Phone line, sure. But cable line? Why bother...

The only true downside to Vonage, or any VOIP setup, is that it's dependent on POWER. If the electricity goes out, you lose your phone. Whereas, a land-line telephone typically isn't on the same polls as the power, so the phone line doesn't normally go out just because the power does. You can fix this shortcoming, really easily, though. Just install a UPS system. For about $60, you can get a decent UPS. Plug in the cable modem, the Lynksys/Vonage Router, and your phone, to the UPS. Then when the power goes out, you're still fine.

Wow. Thanks to everyone for the great response thus far. Very informative thread. I stopped at my local Best Buy to pick up the Lynksis wireless router/Vonage adapter but they were out. Here's a link to what I'm talking about:

http://www.circuitcity.com/rpsm/oid/111263/originURLEncoded/http%253A%252F%252Fwww.circuitcity.com%252Frpsm%252FcatOid%252F-12826%252FN%252F20012841%2B20012826%2B1263%252Frpem%252F ccd%252Fcategorylist.do/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do#tabs

I'll stop by the couple of Circuit Citys in my area to see if they have it.

One more question with this - what kind of adapter will I need for my laptop so it can also go wireless? I'll want to hook up my PS2 on the wireless system also (self admitted SOCOM II fiend), but I'm kind of worried about lag. I'd bug you guys for wireless PS2 adapter info but that should be easy enough to research on my own.

Thanks again everyone.

I have Vonage and I hate it. Probably go back to Verizon when I move. If you live in a very concentrated area like I do (NYC), the amount of bandwidth is critical to phone quality. I have poor audio quality, dropped calls, and whatever else you can think of. I live in an apartment building where the entire building uses Time Warner. Since cable is shared, as opposed to DSL which is dedicated, my bandwidth suffers through peaks and valleys. During the day, it's fine, but after 6:00 when people come home from work, it sucks.

Keep in mind, Vonage's technical support is notoriously bad. I mean REALLY bad. It's normal to wait an hour on hold.

max6spd,
Sounds like the problem is that shared cable line in your building. If you're moving to a different building maybe you wont have that problem?
Might be worth taking it with you when you move to at least test it out. It would suck to have to back to paying all that $$ for a landline!
It wont cost you anything to relocate vonage, but you'll have to pay $$ for landline hook up costs.

Just a thought...

True. I was going to go with Verizon's Voicewing which is also VoIP, but through their DSL line. I'm hoping down the road I can get their FIOS.

Customer service is pretty bad.

Cost can't be beat - and you get all of the extras the baby bells charge you for. (But note that there are some options that they do not offer like anonymous call blocking and SMS text notification when you get a voice mail). Heck, they will send you an e-mail of the voicemail if you'd like - all I want is a text message - not an e-mail to my phone.

911 can be an issue. Note that when you dial 911 - after YOU set it up - it dials the LOCAL PD number and not through the E911 switch so ...

Two issues...
If someone else is calling 911 from your phone, they may assume that it is a true E911 call.
If the dispatcher is busy, he may elect to let a call from your number - on the standard PD number - roll to voicemail. He or she will not know that you dialed 911 - just that you are calling the local PD line.

BUT - I've heard that Vonage is working to get agreements worked out with the local carriers that handle the E911 traffic. I think they have already had a successful test in Rhode Island.

Power is an issue. You need it.

If the service goes down - you're out of luck. My issue is that in my new home, my cell phone coverage sucks - no back-up.

Good international rates.

Customer service is just not there yet. Can take a week for them to get back to you by e-mail.

Quality has been very good for me.

I am looking at Vonage and othe VoIPs, but haven't found a lot about this part yet. Has anyone here had an experience with Vonage (or other VoIP) and the phone line for satellite tv, like Dishnetwork or Directv, the one they use to order PPVs and billing and such? Thanks

again, just like w/ a home security system, it doesn't matter. A VOIP line does not care what type of phone is attached to it. Whether it's a regular home phone, modem, alarm system, satellite modem, etc. It doesn't matter. The end that you plug into works the exact same as the plug that's in your house, right now. The end user can use it the exact same way as they would a regular phone line.

About the only thing I don't know, and you'd definately have to call a satellite company to find out, is how you could use VOIP, and get satellite TV & satellite internet. In theory, I don't know why it wouldn't work. It would just be a matter of getting the company to allow it to be hooked up that way.

