Thinking about Vonage

NorthCounty · EVDO Newbie Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 4

Hey guys, I searched for this and all I came up with are old posts (1 to 2 years old).

I have good to excellent Rev-a signal strength, and I was wondering if Vonage will work. I'm using the Verizon U720 with a cradlepoint router hooked through a linksys wireless "g" router.

Thank you for any input.

Torrey · Site Admin Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 282 Location: USA

With the low latency (ping times) of EVDO Rev-A; VOIP is more useable now than it has been previously. But keep in mind that it still won't always be consistent due to signal quality & network usage.

VOIP over EVDO: -Good for saving your daytime minutes, but I wouldn't replace the cell/landline completley with it Wink

bobevdo · EVDO User Joined: 13 Oct 2007 Posts: 73

STAY away from vonage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

they will rip you off and calls will be distorted.. i know because i used to have cable internet with a 50 ms ping time............ and it was lagging and garbled
and really loud the person on the other end would have to whisper to keep it from distorting

we kept it for about 8 months just because its all that was avaible

we told them to cancel the account.. and they said they would/did

we were in the process of moving and getting mail transferred and after we got moved andfinally gt our bank statemenst again we noticed that 24.95 kept dissapearing out of our account.. sometimes twice in a month causing lots of bounced checks because we didnt know they were taking the money

and had to close the bank account and cancel the card to get them to stop... they even sent a collection notice AFTER WE HAD CANCELED and payed the bill

I would have to recomend magicjack your only out 40 bucks for the first year.... then 20 bucks a YEAR after that.. and i asked and called and they said that is should even work with a 400ms ping time..... it would just be a short delay in the time that the person talked and the time the other person heard it

and no contracts or nothing give it a try i have a friend who says its pretty decent

Autolude · EVDO Newbie Joined: 26 May 2007 Posts: 1 Location: Maine

I find Voage usable, though not as good as Landline. When I make a call, everyone on the other end sounds fine to me, but they sometimes complain that I'm echoing/breaking up. I just canceled my landline today actually. My pings are in the 150ms range, sometime better, sometimes worse. Signal is in the low 93-88db range. All in all quite usable

the_rapture · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:58 pm Post subject:

Well I finally got tired of playing around Sat which I tried Vonage on almost a year ago and it didn't work. I cancelled Vonage with in the 30 day window with out any problems. I do recommend that you use a credit card and not your bank account because you can put charges in dispute.

Fast forward to July 08; I wanted to get a T1 but that didn't pan out because of hidden costs that Embarq didn't tell me about until I pressed the issue of what my monthly cost would be. So... After all of that I decided to go with Sprint but they put a cap on and they don't have EVDO yet in my area. I finally decide dial-up was to much of a killer, I was ready to cancel the Internet all together but woke up and said the best I could do was 2 Verizonwireless cards. I have them divided amongst my systems using ICS. I went with Vonage because my wife calls her mom in the UK and it's now FREE yeah saving almost $75 a month now (Pays for one card) so I put Vonage and one computer on the same card and it works great for about 90% of the calls, every once in awhile we have to hang up and redial to get a better route and that's all the way from VA to the UK. Remember VOIP is on a shared network instead of a dedicated phone line (land line). The more traffic on the Internet the worse VOIP will be. No big complaints from my wife or her mom and they would tell me! Trust me!

I know this doesn't make it easy for you to decide...

My signal is usually 3 bars using a Wilson Trucker antenna and RSSI is -84 to -88 some times higher. Look up Front Royal VA on the map to see some of my speed tests.
_________________
Denny

nickjacket · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:24 pm Post subject:

I've had Vonage for 4 years now. Originally through my Sprint Broadband Direct system. Sprint BBD would need plenty of planar array Line-Of-Site for the upstream to work right. Vonage uses conventional SIP credentials and codec as Wireshark has revealed on my PC.
When called parties complain of "cutting out" it's usually when the call is made at a busy time of day.
I've always DMZ'd the IP address of the Vonage voice terminal to get around unexplained phantom audibility problems. The terminal has plenty of filters of its own to protect against intrusive net traffic.
If your Vonage terminal regularly must self-re-establish protocols with a Vonage server (re-boot/no dialtone), that's a sign of living on the edge of bandwidth. I've always had to select the lowest radio button range on my Vonage account settings for bandwidth to eliminate most choppy audio complaints.

