Our phone bill aren’t horrible but with 2 lines, fax line and all it comes in around $140 a month. I can connect to Vonage interenet system and run it through my existing cable modem for $75 a month and keep my current numbers so my customers and advertising wouldn’t see any difference.
I googled it and all the letters and such were positive. Aparently it has been pretty active since 02 or so. I am usually behind the tech curve 2-4 years I find. Any way I am considering the switch and just wondered if anyone else has done it. DanT
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I have had it for about 6 months and like it so far. Sometimes there is a little noise on the line, and sometimes my internet will slowdown when the phone is in use. The user account page allows you to view your call records and adjust your options, and you can take your modem with you so your calls follow. Kind of makes area codes obsolete. Hey if you decide to go that way, can I "officially" refer you, I get 2 months free :-)
Your Internet connection slows down sometimes when you are using your VoIP phone? How slow of an Internet connection do you have?
Cable Modem 100Mbs.
Seems to happen on the wireless laptop though.
100Mbs???Who's your cable provider?
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
The fastest I see is 56mbps.
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It's only satisfying if you eat it.
Edited 1/13/2006 11:40 pm ET by dustinf
TimeWarner (100Mbps)
I think you are confusing your 100mbps lan connection with your WAN speed.go to cenet or Dsl reports and do a speed test I doubt your getting more than 5mbps
I stand corrected, the test shows just under 5mbps, the WAN speed is the 100mbps. The slowdown happens only on my wireless connection, not on the ethernet connected PC. The WAN speed on my wireless laltop slows down to 1.0mbps when the phone is in use and internet traffic stops, the 'operation timed out' window pops up if I attempt to surf.My current setup is rather congested and in this order: Cable Modem - Wireless Router - VOIP Modem 1 - VOIP Modem 2. Vonage now offers a wireless VOIP modem, and I am debating if it is worth it to spend the $120 bucks for one. Also I keep the second line on a separate modem so that I can take it with me, though the VOIP modem will allow for 2 phone lines. So theoretically I could eliminate 2 of the devices listed above. Not sure if it would improve performance.
Cable Modem 100Mbs.
Um, what cablemodem service provider is selling you 100Mbps service, and for how much? I am not aware of any provider in North America offering this level of service. You aren't confusing your local LAN's capabilities, are you?
BTW, what wireless standard are you using? 802.11a, b, or g? I gave up on wireless in my household because of the poor security while using rather short-range 802.11g (got ~4-6Mbps on a good day, but this was beyond my Internet connection so it wasn't too much of a problem).
dsl reports says 3.9
testmy.net says 4.1
vonage bites at those rates
Try upstream measurements, not downstream. It is your upstream performance that will typically determine how you are heard, and the other person's upstream performance on how well you hear them.
Of course, backbone network conditions can also have a lot to say, and then even on one's local ISP network if congested. Bandwidth management, both on your local area network (LAN) and on the wide-area network (WAN) can greatly benefit from priority management.
The future efforts by both the cable and phone industry in terms of VoIP will comes with considerable effort being made in labelling IP-based traffic types, and give priority to voice IP packets over video and data. This is something the independent VoIP providers cannot control, and you can beleive that the cable and telco companies will make it difficult for them to get QoS (quality of service) as their voice packets will be treated as data, hence a lower priority.
So, its not just the telephone companies that are evil, but also the cable providers, too.
i did wonder why the cheap vonage wouldnt work, but the expensive phone service sold by the isp seems to work just fine. i'm guessing the isp phone packets get priority.
i did wonder why the cheap vonage wouldnt work, but the expensive phone service sold by the isp seems to work just fine. i'm guessing the isp phone packets get priority. Depends on who that ISP is. For instance, if its the ISP of a telephone company (SBC, Qwest, Verizon, or BellSouth, COVAD, etc.) or cable company (Comcast, Adelphia, Cox, TWC, Charter, etc.) then this could be the reason.
Several other ISPs like Earthlink and AOL do not own WAN infrastructure down to the last mile. In my area, Earthlink uses ILEC & CLEC local loops that are wholesaled to them, but this is usually without anything better than Unspecified BitRate, which is after two forms of Variable BitRates, and all before Constant BitRate.
Also a potentially big factor is where the VoIP router is in the network itself. For sinatcne, AT&T's CallVantage placed the VoIP router directly where you would normally stick your Linksys or D-Link wireless router, which is directly connected to the DSL or cable modem. This allows them to create packet-priority on your LAN, and manage bandwidth.
You can, or could have, used customer firmware for common consumer router in which to give bandwidth management (packet priority) on your LAN, and about a year ago this proved terrific for those experimenting with it and with their VoIP services. But, I would never use VoIP on a wireless LAN. That's just asking someone to come in and steal your bandwidth.
I believe Jerrald Hayes knows something about Vonage. I've been considering it myself since we have two lines here and it's over $105 per month, with voicemail but no other features.
You really will save alot. I hesitated for 2 years while other friends got it. I have 2 lines on seperate modems so I can take one of them to the summer house. Monthly cost is under $45.
i had it with cable internetin mid-2005, and it beyond sucked. it sounded strange and it had a delay like you get with cell phones. i gave it a week, then returned the modem. the price is right and portability is great, but the quality needs to improve drastically before i would be willing to us it.
Yeah I have had Vonage for a while now (msg#54717.9), and my younger brother has had it even longer, and we've found it works out great. I'm a big fan.
I'm not sure what kind of problems davem experienced but both of my brothers and I have had nothing but positive experiences with it.
