Tag: VoIP

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Retraction – Vonage Service Stinks (Double Retraction: Got Better)

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.

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The Vonage 911 Incident Sheds Light on Differing Definitions of Quality of Service (QoS)

Om Malik’s recent post got me a little heated. While I support voice-over-IP (VoIP) efforts, I worry at times that we as consumers will unknowingly contribute to a tragedy of the commons. The "commons" that we risk of losing is that of the reliability and security of a public utility. Below I’ve reproduced (and cleaned up formatting for) some comments I made in Om’s post as to why VoIP is not the same as the public switched telephone service (PSTN).

Everyone gives a lot of heat to the incumbent PSTN providers, and there’s good reason for that because people are looking at Skype, pre-paid international calling cards, and the like and coming to their own conclusions that the PSTN is not a good deal. Heck, I’m a user and have switched over in some cases based on cost.

What people fail to understand is the PSTN was designed to handle a lot of things we take for granted:

  • 911 calls being nailed up to the operator position so you can’t hang up. Can all VoIP providers do that? (I don’t know)
  • What about cases of power outages? The PSTN was designed to keep your phone powered during outages.
  • What about cases of major disasters, e.g., bombs blowing up key parts of the national infrastructure? The PSTN was designed to handle these requirements …
  • What about traffic congestion and call gapping?
  • What about FBI or authorities being able to wiretap under authorized situations, etc.?

The list goes on and on, but all people care about is price until things go badly …

Now regardless of whether Vonage has made, will make, needs to make, etc. any information regarding differing QoS, a lot of this will likely go over a typical person’s head in the early rounds and years to come. Telecom technology is pretty complex. I hope someone is keeping their eye on the ball so that we don’t unknowingly wipe out a valued, public commons without a proper alternative. I am all for Vonage, and may the best service win so to speak, but the PSTN gets too much of a bad rap at times. As consumers, we (via our unsatiated appetite for VoIP) and companies like WorldCom have created a ton of pressure on the incumbent carriers that we sometimes forget.

Steve Shu

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Pre-Paid International Calling Card Rates Sustainable?

Skype is the rage these days for many technology-savvy folks. Get free international calls when dialing from Skype user to Skype user from your computer. If you need to dial from Skype to a person in Europe who is on a regular landline, you can get rates in the range of 1.7 cents (Euro) per minute.

But have you explored international calling cards lately? I had to explore this because of some telecom issues reaching my wife in France and some of my international clients.

I had to do a triple take on some of the rates. Calling Europe can cost from 1.6 cents to 0.8 cents per minute for some calls using landline to landline calling. On top of that, some of these cards have toll-free 800/8XX numbers that people can call to initiate a call. Now 800 numbers in many cases cost the subscribing company around 25 cents per call to do the number translation from 800 to real telephone number. Now with an $10 international calling card that can do like 1250+ minutes of call time, you do the math to see whether these companies should be able to do this profitably. I mean off-the-cuff, 20 calls costs about $5 of the $10 card just to pay for the setup of the 800 call. Perhaps the prepaid card providers are profitable, but I wonder if there are either back doors or house of cards related to this (presuming that the technology to trunk the call from the United States to points of presence [POPs] internationally is IP-based). I mean someone has to pay for the underlying infrastructure IP is riding over.

Granted when you call the customer support line for some of these cards, it sounds like it is an answering machine from the 70s in someone’s basement, but heck, the call sounds perfect and of digital quality.

Anyway, compare the pre-paid international calling card rates to the $10ish/month fee that some local carriers have for making international calls plus the 8.0 cents/minute fees they are charging. Are any of these fees really outrageous fees? They are almost borderline outrageous on the low side. I feel bad for the traditional telcom customer service reps – people tell me that the reps are simply shocked when they hear about the international calling card rates being brought by pre-paid providers. The only thing the reps can do is try to cross-sell you into other service (e.g., mobile, satellite dish) when people drop their international call service.

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