Broadband: VOIP reliability and ease of use?
counterpoint 2
by IndustryVet - 4/13/06 7:22 AM In reply to: Not as reliable... by R. Proffitt
See my first counterpoint. Few of us deal with life and death situations (if you're a doctor the least of your concerns is saving a few bucks through VOIP), therefore the few times that I'm done over 2 years make picking up my cell phone to make the call no big deal.
I would disagree
by biker020 - 4/27/06 7:00 PM In reply to: Not as reliable... by R. Proffitt
Granted, it all depends on your Internet ISP. I have FTTH (Fiberoptic) broadband service and VoIP with the same company, Paxio, and they have been very reliable. The calls are clear domestic and overseas. I have a cell phone for each adult in our family for emergencies, so I stopped paying for the $77/month to have a landline awhile ago. The one weakness that I see with VoIP is with faxes. I am able to send faxes without a problem, but receiving them with our analog machine is a pain. For that I have a free efax number just to receive faxes.
my sister has it
by kdupes - 3/23/06 3:09 PM In reply to: VOIP reliability and ease of use? by mike62My sister set it up in atlanta in the summer time. She has since moved to Belgium and hooked it up there to her broadband internet.
It seems to work perfectly fine. Sounds clear, she has no complaints.
Plus it's very nice to be able to talk to her as often as I like.
Even though she is in Europe it's like calling her here in the U.S.
VOIP
by bfrieday - 4/7/06 4:44 AM In reply to: my sister has it by kdupesNew house with all the Bell outlets and not used.
Have gone with Vonage and so far it is great. Sound is clear and it is great phoning long distance without worrying about time.
Bill Frieday (Wasaga Beach, Ontario)
VOIP-Intersting discussion
by dermotw - 4/7/06 5:55 AM In reply to: VOIP reliability and ease of use? by mike62Answered most of my questions. Have an elderly person at home and so will retain a land line. Keep one old style hard wired phone that will operate even if the power goes out.
The Service is Great
by cmgjp - 4/7/06 5:57 AM In reply to: VOIP reliability and ease of use? by mike62VOIP I love it and it works Great!! I have had Packet8 for over a year now with great service, I have all the extra's. The true problem, internet service. Your VOIP is at it's best ONLY if your internet service is reliable. My internet service has gone to pot. I keep a cell phone on all the time. Someday maybe there will be a reliable internet service everyware. I live out in the country so I have very few choices. Look at www.packet8.com
packet8
by smlp - 6/22/06 3:12 PM In reply to: The Service is Great by cmgjpglad someone likes packet8, i had them and they were awful!! service went out for 2 days, they wiped out my acct, charged me 59 bucks to leave, bad dervice RUN FROM packet8
AT&T vs. Vonage
by lashend - 4/7/06 7:00 AM In reply to: VOIP reliability and ease of use? by mike62I was a pretty early subscriber to VOIP technology - because I'm a real cheapie! I used to have AT&T CallVantage. I think I paid $20 per month plus taxes plus long distance, and my bills ranged from about $24 to $30 a month in total. As I said, I'm a real cheapie, so I decided to switch to Vonage. Now I pay $15 a month plus tax (which ends up just being a few dollars, since you don't pay all the standard telephone taxes) for everything I need. (The $15 package includes up to 500 anytime/anywhere minutes, while the $25 package you seem to be mentioning is unlimited; I figure there's no way I'll ever need to talk on the phone more than 8 hours each month!) So now I've tried both AT&T CallVantage and Vonage, and I would wholeheartedly recommend AT&T and wholeheartedly discourage Vonage. Here's why . . .
AT&T. I never had a single problem. One feature I like is that you can sign up to have an email sent to you when a voice message arrives in your phone; the message can also be attached to the email. Everything worked flawlessly; that's about the only comment I can make.
Vonage. I have had nothing BUT problems. I've spent hours and hours and hours emailing and talking (or waiting on hold, as it were) with Vonage customer service reps, most of whom seemed like David Spade in that credit card commercial, where he just wants to say "NO" to the customer. Most didn't have a clue how to help me, and I resent how much time it took to fix this problem - which turned out to be a fix that needed to be made from their end. I continue to have problems. Here are the problems I've had:
- Hooking up the Vonage router box caused my internet connection to zap in and out. I'm reasonably good with computers, did all the reasonable troubleshoots, etc; the fix ended up being a programming-type glitch on the Vonage end. This problem is now fixed.
- I missed quite a few calls. Callers told me that my number would simply hang up on them, or that it would ring interminably. This, for the most part, has been fixed.
- I continue, however, to have a problem receiving calls from certain phones. I realized this when a former colleague called me and told me she thought I'd changed my number to avoid calls. She had tried to call me using the local seven-digit number and received a message saying that my number is "unallocated." On a whim, she tried again, using the seven-digit number plus area code, and got through successfully. It makes me wonder how many people have had this problem. Vonage has not yet even responded to my message from two days ago asking for help with this continuing problem.
- It is nearly impossible to get someone to respond to you on the telephone help line.