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I appreciate the information everyone. The only negative I have thought of is I wonder if I would still be listed in the phone book or if I would have to pay extra for that. I only have a one line ad that comes with the business line but I would like to be in there. Thanks again! DanT
I was talking with a potential customer on Saturday about their Vonage service. They are very happy with it, the only downside for them is that they needed to get an area code that is closer to DC instead of the code for this area.
I've considered changing but there were two downsides.
1- The area code issue mentioned above, I need a local number for the business.
2- Verizon gives me a free one line ad which we would to pay for with Vonage.
I wonder too about how long it would take to swap the numbers from LL to Vonage? I remeber when the cell numbers became portable I heard many reports about the companies dragging their feet to give you your old number.
Jon Blakemore
RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Check out http://www.dslreports.com/overview?v=r&typ=voip for some more reviews.
We had VIOP (not Vonage). Could not get it to work right. Tech support told me I was a pioneer and that it wouldn't be as good as the standard phone line.
Big problem for us was latency -- too many servers to go through between us and the phone company. The differences in net distances probably explains why it works well for some and bad for others.
We even had the cable company come troubleshoot the line. He told us they were getting lots of trouble calls, and he wasn't getting it even if his company offered it.
No way you could have used the quality we had for a business line.
I've had it for about two years with only a fried modem (lightning that affected nothing else in the house) that Vonage replaced.
My Daughter in the New Orleans area had enough problems that they went back to standard phone service.
VOIP is pretty dependent on reliable broadband service that is well maintained and kept well within tolerance. If your Internet service is a little flaky, VOIP will be a real pain.
Marc
911 dosnt work anywhere with VOIP
if the power goes out you lose phone service . down here in hurricane country it can be a real issue as cell towers wiil probably be down also .
fax over vonage is iffy , credit card terminls can be probalmatic.
be aware that if you port your existing number over to vonage you probably wont be able to get it back if you decide to leave vonage
it can also take months to port the number over meaning double billing
the potenial savings dosnt justify it for me I definatley wouldnt use it for a business line , home maybe but the savings just dont seem worth it to me
Had it for 2 weeks and I luv it. Cut the phone bill by more than half. Easy tioinstall and the transmission excellent. Took 2 weeks to acquire the old number from Verizon. Would never go back.
Dan, I would suggest trying it on a personal note with an ambiguous new phone number. Once you are satisfied, terminate it and migrate the existing well-known phone numbers.
Traditional POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) uses a constant bitrate (CBR) style service, but with Switch Virtual Circuits. This means every time you place a call a circuit is temporarily nailed up and makes sure the bandwidth needed is reserved. As such, no choppiness or lost calls.
Consumer-grade broadband (Internet connection) is Unspecified bitrate, (UBR), which is much lower on the food chain. As a result, packets of data can be tagged to be dropped at nodes within a network if congestion arises in order to protect CBR services going through the same node.
So, imagine a network node is congested and you are using VoIP based on UBR and some of those packets containing voice information are tagged for dropping. What is heard in this condition is choppiness. Worse cases the call is broken entirely.
This can happen on both ends if both sides are using VoIP on a UBR-based broadband service. Now, if you are using a T1, which comes with a Service-Level Agreement (e.g. CBR), then you are good to go. Unfortunately, you would have to be pretty big to justify the T1 costs.
Oh, I work for the evil empire. :)
You are reading my mind. I was thinking of converting my personal line as it would not matter if the number was changed there. We are currently hanlding the renting out of a house so I have to wait till that is over to give it a try.
I am not computer literate at all. My son says I have the fastest cable internet he has ever seen and tha it is faster than the T-1 line he has at college. It really works fast compared to my dad's and brothers that is all I know. So I assume speed etc. would not be an issue. Thanks for the info. Is it warm in Georgia (sighing and shedding a tear as I ask)? DanT
how can you tell the actual transfer rate your isp is providing? i have cable through Cox and when talking to someone with a land line, my vonage experience was awful
heres a link for dsl reports http://www.dslreports.com/stest
I wouldn't use DSL Reports to measure a cablemodem service. Some cable providers block certain types of packets DSLR uses for measuring bandwidth. Someone directed me to testmy.net for better testings.
I'd suggest going here: http://testmy.net/d_load.php and download the largest (2992 KB) file. My 4Mbps service is measuring ~4.3Mbps this morning, which is actually down from when I first got it (~5.5Mbps). Provider is Adelphia (with no complaints).
But I should point out the downstream is not the limiting factor, or the factor for which your quality in voice will be heard on the far end. When you speak, its sending traffic upstream. Most VoIP providers would like to see a minimum upstream performance of 192Kbps (mine measured 457Kbps this morning). Now, when someone else on the far end of the conversation speaks, its coming downstream to you, but it is their upstream capabilities that will limit them if they are on VoIP, too.
Edited 1/14/2006 8:59 am ET by Nuke
thanks for the link 2185 Kbps (about 2.2 Mbps) ouch .
There's nothing wrong with 2.2 Mbps. I'm have an office with >50 people in it on a T1 circuit (1.544 Mbps) with no problems.
If Vonage is configured for highest quality, it uses about 90 Kbps when you're on the phone.
If you're downloading really large files, DVD movies for example (not that anyone here would, of course), you would want the highest speed that you could get.
The biggest picture that I've seen on BT recently was about 2 megabytes. With your connection, that's about ten seconds.
It wasn't that long ago with the 48 Kbps connection that you might get on a really good day on a 56 Kbps modem (Remember modems?) that would take about 6 and a quarter hours! Another good reason to keep the pictures small for those of us on BT that are still limited to dial-up speeds.
Bottom line: You don't have to complain to your ISP. Your connection is pretty good.
Marc