That is not at all true. VoIP works by sampling the analog (POTS) phone signal into digital (IP) similarly to the way music is recorded onto a CD. The reason VoIP is so efficient is that they use a low sampling rate, as voice uses just a very small spectrum of sound. Additionally, voice is not very time-sensitive as it will still be quite intelligible with delays and missing bits. Modem, fax, etc... signals, on the other hand, use much more of the sound spectrum and the sampling is much more time/quality-sensitive. This makes passing modem/etc.. signals over IP use much more bandwidth, and much more sensitive to line quality.

I manage a 1000+ device VoIP phone system at my employer (running 1 Cat5 to an office is cheaper than a Cat5 + a phone line). We have one of the 1st-Gen VoIP systems, and pulling analog signals good enough to run a modem or fax on only works off of some of our core switches, even using QoS (Quality of Service) and ToS (Type of Service) traffic-management. Even then, the fastest the modem will connect is about 24k. The biggest problem has been credit-card processing machines, although we have now gone to a more integrated POS solution.

VoIP over satellite will *work*, though it won't be ideal. Satellite-IP has an enormous amount of latency (as gamers know) due to the signal bouncing 27,000 miles up to the bird, then back down. Satellite VoIP is pretty much only useable for voice.

You should ask your VoIP rep sales VERY CLEARLY if they support it for every intended use you have, as a number of providers don't support it for security or satellite systems, much less modems. There is a chance it may work even though they don't support it, but don't plan on it. Most of the home systems provide QoS and ToS by way of seperate "In" and "Out" network ports. You then place the ATA adapter between your DSL (or Cable, etc) modem and your router. All your network traffic is then throttled to give the VoIP a dedicated amount of available bandwidth. If you frequently max out your bandwidth (that means you, gamers and pr0n freaks), make sure you hook it up this way (its not always mandatory).

Satellite high speed is about to be replaced by this anyway: http://www.globetel.net/ . That should really help with the Vonage service for users that can't get DSL or cable.

I think some people here are talking about voip/internet over satellite, but it sounds like you just wanna know if the Dish recievers will dial out over Vonage. Yep. It works fine (with DishNetwork anyway)! There must have been a firmware update sometime because when I first got Dish Network, it didn't work. Then magically one day it did, and has since.

When I first signed up for Dish, the simpler functions would work, like when it "dials home" once a month to make sure it's actually in the right house via caller id. The more "high end" interactive functions like viewing/paying your invoice on TV (useless anyway) did not work. But anyway, it all works fine now over Vonage.

I haven't done any PPV, but presumable it will dial out to send them billing info no problem.

vonage has a customer tweakable bandwidth setting. You can tweak it to allow for the VOIP to have more, or less bandwidth, depending on what you need. For me, I have it set on the lowest bandwidth, and it works fine.

Sorry if my post confused, about the satellite. First, I don't see any reason why having a voip setup, would not allow the satellite's modem to work properly, in regards to the set top-box at your TV, that's plugged into a telephone jack.

I got off on a tangent, though, with a thought about using the satellite service, if you have satellite cable, with a VOIP phone line, for the satellite tv modem. For instance, until I got VOIP, I technically couldn't get satellite cable, because I didn't have a home phone line. But say I lived in the middle of nowhere, and didn't want to pay the baby bells my first born every month, and wanted to get VOIP, but the only broadband internet available to me was satellite. Granted, the latency would be a major PIA, but if it wasn't... would a satellite company allow me to get the satellite cable, a VOIP phone, and then satellite TV as well. That, I don't know.

However, to the administrator of 1000+ voip phones... Our company switched to the cisco 7940 series phones, over a year and a half ago. That's 3,000+ employees, plus fax lines for 40+ offices. I know VOIP works on a large scale, and for fax machines, in the workplace, because I've had one for over a year and a half. That's why I had no problems signing up for vonage, when the time came for me to get a home line again. It just plain makes sense, financially. If I have to lose 1k of downloading my porn, I can live with that...

We've been on Cisco Call Manager w/ 7940's and 7960's for over 4 years- the largest roll-out in the entire St Louis area at the time, and the beta tester for a lot of feature sets. There were some successes and some failures. A lot of our equipment was duds and is no longer made by Cisco (mainly analog conversion boxes). This summer we are starting to roll out integration with Microsoft Live Communications Server and videoconferencing.

I got ya'. Beta testers always seem to be the most hesitant users, once something comes out. 'Cause they got to be the guinea pig to find all the problems! I understand where you're coming from, now.