Vonage sucks!

July 27, 2006 10:55 PM

Roommate's vonage router is a pain in the butt. Who's job is it to buy a new one?

Three weeks ago I had a roommate move into my home. When she did, she hooked up a vonage router which ended up slowing down my bittorrent speeds significantly, to the point that I cannot even use it.

Now I've researched the problem and it looks like we have two options. We can buy a second router to pair up with the vonage one, or buy a more expensive vonage router as a replacement. Either way we need to buy another router.

My question is, who is responsible for buying it? The roommate, because her router is causing the problem.. or me, because I want to use bittorrent?

posted by Sufi to human relations (12 comments total)

My first suggestion, not answering the question, is to check the port forwarding on the router - forward the right port and bittorrent should be fine. Apologies if your research found that this can't be done, but feel free to post/mail questions on this.

Now, to answer the question - I'd say that the roommate is responsible for the replacement router. You have a working setup, and the roommate wants to introduce new equipment; it's her responsibility to ensure that that new equipment leaves your working setup as it is.
posted by pocams at 11:04 PM on July 27, 2006

Is internet access one of the services promised to her when she signed her rental agreement? If not, who currently pays for the internet connection?
posted by RichardP at 12:00 AM on July 28, 2006

There was no rental agreement signed. But yes, she was informed she would be paying a portion of the cable/internet bill.
posted by Sufi at 12:05 AM on July 28, 2006

I had to tweak my own router just yesterday to speed up BitTorrent. I found that I was much more successful using Azereus, and a non-standard port.

However, seems like Vonage has its own issues...

And finally, to answer the question - (just like pocams!), it's your roommate's responsibility to have/buy equipment that integrates with your existing working setup.
posted by Liosliath at 12:21 AM on July 28, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'd say it's your roommates problem to restore previous service metrics. If she wants to use Vonage on your service, either pony up for a proper router, have her put it downstream from you on it's own subnet or otherwise assist in debugging the problem.
posted by loquacious at 2:35 AM on July 28, 2006

FYI, at my house we cannot use our Vonage phone and BT at the same time. One always slows down the other.

But, if Vonage is merely plugged in, there is no problem with BT.

Like others said, make sure that the ports are open.
posted by k8t at 3:57 AM on July 28, 2006

There is also a feature accessible through Vonage called the Bandwidth Saver. It allows you to throttle down Vonage's usage, but as said above, a Vonage router simply plugged into the network should not be affecting network speeds, unless a call is being made.

Vonage typically requires around 90 kbps of downstream. On a high-speed cable account like mine, this represents roughly 1/7 my available downstream.

BitTorrent software like Azureus allow you to effectively throttle up or down your bandwidth usage from the BT side of things, so between these two, you should be able to find a balance. (And I have the no-frills, crappy DLink Vonage box that has one port in and two phone ports. It's not even a router.)
posted by disillusioned at 5:44 AM on July 28, 2006

I'll go against the stream. Your roommate has behaved innocently. Maintaining the infrastructure of the place to the satisfaction of all is the landlord's job, not the tenant's. If you want a different router, get a different router yourself.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:38 AM on July 28, 2006

I'm with ROU_X. Having a router on a DSL connection is just basic infrastructure.
posted by Good Brain at 9:04 AM on July 28, 2006

I'd get a router with QOS features that allow you to prioritize the Vonage traffic, and put that first. I have a D-Link DGL-4300, which was one of the few such routers available when I got it, but now it's a reasonably common feature in high-end-ish routers. I use it with my SunRocket service and it works great.
posted by kindall at 1:30 PM on July 28, 2006

Liosliath your answer actually fixed the problem. Thanks so much for doing some extra research for me!

Now I'm stuck with another problem! The phone quality is garbage while I'm running BT. I'm gonna dink around with that bandwidth saver (thanks Disi) and see if that helps.

Thanks guys, you've all been a great help!
posted by Sufi at 2:11 PM on July 28, 2006

Glad that worked! Can I get my comment marked as a "best answer?" I want to be one of the cool kids at AskMe. (though I'm still afraid of being flamed as a n00bie!)
posted by Liosliath at 6:48 PM on July 28, 2006