Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with vonage

Strange Vonage Fax weirdness.

Nick Verstayne — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:29:09 -0800

Vonage Fax Weirdness. My fax machine doesn't get a dial tone (and doesn't work) on it's dedicated line, but does on a regular landline. A phone, however, does get a dial tone on the dedicated fax line. I've done all the basic hardware diagnostics - checked all cables, tried different types of cable (two pin, four pin and combinations of the two). I've checked to make sure they are all plugged in appropriately. Rebooted at just about every step. Vonage sent me a new box, no good. When the problem first started I resorted to factory settings on the Fax. I've spent hours with their advanced Tech support people, and while helpful, they've eventually been stumped by the problem. I've googled, and checked on forums, but haven't come across my exact problem, though I've tried some of the solutions to other people's problems.

Anything I've overlooked? Thanks folks.

Vonage account expiring soon - other options?

siclik — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:06:25 -0800

Is there any way to currently join GrandCentral? If not, please read inside explanation and suggest other options. I've had a Vonage number for about three years. Recently, I decided I was paying too much and purchased a MagicJack which has been working great for outgoing calls - the MagicJack has a separate phone number. I have about another month until my Vonage plan expires and I lose that phone number, so I'm trying to get everything set up so I can give friends/family a new number when that time comes.

The only catch is I'd like my new number to be a reliable one that won't change for some time (if I'm going to go to all the work of sending it out to everyone). I thought GrandCentral sounded neat because I could have it forward to my cell, or MagicJack, etc. and it may be more configurable, but I can't get an account there - they're not accepting new users. (Are they?)

What inexpensive option would you recommend for my situation? I thought about getting a number at the Gizmo Project and forwarding that to MagicJack, but there is a small monthly fee PLUS per minute fees for forwarding. Ideally, I'd like a service that is free, or nearly free. Bonus points if I can port my current Vonage number to said service!

I doubt I've explained this well enough, so please don't hesitate to ask questions for clarification.

Thanks!

VOIP and Lifeline

Hugh2d2 — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:11:03 -0800

Does anyone have information about how Vonage (VOIP) phone service and LifeLine Medical Alert system works together? Any documentation from either company?

Good wired router as gateway to VoIP and wireless router?

skywhite — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:45:35 -0800

Good wired router as gateway to VoIP and wireless router? When I got Vonage several years ago, they provided a now-discontinued Netgear RP614 wired router to plug my cable into, and the router (which also has a built-in firewall that works well) then offers outlets for my Vonage box as well as my Apple Airport wireless router (which I use for my Mac and as part of a larger network with an Airport Express streaming music to my living room stereo).

Everything's worked fine until recently. Now the Netgear router gets confused and shuts down all through-traffic at least once a day. A manual reset (unplug, wait, plug back in) sets things right, but it seems the router is on its way out after 5 years of service.

Vonage no longer offers wired routers -- instead they offer a proprietary VoIP box that has its own little router built-in, but I don't want to go through the hassle of dealing with Vonage, and I'd rather just do something non-proprietary on my own.

Is Netgear still a good choice for wired routers? Anyone else I might want to look at (eg Belkin)? Also, is this setup too convoluted -- is there a way to improve it while simplifying -- or is this just par for the course if I want VoIP as wekk as wireless internet?

How do I make my wireless router play nice with my VOIP adaptor?

chinston — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:43:06 -0800

What's the best way to get my wireless router (Linksys WRT54G2) to play nice with my Vonage VOIP adaptor (Motorola VT 1005)? Frequently when I'm trying to upload somewhat sizeable files (e.g., like a minute-long movie to youtube), I lose my connection and have to reboot. I don't know much about networking, so please bear with me. My current set-up is cable modem --> Linksys wireless router --> VOIP adaptor --> PC running Windows XP. If I remove the wireless router from the equation, things seem to work fine. But otherwise, usually if I'm trying to upload some pictures to flickr or a short movie to youtube (or even sometimes when checking yahoo e-mail), my connection will disappear.

Weirdly, if I have a remote connection to my work network up at the time via Citrix, that connection will not be affected. And I still have phone service through Vonage. But I will not be able to access the web via Firefox or Internet Explorer. If I reset the wireless adaptor, that fixes the problem for a time until the next upload. I don't torrent or do any really huge data transfers.