- Email help response often takes days
- My Vonage router box also, for some reason, seems to pick up the local Oldies 104.1 radio station. I prefer to work without Motown in the background, and so I (again) emailed Vonage for help (since it's impossible to get real help on the phone). They basically sent me a sassy reply saying that, "Well, sometimes that happens. There's probably a radio tower nearby. Too bad for you." There may possibly be a nearby radio tower, but I will note that (a) I have never seen one; and (2) my AT&T router box did not give me this problem.
- The router box has an irritatingly bright blinking light, which I've taken to covering with a towel. This probably isn't a reason to enroll in or avoid Vonage, but, to me, combined with all the other problems, it's "another" disadvantage.
- I can still get a message emailed to me when a voice mail message arrives, but there are two shortfalls in this service: First, it can take up to several hours to arrive via email, which, to me, kind of defeats the purpose (AT&T emails came immediately); and second, it doesn't tell you from whom the call came (the AT&T emails did).
So, my advice: Pay a few extra bucks for AT&T and STAY AWAY FROM VONAGE . . . or you might, like, me, regret it . . .
vonage
by the_mjb - 4/7/06 9:13 AM In reply to: AT&T vs. Vonage by lashendI have had vonage for a year, and the only trouble i had was with the modem, replaced this and have had no problems after this, the price maybe a little too high, compared to broadvoice, but that may come down? As for the 911 calls, I haven't called it more than two times in twenty years, both times by accident. As for service being disrupted by power or cable interruptions, I always have a cellphone in my pocket.
Find ''Vonage'', Replace WIth ''AT&T''
by Reframmellator - 4/7/06 12:40 PM In reply to: AT&T vs. Vonage by lashendI've had VoIP for about 16 months now, and it's been AT&T CallVantage, a decision driven mainly by availability, although Time Warner is now in my exchange and I will likely switch soon.
The point of my title is that I could replace ''Vonage'' with ''AT&T'' in the previous post's gripe list, and I could pretty much claim it as my own. Except for the Oldies 104 part - I'm surprised no one tried to charge you extra for that.
From reviews I've read, it seems that most providers have uneven levels of service. By that, I mean that some CallVantage customers get flawless service, and some, like me, get an unacceptable level of downtime (it's been an average of 1-2 times per month).
Incidentally, a cable tech checked my lines and made sure everything was OK, but he told me that a weak cable signal usually first manifests itself in internet connection problems.
I've kept VoIP because we have cell phones and because I save almost 50% vs. Verizon or MCI on local monthly service. There are some neat ideas, such as e-mail notification of voice mail; remote voice mail access; PC access of voice mail; easy call history access; and some others.
There are also some downsides, such as a need to dial a ten digit number always (although that day is approaching for us all); an inability to use your local answering machine; no indication at the phone that you have voice mail; and no indication that your phone is verklempt until a) you try to use it or b) someone calls your cell phone and tells you that your phone service is verklempt. You may have cable TV and internet service during this entire time, but no phone. I keep a special pen on top of the Linksys router to hit the reset button, whch invariably restores the phone service. And yes, AT&T replaced this router once already - the second one is only marginally better.
When it works, call quality equals or betters that of a traditional land line. I'm probably going to go to Time Warner digital phone service, which offers seven digit local dialing and answering machine compatibility. I know four people with this service - three love it and one hates it. The hater has the same problems I've had with AT&T and that the previous author has had with Vonage.
So - I've compared CallVantage to owning a British sports car. It can be great when it all works, but always pack your tools and a pair of coveralls, and expect that you'll be walking instead of driving occasionally. The more I hear from others, the more I'm convinced that all providers have some level of unevenness in their service, and when it falters, it's at much higher levels than we have come to expect from our telecom infrastructure.
Finally, for safety reasons alone, I recommend you avoid VoIP if you don't have a cell phone. Of course, if all your landline sets are AC powered, your probably wouldn't notice a change in service when the power goes out - which is why every home should have some phone that can operate independently of household AC current.
Some corrections to 'Find ''Vonage'', Replace WIth ''AT&T'''
by Brad Hansen - 4/20/06 8:39 AM In reply to: Find ''Vonage'', Replace WIth ''AT&T'' by ReframmellatorDisclosure: I work for AT&T. But I have nothing to do with the CallVantage service, other than being a satisfied customer (yes, I do pay for the service).
Some corrections:
> an inability to use your local answering machine.
Just set your CallVantage voicemail to answer after 10 rings & set your answering machine to answer after something less than 10 (including any extra rings for ''no messages waiting'' feature that a lot of answering machines have). A setting of 6 rings or less should be OK with just about any answering machine. But considering the features of the CallVantage voicemail, I don’t know why you’d want to use an answering machine.
> no indication at the phone that you have voice mail.
My phone's message waiting light works just fine with CallVantage's voice mail. Check your phone & make sure that it supports ''central office'' or “phone company” voice mail indication.
