[psiclne]

Last Thursday (3/31) I started having static on my phone line (which I dont really mind since I dont use the phone that often) but it was effecting my dsl, it was dropping the connection every so often. I called Verizon and they arranged for a tech to come out Tuesday. Ok fine, I took the day off to wait for the tech. Tuesday comes and no tech ever showed. I check the online status of the repair ticket and it said "problem was corrected"??!! :shock: I call them on the line that has the static so they can hear....they tell me they cant get anyone out til 4/8 - I bitched - ok they will send someone out 4/5......they told me i didnt need to be home. So I come home last night and still static, I call again (on that line) and b!tch em out again- they agree to send someone out today, and asked me to be home incase they need to check the jack. Ok guy comes checks the MPOE. Changes some wires - static still there. Drives to the Phone box down the street - does something ( i wasnt there) and static is gone. Took them 3 visits and wasted 2 of my day offs......for a 20 min job! :x

Ok so now im looking to take my service elsewhere. Was thinking about getting Cable modem from Adelphia and VOIP from Vonage and was just wondering if you guys have any experience with either one?? Good, bad??? Just looking for some input! Thanks!

 

[johnmax]

I have Cablevision's Optimum Voice VOIP here in NY and it is good. At first I had some echoing during calls but that has disappeared. Sounds as good if not better than landline phone service, and a **** of alot cheaper. My buddy has Vonage and he reports the same. The only thing is the issues with 911 dialing (not fully sure what they are), and the fact when the power goes out, your VOIP goes out. But thats what cell phones are for.

 

[bradical]

i have aldephia and they are great when its up. but they drop me now and then and it can be out for hours. i work from home a lot and there are times when i dont have cable for 3 or 4 hours.

but in the end, it is infrequent enough that the super fast speeds i get more than make up for it. my download speeds usually blow away any network i am on.

 

[Silver Bullet]

Kind of makes you wish for the old days when Maw Bell had a monopoly. At least you could count on service.

VOIP for consumers is really taking off but there are still plenty of problems.

1) Latency (Echo) They have no way to deal with QOS (quality of service) which prioritizes voice packets over the data packets. Vonage has tried to correct this by opening up tons of bandwidth which also helps the frequency response, but this burns up a lot of bandwidth and the real ISP's are going to rebel.
2) Has a lot of trouble passing analog signals like conventional modem traffic. Security system dialers don't work over VOIP.
3) No power, no service. Oops.
4) Special phones in most cases.
5) Many of the normal feature sets don't work or are not supported.
6) Serious reliability issues. (Up Time)

If you are an early adopter, go ahead, but buyer beware. 8)

 

[psiclne]

Kind of makes you wish for the old days when Maw Bell had a monopoly. At least you could count on service.

VOIP for consumers is really taking off but there are still plenty of problems.

1) Latency (Echo) They have no way to deal with QOS (quality of service) which prioritizes voice packets over the data packets. Vonage has tried to correct this by opening up tons of bandwidth which also helps the frequency response, but this burns up a lot of bandwidth and the real ISP's are going to rebel.
2) Has a lot of trouble passing analog signals like conventional modem traffic. Security system dialers don't work over VOIP.
3) No power, no service. Oops.
4) Special phones in most cases.
5) Many of the normal feature sets don't work or are not supported.
6) Serious reliability issues. (Up Time)

If you are an early adopter, go ahead, but buyer beware. 8)

I thought you can connect any type of phone to the adaptor they provide to you?

 

[johnmax]

Yeah I don't really have any of those listed issues here, except the power outage thing. But again, cellphones. Alot of people have cordless phones which are useless anyways in an outage. I can use any regular phone or fax i want to. Mine is never down. And the only feature i don't have is caller id during call waiting. Probably atypical of the rest of the country. I think Cablevision's system here is one of the best. Their internet is incredibly fast too. No wonder we pay probably the highest. So they can buy MSG and bid $760 million for a piece of land so the competitors dont get it :? .

 

[yang]

VOIP is the future. All phone services will be replaced by VOIP because it's cheap. The voice quality now may not be as good as the landline because the voice is chopped into packets, sent over internet, and reassembled at the other end. There is a chance for packet loss but it should not be that obvious to human ears. All your international calling card companies are more or less using VOIP and that's the voice quality you can expect. One thing to note is that 911 is not automatic. You have to sign up on their
website. See

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=70779&site=lightreading

Also, the connection becomes more complicated if you have home security system that is monitored.