I had this problem with a previous router - the Belkin Wireless pre-N router. I recently switched to the older Linksys model, hoping that would fix things. But it hasn't. This is frustrating since I rely on my wireless connection to stream music over to my Roku soundbridge, among other things.

I've googled and checked the manufacturers' web pages, but haven't been able to find help. Oh, and I have the most recent firmware version. My question is similar to this question about how visiting flickr and netflix kills an internet connection; I've just tried reinstalling flash and flashblock. It's also very similar to this question about a combination Vonage/Linksys router having to be reset, but there was no conclusive answer there.

I'm happy to provide more details if needed.

How do I port my number to Cricket from Vonage.

2oh1 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:29:58 -0800

Cricket says it isn't possible to port my phone number from Vonage but there has to be a way, right? What's the cheapest way to accomplish this? I'm assuming I'd need to port it somewhere else first. Or not?

VOIP Recommendations?

krisak — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:35:29 -0800

I'm looking for a VOIP provider that doesn't suck. Can anyone recommend one? I was originally with Vonage for two years, until their service and customer service degraded. The fact that they didn't really have a business plan didn't help.

I switched to ViaTalk on a 2 year pre-paid plan. Their service and customer service was good. Until they started charging my credit card for E-911 without warning (I then politely asked about it and why I couldn't find any information about it on their website - their CSR replied after a month somewhat rudely and somehow managed to both blame me and lie). Combine that with the intermittent outages lately and I'm ready to ditch them.

I did find this thread, but it's from December of last year and might be outdated.

I'm considering Lingo but don't have any experience with them. I'm willing to pay more than I was for reliable service and CSRs that are reasonably helpful.

Number portability would be nice, but isn't critical. I can use a VoiceStick to park my number on and accept incoming calls.

I've considered Magic Jack, but they kind of rate a little high on my dodgyness-meter.

So I'd really like to hear from people who have good experiences with an existing VOIP provider. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Routers not working properly

CliffDiving44 — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:53:19 -0800

The last two routers I've owned, they needed to be reset every couple days to get my connection back. Now it happens with my new router, after months of it working perfectly. Any ideas? My first two routers were both standard Linksys routers, but this latest one is a Linksys WRTP54G Vonage router. Like I said, it worked perfectly and I didn't have to reset it until about a month ago, and now it happens once or twice a week. It's not the biggest problem in the world, but it's annoying and an inconvenience. Are all of these routers going bad because they're constantly on? Is there some setting that I'm not putting on?

Vonage alternatives.

NoMich — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:13:39 -0800

Vonage alternatives? I've been with Vonage for over a year now and up until this weekend it's been problem free. Now, it just works when it wants to. The problems started on Friday night and have been persistant since then.
Given this and their lawsuits, it may be time to switch to somebody else. But who? I've got my broadband Internet service through TimeWarner and it's great, but their VoIP service is a whopping $40 a month. That's $15 a month more than what I'm paying now.
Anybody have a VoIP service that they can recommend?

I need to get a fake phone number that works right!

evariste — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:56:47 -0800

VOIPeurs, I need a SIP of your wisdom... So here's the situation. My cellphone is my primary phone. But I'm also paying for a Vonage line, so that a good friend can have a local phone number to call me on. The Vonage line has gone up from $25 to $33 a month with all kinds of new taxes over the past couple of years, and I don't even use it: I just use it to forward any calls to my cellphone.

I want to ditch the Vonage and get something else that lets me have a phone number in that area code, and just immediately passes on any phone calls to my cellphone. Call forwarding is the one and only feature that I need, so Vonage's offering is kind of overkill. But one nice thing about it was that the minutes were free.

I tried getting a Skype number + Skype Unlimited, but forwarding wouldn't work until I bought some Skype Credit. So Skype Unlimited...isn't really. And furthermore, once I did that and had someone call me and try it, I found out that the forwarded calls lose their caller ID information! I don't want to have it show up on my cellphone as Unknown. I want to know who's calling me. So Skype was a dud.

