Continued fun with Voice over IP (Vonage, Lingo, Packet8)

by philg

I’ve had so many interesting hours waiting on hold for tech support from Vonage and Lingo that I decided to write up the experience in http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/voice-over-ip


Please comment with ideas to make this more useful.

12 thoughts on “Continued fun with Voice over IP (Vonage, Lingo, Packet8)”

  1. Boy every experience can be different. I have had Vonage as my primary for about a year and havent had a single tech support issue. Ihave even used their softphone service from various airports and hotspots without a problem. I guess every connection is different.

  2. Nice faq – one comment: Skype uses 1024 bit RSA to negotiate symmetric AES keys. It also works with a telephone if you want (you don’t have to use a headset).

  3. I signed on with Vonage a month ago but did not try to transfer my existing Verizon number. I have a PBX in the house and just added the Vonage line to a spare port and programmed it to be used for outgoing calls.

    Voice quality is excellent and audio levels are high. Vonage to Vonage a friend and I measured +0 and +1 dBm in each direction which is great. This makes locally bridged conference calls excellent.

    About 10 days ago I wake up to an email stating that they have upgraded the firmware in my router and that they can no longer reach it. I was instructed to reboot the network and if I did not have a dialtone to reply to the message and they would send me a new adapter overnight, at no charge, and give me a free month of service. I replied. Three days later I called their tech support. Go through 5 levels of voice menus to get a busy signal. 9 hours of attempts later I get in the queue and the agent says he will send me a new unit, the old one must be factory reprogrammed. I then receive “thank you” emails thanking me for my order and that they have charged my credit card for the new unit plus shipping and that they have a very strict return policy and I must ship back the original unit “with all original materials including box, packing, manuals and accessories” and do it with a service that has tracking.

    I get the new box, install and set it up (which I doubt 95% of consumers could do as it involves setting internet and DSL options) and lo and behold, same problem! So I call tech support again, this time I was lucky, it only took me 4 hours to get someone. This guy though knew what was going on. He explained some of their servers have a problem dealing with updating through the Westel DSL boxes and he would remove those from the list that my account uses. He then gave me the box password to do a “factory reset” and it reloaded both its firmwares from new servers and after about 5 minutes it was running again. Obviously they did not need to send me a new box. I don’t know if this was something they learned or if some tech personnel know and others don’t.

    My opinion is that if they want to be considered a utility like Verizon they have to act like one and this means first of all they need to resolve their tech support queue problems. 10 to 15 minutes is the absolute max a customer should have to wait to get someone knowledgeable. One more episode like I had and I will be trying other vendors or simply giving up on the concept at this time.

  4. I live in Japan where VoIP is pretty ubiquitous. Your comment about having to use a neighbor’s phone when your internet connection fails is not true, unless you have a fiber optic internet connection. VoIP typically comes over ADSL (or DSL) on an analog phone line. You can still use the analog phone if you want. At least that’s how it works in Japan. In fact, if your router glitches, a call may go over the normal phone lines rather than VoIP: the only audible difference is that there are 4 beeps before a VoIP call. U.S. services may be different.

  5. In some areas of the USA you can get DSL service without normal phone service of any kind. I have DSL of that sort, and when the VoIP stops working, I need to use my cell. But I barely every use the VoIP, preferring my mobile under almost all circumstances.

    Recently I initiated Speakeasy VoIP service at my business, with a dedicated T1 link. Haven’t had enough experience to say if it works or not, but their technical and billing setup have been slow and drawn-out.

  6. Stephen: I have a cable modem and, as noted in the article, replaced my landline with VoIP. So there is no longer an “analog line” in my house. Obviously for people who keep their phone line they don’t have to use Vonage or Lingo ever. They still have their phone line. On the other hand they aren’t really saving much money…

  7. Phillip,

    Re “not saving much money,” in Japan you pay 1,650 yen for a basic analog line if you don’t use any phone services. The cost would average about 3 times that if you actually used it for telephone. There is also another sort of analog line service that _cannot_ be used for phone service that is cheaper, but the setup costs and the like make it unattractive (although the runnng costs are cheaper).

  8. I’m curious how these VoIP companies actually connect their calls to people with landlines? Do they have phone lines in each city (or LATA) hooked up to the internet that they then use to call the person you are trying to connect to locally? (A/D converting the IP packets back and forth). You would think that converting the calls back to old school format would cost the VoIP companies a lot of money and taxes. Speaking of taxes, does the gov’t tack on any tax to these VoIP services? I currently subscribe to an “all you can eat” style phone service now thru SBC. Only $48 / month. But its the ~$18 in extra tax that kills the deal.

    Also, I like the idea of using a PBX in the house to only route outgoing calls thru Vonage, etc.

  9. I really wonder why people jump through all those VOIP hoops when long distance is ~2 cents a minute for most of the world at http://www.onesuite.com

    My setup is cell only (no landline) with Verizon (very good signal in my house) and onesuite for long distance outside the US.

    I call mostly Canada and Australia and the rates are 1.9 cents/min to Canada and 2.9 cents/min to Australia. Been using them for over 3 years and no problems to report.

    The only usage I can see for VOIP is someone who has poor cell coverage in their house or someone who doesn’t have a cell phone. Am I missing something?

  10. I am surprised you didn’t make more of Skype. It is such a fantastic service and people seem to be switching over quickly (err… maybe just people I know). It is a joy to use and the voice quality is fantastic (definitely better than a landline on long distance)

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