 

[Punisher]

I have a little experience with VoIP.

I tested a service for Bell Canada last year for several months. Almost no problems with that service. Too bad they haven't released it yet.

I have been using Vonage for the past three months. If I didn't need the long distance plan for my business (cold calling to the US all day) I would totally get rid of it.
Let me make this clear: VONAGE SUCKS ASS.
When I try to make a local call more than half the time it won't go through. I once called my business partner at night (he has Vonage as well). I called 14 times and each time it went straight to VM.

Many times calls have dropped while speaking to a customer. Sometimes they have trouble hearing us. Many times calls will not go through (you get a fast busy signal or a message that all circuits are busy). Their service even went down once for a couple of hours.

If I knew that there was an alternate service that had better service I'd dump Vonage in a heartbeat.

 

[ShadyJC]

I have had Vonage for about 10 months. It's actually the 3rd telephone line in my house so it doesn't get a whole lot of usage. We use it primarily to call Taiwan and China, where the rates are cheaper than any domestic LD carrier can offer.

Overall it is a pleasant experience - you do suffer from micro-dropouts.

I would say it would be a good 2nd line to have around... don't forget if your cable modem is out, you can't call to have it fixed!

 

[psiclne]

Shady,

Since your close to me - do you mind telling me if your on dsl or cable? and if cable is it Adelphia? Hows their service? The Vonage will actually be a 2nd line....so minimal outages can be tolerated.

 

[ShadyJC]

I am using Charter cable, it is overall pretty good, I don't think about it much, which is good.

If you want to give the Vonage a try let me know I can call you or you can come over sometime, throw a coat of Zaino on my FX and make a call or two. :lol:

 

[gargan]

VOIP is definately going to be what most of us will use in the future. I use vonage and it seems to be OK, its basically my home line, it is a lot cheaper to have that as your home line vs. having a traditional line at home. I hardly use it as I am either at work or out so I'm using the cell phone so the Vonage does the job. I used their softphone when I go on vacation and that works well although thats an extra charge per month but it you travel a lot you more than make that up especially overseas. VOIP is definately not perfect as a technology, but it is getting better. I also like the fowarding feature with Vonage, you can forward it to a number in the US or Canada so I used to set up my Vonage to do that and call myself whenever i want to call Canada to save on the cost of calling direct. Now that my cellular plan is nationwide thats not that big of a deal anymore but I used to use that feature. Too bad you cant forward overseas, that would be awesome. Not sure why they dont let you do that.

Phone card companies are definately allmost all VOIP because of the cost. Much more efficient when you are trying to get the most out of each circuit. In traditional telephony each call takes 64K of bandwidth where in VOIP you can get the same call across with 1/4 of that so you can make 4 calls with the bandwidth it takes for a traditional call if not more using a lower sampling codec (voice to data encoding). Even when they dont sample with a lower sampling codec, these guys usally pay less in taxes when they transmit data then when they transmit voice.

Regarding why you get quality issues with VOIP, it is not so much delay or latency but something called jitter. Jitter is packet delay variation which is caused by a number of things especially over a public ip network like the internet. The variation is what causes the quality problems. If the delay or latency is high thats not so much of an issue, even traditional telephony suffers from the delay issue in a long distance call. That is caused by the limitations in the speed of light and the optical switching itself. Voice quality isnt something can be easily rectified over the public internet because quality of service has to be applied end to end to really have a dramatic effect. In a private ip network, there are things than can help rectify this both on the network and the hardware side. Most companies are going VOIP, something they call convergence where the voice and data share the same network. Thats a real big thing these days.

 

[puppyc73]

I have Vonage with Optimum Online and i have had absolutely ZERO issues. My suggestion would be to get the Cable Modem first and check the uptime. If it disconnects frequently, it won't be a good candidate for VOIP.

Vonage calls are crystal clear and i have not had any drops. But i knew it was going to work well since Optimum has been reliable since the day i got it.

Vonage lets you register your home address for 911(Make sure you register)

Vonage also is sending out a Linksys Router/VOIP adapter with QOS now.

No need to purchase a broadband router either!!

 

[psiclne]

Thanks for all the info fellas - I ordered my Cable today from Adelphia......Thursday will be my turn on day. I just got back from Circuit City, where they had the Motorola SB5100 for $79 - $20 MIR. I'll probably keep the DSL up a week or so just to make sure the Cable is cool. Then I'll port my tn over Vonage!

Thanks for all the info!