I've since done some Googling, and found something called GrandCentral. I'm not sure if it'll do what I want, but if someone here has it and you think it will work for what I want, I'll buy, borrow, beg, or steal an invite and sign up for it.

I also found some guy in a forum describing how he uses a combination of CallCentric, a "DID provider", and CallWithUs to get cellphone forwarding that keeps caller ID info intact. As I dimly understand it, a DID is nothing more than a phone number. Right? And what this guy is doing, seems to me analogous to buying your domain name from one company and your web hosting from another, rather than buying everything from one company and putting all your eggs in their basket. If my understanding of how it all works is mistaken, let me know.

Is this sort of setup way beyond an otherwise geeky, but in this particular regard fairly casual and disinterested user who just wants a simple thing like this to work? I don't want to own any exotic VOIP hardware, Asterisk or a PBX or God knows what. I don't even know what those words mean. I just want a phone number in a certain area code, that forwards calls to my cellphone and keeps the caller ID intact. Some kind of unlimited continental US minute plan would be nice, but if the minutes are cheap enough, it's not a dealbreaker.

Point me in the right direction...

chrisfromthelc — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:50:10 -0800

I need to find a Phone Number Bank-type service that works for Houston, TX phone numbers. I've got a 281 (Verizon) number that I absolutely cannot lose (business). Apparently, our long-distance PRI carrier cannot port in a local number,...only the toll free one.

I've checked out Phone Number Bank (https://www.phonenumberbank.com/), but, they cannot service our area (apparently, they are limited to East Coast numbers.

Anyone out there have any ideas short of getting on Vonage and doing a call forward?

Give me a voip voip!

prophetsearcher — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 08:09:10 -0800

What's the best way to make calls from Israel to North America, and to let others from North America call me at little or no expense? I'm moving to Israel. I'm going to be keeping in touch with friends, family, and clients in the U.S. and Canada. There are many ways to do this, but none seem perfect.

Vonage? Has the advantage of being established, pretty straight-forward, and I can use my current number. Downsides: Going under? Quality? Expense?

SkypeIn/Out. I admit it. I just don't get it. I've been through the site and it doesn't seem to be very clear. Is it only for softphone usage?

Unlocked Nokia e61 (for example) with Gizmo Project . In theory, I can have call-in numbers in USA and Israel, which would mean 1 phone for everything. Right? That would be pretty sweet. Though, even if that part doesn't work out, it might be a good deal. But there's a high up front cost, and it's still kinda confusing. Does it really work?

Others : Ooma seems cool, but who knows if I would get my hands on it; Local VOIP providers; Figure it out when I get there. I also just got my GrandCentral account. Don't know if that can figure in somehow.

I'm leaving pretty soon, so if I need hardware, I'd need to order it now. But I'm worried about committing, especially if it means porting a number and then losing it.

Any advice, anecdotes, assurances, or alliterations would be most welcome. I'm a generally bright guy, but this has got me at a total loss.

Cheap international cell phone calls using VoIP

monkeystronghold — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:09:55 -0800

Is there a good (and cheap) way to maintain phone communication between US and European cell phones using VoIP or other services, so that neither party needs to make international phone calls? I'll be moving to Sweden in August, but I'm going to keep working remotely while I'm there. My work requires that I be tied to a laptop during normal working hours, but also that clients be able to call me and that I am able to call them back. These calls need to happen at all hours, even when I'm not online. I don't expect that a cell phone plan in Europe would be cost effective for incoming and outgoing international phone calls.

Does anyone have an interesting solution involving a European mobile phone plan, Skype, Vonage, Grand Central, and/or other services that will:

1. allow people in the US to call me at what seems like a US number on my cell phone in Europe

2. allow me to call people at US phone numbers from either the computer or a cell phone

Where is the "interview" style Vonage commercial filmed?

NikitaNikita — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:39:36 -0800

Where is the "interview" style Vonage commercial filmed? Where is the "interview" style Vonage commercial filmed? (just a basic commercial where people are testifying to their love of Vonage -- not the funny/quirky ones.) Or, how could I possibly find this out?

Every time I see it, the background street scenes look extremely familiar, and I get a sense of deja vu. It drives me nuts!