A strong suggestion:
> no indication that your phone is verklempt…
Well, this is true for any phone service. Reframmellator didn’t specify his network setup, but I suspect that his cable modem is authenticating to the cable ISP (that’s the default setup). The CallVantage service folks regularly attempt to download updates to the router software that improve quality of service. But unless you set your cable modem (or DSL modem) to “transparent” or “bridging” mode and use the LinkSys router to authenticate to your ISP, then those software updates can’t be downloaded. That’s because if all you do is plug your router into your modem, the router is isolated on your local network and can’t be directly addressed from the Internet. The “out of the box” firmware in my router gave pretty poor voice quality and I experienced two dropped calls. But once I found out from my DSL provider how to switch my modem to “bridging” mode (required changing various modem settings using both browser & telnet – ugh!), the LinkSys spent about 5 minutes upgrading its firmware & voice quality improved a lot. Since then, it’s been updated a few more times & after the first week of service I’ve never experienced an outage.
So I suspect that Reframmellator (and most others experiencing problems) are still using the “out-of-the-box” firmware, and unless you’re getting a brand-new router (i.e., one that hasn’t been sitting on the shelf for a few months) you’re not getting the best quality you can get. And this suggestion probably applies to most VOIP providers, so even if you don’t use CallVantage, you should probably find out from your provider how to update your router firmware. CallVantage will do the updates automatically for you, but only if you do that one-time setup on your home network to enable it.
Seven-Digit Dialing? What's That?
by tonyny77 - 4/8/06 5:59 AM In reply to: AT&T vs. Vonage by lashendI'm being facetious, but in my part of Virginia, we had to forget about 7-digit dialing about 6 years ago.
I live in a distant suburb of Washington, DC ... about an hour away. We're right on the border between areas you'd call rural and areas that are suburban. Yet, because of more area codes needing to be added, 7-digit dialing is out of the question.
For the benefit of those living in areas that haven't been affected in this way yet, it means that even if you just wanted to call your neighbor and even if he's in the same area code, you still need to dial 10 digits. It's not a big bother, of course, and you'll certainly get used to it, but when it's first implemented in your area, it requires a change in your way of thinking.
This makes use of the term ''area'' obsolete, now, because neighbors can actually have different area codes. On a more humorous note, have you noticed we're still saying ''dialing?'' How many of us are actually still sticking our finger into a dial-hole and turning it to enter a digit? Not many, of course, yet we still say ''dial.'' Funny.
Tony
Vonage counterpoint
by IndustryVet - 4/13/06 7:29 AM In reply to: AT&T vs. Vonage by lashendI have used Packet8 for a year then switched to Vonage for a year (no issues with Packet8, Vonage was just cheaper). I have had none of the problems below, and, admittedly, the author mentions most of them have been rectified for him.
AT&T scores no points for emailing about voicemails. Vonage does this also and you can listen to them through your computer.
I know several other persons at the office that use Vonage and all are happy with it.
Always consider, you can find any service, any product that someone, anyone, is willing to complain about. Make your own independent determination based upon independent ratings such as from CNet, and, look into return and refund policies. I think you will find Vonage worthy of consideration.
Cut the chains
by porlockgirl - 4/7/06 10:55 AM In reply to: VOIP reliability and ease of use? by mike62After a shakey start last August (which turned out to be a fault in the phone company's main line) I am now a very satisfied user of VoIP. My ISP is Speakeasy and I pay 24.95 for free unlimited calling in the US, Canada and Mexico and also in 20 countries (more being added soon) all over the world.
I call England frequently and am never charged, no matter how long the call. I have saved over $150.00 a month. I keep a cell phone, which I only use once every three months when Speakeasy performs a systemwide maintennance between the hours of midnight to 3 am.
This service is reliable and the clarity is amazing - better than my land line was.
Check it out at http://www.speakeasy.net/refer/156165.
QuantumVoice was my choice.
by Don Dorland - 4/7/06 11:56 AM In reply to: VOIP reliability and ease of use? by mike62I spent several hours over several days determining which service was the best deal for me...and I haven't been disappointed by choosing QuantumVoice. I wanted toll free calling, both outgoing and INCOMING, with FAX capability, voicemail, etc. For $39.00 a month, great voice quality, no service outages, and timely top notch customer service (props to Jeff Durling) taking care of a couple of problems, I'm a pretty happy guy. If I had to complain about something, it would be that they couldn't port my local Verizon land line number that I've had for 20+ years; not a big deal in the over all scheme of things.
I suggest that you check out some of the other web sites such as www.voip-info.org (has a wealth of useful info and links), and www.dslreports.com (click on FIND SERVICE, scroll down to OTHER FUNCTIONS and click on TOP RATED ISPs, scroll down to VOICE OVER IP PROVIDERS) (also click on REVIEWS next to FIND SERVICE) to get an idea of what users throughout the USA have to say about their VoIP experiences.
FYI: I have a cable connection via Time Warner since early 2002, and run Earthlink, not RoadRunner or AOL broadband. I've never had a problem running any programs on my computer while talking on the "internet" phone during peak system wide ueage (8:00 AM to 9:00PM). I've used QuantumVoice since January 2006. My daughter and son-in-law had Vonage in Virginia and moved to Ohio with no problems in reconnecting service even though they had to change cable providers (Cox to Time Warner in VA, Armstrong in OH).
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