GoogleTalk has a better codec than Vonage (less choppy at low bandwidth/wider freq range) and it's free. It has made Vonage SIP look clunky many times here. There's no PSTN dialtone/phone number with GoogleTalk but it's got voice-mail and other plain old phone features that buddy listed PC's can use.

onedavester · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:07 am Post subject:

I am using a Magic Jack with almost no issues on national access. It cost me $40.00 up front which includes an entire year of use. I know it sounds too good to be true but I have had one since April and it works great. The company doesn't even bill you until your trial period is over. How can you beat that? Try one. ...dang I feel like a salesman

Bottom line is that it costs so little at the very least it can be a backup phone or the one your kids talk on to their friends so they aren't tying up your land line.

firedude · EVDO Junkie Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 435

I also use MagicJack with great success. Just a word of caution though. Remember VOIP calls use bandwidth and with most aircard (evdo broadband) carriers now having the 5GB cap you need to be cognate of such. Depending on how much bandwidth you already use VOIP could put you in a precarious situation, especially with Verizon and their overage charges. A surprise could sneak up on you real fast. Just something you need to monitor. If you use the VOIP a lot you might be in for a bandwidth problem especially if you are running near the 5GB cap already.

Just food for thought.... Smile

onedavester · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:50 pm Post subject:

Excellent thought(s) IDK how much bandwidth VOIP uses but I am sure it is minimal especially since it only needs a steady 80k connection to work.

The other thing to consider is that all Land lines still have to carry a dial tone so you will always be able to call 911 if needed. The Magic Jack should not be your only phone however and all VOIP systems so suffer packet loss and sometimes you will drop calls or have some moments of crappy voice quality, but the price is right.

Bighurt49245 · EVDO User Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 62 Location: Homer,MI

Ive had Vonage for about a month now and it works great with my Sprint EVDO RevA connection. Plus another cool thing about Vonage is they have a free feature called Network Availability Number. Where they automatically have your calls forwarded to the phone number of your choice in the event your Internet connection is disrupted. I have mine go directly to my cell phone if I don't have my Internet going. So, I never miss a call no matter where I am. I would at least give it a try. You might be really surprised.

ZeroPing · EVDO User Joined: 28 Nov 2007 Posts: 36

I don't use Vonage on my Verizon card, but I use it on my cable connection at home without any problems.

I'd say the best thing for you to do would be to try the Vonage $9.95 per month for 3 months offer to see if it works for you. Everyone's mileage is going to vary with VOIP over a wireless broadband card due to a number of different factors. If Vonage doesn't seem to suit you, just cancel the service. I think they're always running a free equipment promotion as long as you pay the shipping to get it to your location.

I agree with the others on Vonage customer service and billing, they're not too much to speak of.

firedude · EVDO Junkie Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 435

SignalSeeker · EVDO User Joined: 28 May 2008 Posts: 31

nickjacket · Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 7:32 pm Post subject:

Hey, davester said it sounded too good to be true and .. it's true!

How about for the problem of 911 calls, having a no service cell phone always charged and ready for 911 action if needed.

Looking at the above quote from davester on text from firedude, that might be a dropped message board packet.

Species8472 · Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:10 pm Post subject:

255Megs for 30x 15 min seems like a lot..... but hey. How do you connect thru to your laptop if you do not use an EVDO router? Vonage has their Vphone (looks like a mem stick with a headset). I have heard very mixed feedback re magicjac