VOIP for n00bs

ambrosia — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:43:51 -0800

We are temporarily moving 50 miles from our permanent home. We would like to keep our landline phone number active. VOIP seems like the obvious answer, but I'm a complete internet telephony newbie. Poking around on Google and on previous AskMe questions tells me that Vonage isn't all it's cracked up to be and that Comcast in Northern California (our cable modem provider) doesn't always play nicely with VOIP.

Given the current state of affairs, am I crazy to even consider Vonage? Is there another alternative that's better? Is Comcast just too evil to attempt third party VOIP? Skype doesn't allow you to port over your landline number, which is the main reason for doing this now. Is there anything I am overlooking? I'd especially be interested in hearing from anyone using Vonage over a Comcast cable modem.

Problems with routers, Xbox360s, and UPnP.

CliffDiving44 — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 01:09:18 -0800

My cable connection keeps losing connection when UPnP is enabled, but I need it enabled to keep my Xbox360s connected. Why is this happening? First of all, my house has 6 TVs, 2 laptops, and Vonage VoIP on our Comcast cable connection. I bought the linksys wrtg54g router when the linksys befw11s4's wireless stopped working, but I've since switched back to the befw11s4, and it works pretty good now.

Now on to the question.. my routers have always lost their connection every couple days, but would connect again if I manually reset the router. It has happened with both my linksys befw11s4 router (the one I'm using now), and with my newer linksys wrtg54g. This wasn't such a problem for me, until my friends and I wanted to use more than one Xbox360 on my connection. We hooked them all up to the same router, and the Xbox360s all lost connection about 10 minutes after connecting. The connection was only lost on the Xbox360s, not on any TVs or laptops. Comcast told us that we didn't have enough bandwidth to run the Xbox360s all at once, but we used to use 4 PS2s all at the same time with no problems whatsoever. I finally solved this problem of the Xbox360s cutting out by updating my router's firmware and enabling UPnP, but now the laptops and the VoIP both lose connection very frequently with UPnP enabled. It seems that the connection is fine with UPnP enabled until a second or third laptop connects. I've been switching UPnP on when I use the 360s, and off when I'm done, but that's a hassle, and I'm sure this problem is not normal. I don't think it's the router because it happens with both of them, but I'm not sure. Also, Comcast hasn't been much of a help with this situation. Even the routers cutting out every couple days and needing a hard reset to connect again is weird to me, so this issue with the 360s and the UPnP further frustrates and confuses me.

Anyone have any ideas on what could be the problem here? Thanks.

Will Voice over IP work for me?

benjh — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 14:16:35 -0800

What are good options for phone service for a home office? Due to space constraints at the office, I am moving to working totally from home. While I was doing that 2-3 days a week before, I simply used my cell phone when I was at home. Now, with this being a permanent situation, I need to be able to fax, receive calls comfortably every day, etc. so I am looking into getting phone service for my home office.

I looked into getting a standard land line from the local telco (Verizon), but the pricing for two lines, unlimited long distance, calling features, etc. made me choke, I haven't had a land line in years, so I forgot how I had it on my cell phone.

So I started looking at Voice over IP as a possible solution, including possibly Vonage.

I'm curious about two things. One, how well will VoIP actually work on a home office situation (I'm only on the phone maybe 30-45 minutes a day). Two, when I looked at phones in the stores, I was not thrilled with my choices. I would like something kind of 'officey' but with the ability to add a cordless extension if needed, but it should look decent.

VoIP kills my Bittorrent ability. Help!

Manhasset — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:20:24 -0800

Bittorrent worked fine till I got VoIP (Vonage). Now, no worky. Can anyone help? I'm on OSX. My modem is a Webstar DPC2100 and my Vonage modem is a Motorola VT-2442-VC.

My Bittorrent software keeps telling me "Could not open a listening Port! Check your port range settings."

However, if I pull the Vonage modem out of the equation, Bittorrent works fine.

I'm using Tomato for BT but can switch to something else if anyone can give precise step by step instructions for setting it up. I've tried setting up Azureus and other programs pre-vonage with no luck. Tomato's the only one I've gotten to work (and yes, I've cleared some ports for it in the Sharing menu).

I've called Vonage and asked 3 reps about this and only one of them knew what BT was and said he wasn't aware of anything that would affect it.

