I hate to retract my prior glowing review of turning on Vonage service, but the service stinks from a quality of service perspective. I hinted at QoS issues from other perspectives in another post.
A few key notes (perhaps I didn’t make before):
- My primary reason for selecting Vonage was to provide me with telcom flexibility (so that I could add 2 to 3 more lines, e.g., for contractors). Bandwidth tests using the Vonage do-hicky indicate there is sufficient bandwidth (I now speculate that it is calculated using average bandwidth during Internet idle). My upload speed is 250kbps and Vonage recommends 90kbps or greater. My download speed is 598kbps. (Thus, my expectations have not been managed here properly).
- I have DSL (many others are using cable).
Some problems I’ve run into:
- The ringing one hears in the earpiece when dialing a call – well the Linksys box doesn’t reliably create this tone for me. Sometimes calls go through without me knowing ’cause there’s total silence. Not sure if this a Linksys box problem or an interworking issue with the Vonage service.
- Outgoing calls don’t dial reliably (perhaps 1 in 8 calls successfully dial out).
- People report not being able to ring me (inbound call problem).
- If I try to use the Internet while also being on the Vonage call, I’ve had calls dropped mid-call (e.g., using web conference software like GoToMeeting, sales CRM software, financial software, or web mail). Alternatively, sometimes access to web services gets blocked when I’m on the phone.
- Hang-up time is slow. Bad if trying to make quick phone calls.
I’m very sorry if I led people to select this service, but one’s mileage will vary with Vonage (and likely other VoIP players).
Update (8/5/05): Service is just getting worse as I find more bugs. I find that (frequently) when I ring people, sometimes they answer and hear silence, but I still hear ringing, and the call is never answered. Yet, I never go to voice mail. Somehow the Vonage system isn’t detecting the called party picking up the phone.
Update (11/9/05): My Vonage service improved quite a bit after having some SBC folks come out to check out my DSL connection. While the average data rate for my line seemed to be OK according to the Vonage software checker, the peak capacity for my DSL was suboptimal due to the way SBC installed things. SBC personnel forgot to take off some do-hicky adapter outside by the wire box. The adapter was an old adapter that was used to facilitate plug in of diagnostic gear for pre-DSL lines. The net effect of the adapter was to create an additional filter on the DSL line, thus slowing down the peak rates. So the essence of the problem seems to be two-fold: SBC needs to work on its outside of the plant operating procedure (whether that is a quality control issue), and Vonage probably needs to modify its capacity-checking software or provide caveats to customers.
Ross also talks about Customer Disservice
at Vonage. I guess I can consider myself lucky being a happy Vonage user for 3 years or so now:-)
Ross also talks about Customer Disservice
at Vonage. I guess I can consider myself lucky being a happy Vonage user for 3 years or so now:-)
Vonage has serious support problems. They dropped my business number in transferring it from Qwest and for almost two months I had a dead line and lost over $8000. For more information see:
http://www.netadventures.biz/vonageproblem.htm.
I used Vonage. And I agree that it stinks. When a person calls me, my vonage phone always rings, but I can not hear that person’s voice. That person can hear my voice. This happens 1 out of 10 calls on the average.
I called the vonage support, they don’t have a clue. We tried a lot of things:
1. change my phone from one brand to the other
2. increaase audio gain
3. Switch from phone1 to phone2 and vice versa.
4. etc.
Nothing works !!!
VONAGE SUCKS! AND CUSTOMER SERVICE IS EVEN WORSE!
I relocated from Illinois to Texas, before I moved I added a virtual number for my Texas move. Once I moved I asked them is it possible to make my Illinois number my virtual number and my Texas number my Primary number, I was told this was not a problem. However VONAGE removed both my Illinois number and my Texas number and gave me some strange number in some strange area code. This is a problem. As no one can reach me. I have called them repeatedly for over a week. I speak to people who have no clue how to tie there shoes let alone resolve my problems. It has gotten to the point that as soon as I get a CSR on the phone I ask to be escalated to a supervisor. And we wont even discuss the problems with the lack of quality of phone calls. I often reboot my Vonage box, 4 – 6 times a day, calls drop for no reason, no dial tone often when I try to call out. Thank God I have not had to call 911 for an emergency and had no dial tone. I am going back to SBC, the bill may be higher, but the quality of service and customer service is better, at least the kiss me before they tell me bend over!
I was also a Vonage customer; I had a hard time canceling my account. It took me 7 months before Vonage stopped charging my credit card for monthly service. This may be an isolated incident for me; however Vonage billed me 7 months before I stopped seeing charges to my credit card. My credit card company did retrieve some of my overcharges
My Vonage Box started causing problems one afternoon. The phone keeps ringing when a call comes in…even after the caller hangs up. They told me I need to get a new endpoint device. I got the new device and it did not fix the problem. These guys have bad customer service. They have really gone downhill since I started using them 3 years ago. I will not be a customer after today.
I was a Vonage customer for 4 months before I dumped them. My wife and I were in phone hell. Friends and family reported that they often received line out of service messages. Phone calls rarely hit the voicemail. All this going on while I was job hunting.
Constant calls to tech support failed to resolve the issue. They give you a ticket number for future reference, useless, you call back and have to start all over again from the beginning. Very hard to cancel their service.
DON’T BE FOOLED by their marketing. Worst phone service ever!
John
I was never a Vonage customer but I hear different things from different people though the bad ones out numbers the good ones. And for most Voip services, there would be really some hiccups for some people even if its the perfect provider for the most subscribers. I tried looking for Voip providers early this year and found Sunrocket to be ideal…their service was above average but then it was unfortunate that I’m only on my 3rd month of my 1 year subscription when they shut down. I never got my money back 🙁
Now because the prepaid long distance card (Onesuite) I’m using recently added voip in their service, I’ve decided to subscribe to it for only $2.95 a month and jump into voip bandwagon again. So far I’m not yet convince to cut my landline because voip’s are internet and power dependent and you’ll never know when one of them will be down.
I was with Vonage for almost two years and moved my home office to a regular office. I called to cancel the service and was told that my advance payment of $249.00 for the year was not going to be refunded, in spite of the person telling me when I signed up that it would be refunded, however they would bill me for service used at the regular monthly rate. Then the lady told me that I was to be charged $42 for closing the service. I went ahead and paid the money because they needed me to call on a certain date.
I am a systems integrator. I work with data, phone, TV and security systems everyday. I set up systems for colleges and hotels. I tried Vonage for our new office phone system. I could not get it to ring through consistently. Calls were not completed, some were dropped. For one week I had no phones at all. Customers would write e-mail or call my cell phone to ask if we were still in business. They would get messages saying that my number was disconnected or that it was not valid.
I spent over 11 hours on-line or on hold trying to get help, most of it on hold. When I called to cancel service I told them that I needed to keep the number and it would take a few days for the phone company to connect me again. They cut me off right then. I had no phone service. Qwest could not reconnect me with that number unless it was active. I had to spend 3 hours trying to get Vonage to activate the number again. Then they gave me a temporary number for 3 days, which no one knew to call, before I got my old number and same crappy service back. When I was finally connected to a land line again they gave me a $12.50 credit for my troubles.
Vonage should be put out of business. They ruined mine for almost a month. They have a cruddy product, lousy service and tech support and terrible business practices.
If you have to choose between two cans and a string and Vonage, take the cans and string. You’ll be happier with the service.