Vonage Problems
by Zia ~ April 7th, 2006. Filed under: Ephemera, Webbish.For the past month or so, I’ve been having problems with Vonage: dropped calls; fading in and out; weird echoes. The problems intensify whenever I’m connecting to a conference calling number. And for the past couple of weeks — ever since I listened to a podcast on net neutrality — I’ve been wondering if this is not unintentional on the part of ISPs.
And now I am vindicated. According to Russell Shaw:
Over the last couple of years, when I’ve wanted to take the temperature of the Vonage user community, I’ve often stopped at the Vonage Forum … I have been noticing a growing number of posts in which many Vonage users and Vonage Forum Members have been complaining about the quality of Vonage calls over Comcast broadband connections.
It’s interesting that there are relatively few similar complaints about the quality of these Vonage calls over other broadband provider networks. Occasionally you’ll read about Verizon or AT&T complaints, but rarely.
But something has happened. Two weeks ago, a Vonage Forum Member named rdstoll began a Vonage Forum thread called Comcast vs. Vonage. The last time I checked, this thread had 116 posts and nearly 7,000 page views. That’s an exceptionally high number.
Although you will see all manner of opinions on this thread, there seems to be a sentiment that - politely put - Comcast could really be doing a better job of carrying Vonage bits.
There’s not much of a leap from that belief to one, expressed by some Vonage Forum Members, that the connection quality problems they are having over their Comcast lines just might not be coincidental …
To make a little leap of my own, perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Comcast now offers its own VOIP service. Consider this: Vonage costs $25 a month while the Comcast service costs $40. How better to get Vonage business than by discrediting the company? And how better to discredit the company than to refuse processing its packets?
And there you have it. The need for net neutrality. It’s interesting to note that the only people who are against it are the telecom companies. The only way they can make money is to bundle their services — and naturally, they can’t bundle services if other people are offering them for less.
April 20th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
How astuite (cant spell) of you to notice.I have been wondering myself. It all started with comcast having a outage last year maybe November. I had vonage for a year with no problems what so ever. The node was out for a good 12 hours. After that I have replace my modem that is 2.0 compatiable (which is a Motorla 5120 and then replaced my phone adapter (now a wrtp54g)and still for the last 3-4 months it has gone to S..t like echo’s dropping calls and call waiting not working. I am having big fights with my wife trying to keep it. I had called comcast to complain and the tech said it is just fine. I told her of my brodband test and then said she will send out a tech. All he did was cut off the ends and put new ends on the cables. Even in the middle of the day like today (thursday) 1:00 the signal dropps to like 40% QOS and the upload has always been terrible and the even the download is bad, like a isdn connection. What is going on? In my option it is the cable. Back about 7 years ago I had the comcast phone service which they claimed was cheaper but I quickly found out it was not. If any one else has had these or like problems please let me know.
Thanks for letting me vent.
April 21st, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Hi Steve — and vent away.
I ended up having a bad line with a failing wireless router. We’ll see if the vonage issue gets any better.
Naturally, when the cable guy came out, he said, “Oh, you have vonage” and tried to get me to switch to the comcast service …. The thing is, I just might.
May 6th, 2006 at 5:12 am
It is Saturday morning and I did a search to find others having Vonage problems. The problems ya’ll are having are the same ones we are having in Raleigh.
I have had the service for about a year. I started having problems. I had the tech come out from Time Warner and he cleared the line of ALL traps. I went from 32 on the up stream to 480. I thought my problem was solved, after about 2 months I noticed small issues coming back…I am sure they could not leave well enough alone.
CP
February 20th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I went with Vonage in March of 2007, and I have a dry loop phone connection with Verizon because I only have a internet DSL connection, and no cable connection (too pricey for me). Anyway, I’ve been having problems since day one. Vonage finally sent me a new device, since the old one I told them was faulty. And they were charging me for the old device, which I sent them back! I have disconnecting calls, static, buttons being pressed (which my callers can hear on their end only). I am so sick and tired of this happening. I doubt if I will give them another month. It’s not worth the hassle.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I’VE BEEN TAKEN ADVONAGE OF!!!!!! This company is TERRIBLE!!!!
They are trying to charge me for a service I never received. On March 4, 2008, I requested service from Vonage. The customer service rep. told me that it would take 24-48 hours to transfer my number from AT&T to them. She also mention not to disconnect with AT&T; they would do it for me. I had to pay $28.75 up front for deliver of the equipment. On March 6, 2008, I got the equipment in the mail. I connected like the instructions said and everything worked fine; I thought. Then on March 10, I get this letter in the mail from Vonage with no date on it stating that they could not transfer my number. It also stated that I needed move my DSL connection to another phone number. I called Vonage to get an explanation on the letter and the rep said that Vonage couldn’t operate on the same line as DSL and that I needed to call my phone company and establish another line. She told me to request a Ghost line or Dryloop; used only for internet connections. I told the rep if they charged me for that line that I was going to cancell my service with Vonage because I wasn’t going to pay 2 phone bills. Well, I called the phone company and their rep said that there will be a service charge of about $48. to install a new line and $32 a month for having the line in service. So I thought why do I want to pay 2 phone bills. So I called Vonage back and told them that I didn’t want their services because AT&T would charge me for another line and I would have to pay Vonage for phone service as well. So I decided to stay with AT&T because overall it would be cheaper. Vonage want to charge me a disconnection fee for service that was never establish. Hell no….. I told them that I would send the equipment back and they could reimburse me the $28.75. The ill-mannered rep. said your account will still remain open unless you pay the $39.99 to ensure that we get our equipment back. Then they would reimburse me the full amount of everything I paid. I said why do need to charge my card and credit it back when you can just hold to $28.75 until you get back the eqiupment. The rep said we need to give you a processing code so we can know when we received the equipment. If there’s not processing code we won’t know who it belong to. I said it will have my name on it and all my other information that you all use to look up an account. They are full of SHIT…. I’m just going to send their equipment back certified mail, call AT&T to continue my service with them and call bank to put a block on my account with Vonage. Hopefully this will for me. I’m not paying anymore fees.
October 4th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I just went through the same thing with Vonage. I really think that most of their income is generated by people who have found them out too late. I’ve made it my mission in life to let everyone I know be informed about their deceit.
October 5th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Actually, I haven’t had any problems for a long time …