Suggestions?

VoIP in Toronto?

Manhasset — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:45:37 -0800

Experience with Vonage or any VOIP in Toronto? I know it's been asked before but figure the technology may have improved. Also, what about some of their other products?

Vonage sucks!

Sufi — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 22:55:36 -0800

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?

How does VoIP connect to POTS lines?

Brian James — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 23:10:18 -0800

How exactly do VoIP services place calls to POTS lines? From my googling, I know that something called an analog terminal adapter is involved to connect the Internet to a POTS line.

But, who owns & maintains these devices, and how many does a VoIP company need to run its service? Did Skype or Vonage go around and set up a bank of these things in every area code in North America?

Vonage's Click2Call for Thunderbird.

NoMich — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:06:42 -0800

Is there a Vonage Click2Call extension that will work with Thunderbird? I found this extension (via this forum thread), but as you can clearly see, the person's Web site has been parked. I found this earlier AskMe question that mentions a Greasemonkey script, but I'm not sure how to use it. I've got Greasemonkey running on my WinXP computer, but I don't know how to edit the script itself like you are supposed to. Plus, I'm not sure that it can access my Contacts list in Thunderbird.

Can I run Vonage through Internet Sharing on OSX?

mkultra — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 12:04:25 -0800

Can I run Vonage through Internet Sharing on OSX? My cable is out for the next day or so. I have my desktop Mac latched onto a Friendly Neighborhood Unsecured Wireless Router, which provides decent throughput. I have Internet Sharing enabled (via Ethernet), and can run my Dell laptop through it. When I hook up my Vonage router (Linksys, the one they send you), it won't connect and activate the phone.

Will Vonage simply not run through that setup, or is there something I can do to get my landline working? I also have a Netgear router I normally use for everything, but can't seem to figure out how to make it a relay point for another base station.

Comcast internet woes and questioning VOIP

flyby22 — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 10:47:52 -0800

Wanted to seek some advise about my Comcast internet connection and tech support problems which seem to happen almost two three times a year. It always makes me question myself for using VOIP (Vonage) for my phone service. It started again Tue of this week. I noticed I was losing network connectivity between 7.30 PM and 8.30 PM and it repeated for 3 nights almost at the same time. This timing thing really made me curious. Dont know if it happened at other times during the day because I am away at work and I do not get much phone calls during the day. In this situation calls get routed Vonage mailbox. But after around 8.30 PM the connection seems to be up at least till I went off to work next day.

Then yesterday I found out my connection was offline starting around 8.30- 9 AM and was offline till 10 - 10.30 PM last night. In the middle of this I called Comcast customer support from my cellphone of course. I always find their internet customer support not being able to do anything more than running through a cheat sheet of steps which I know are not the issues. But anyway these are people with ZERO computer knowledge probably. So she reaches the inevitable conclusion that their tech support needs to come out, and this is the part that really freaked me out.

The earliest date she could give me was next Wed!!!! So no internet and no phone till then! She tried to explain to me that they have some quota system and the queue gets filled up rapidly. I also got the impression that if I had VOIP from Comcast or had cable TV problems I could be on a different and possibly quicker service queue.

Tell if I am wrong or unfairly angry, I am just shocked to see that in this day and age of internet they expect customers to wait 4-5 days even before they can come out, and chances are just when they come everything will be working fine! and break down as soon as the they leave.

I feel like this is unacceptable I should be able to complain to somebody. I need some advice here ????

If somebody is late with their monthly payment by a day they do not hesitate to send out all kind of nasty threatening letters.

As I was saying the connection started up around 10.30 PM last night. But it went off again around 8.30 AM this morning. I am just baffled by this apparent predictable timing of the outage. Today I went to their service center and exchanged the cable modem, just in case it is the modem. Have not tried it yet. My neighbor said he have not had any problems with his comcast internet connection

Having a VOIP phone simply just adds to the aggrevation !!!

click to call?

stupidsexyFlanders — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 05:56:18 -0800

I recently installed the greasemonkey script for Vonage users that turns phone numbers into URLs that when clicked, causes your phone to pick up and dial the number. I find this incredibly useful -- is there any kind of plug-in that will give me the same functionality within my Outlook address book?