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anonymous
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Joined: 04 December 2003
Location: United States
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After relying solely on my cellular phone for a year because I was annoyed by the high costs of traditional land line service (a $49.99 unlimited package meant $80 after taxes), I came across a Vonage ad. I had been meaning to sign up for VoIP phone service with Earthlink, but in features, Vonage beat out the Earthlink and came in at a lower price at $25.99. Wonderful I thought as I waited anxiously for my Cisco ATA 186 (converts analog voice signal to digital; your phone plugs into this device and this device to your router) to arrive in the mail.
Well, let me quit beating around the bush and say that this service sucks at best. Here's why:
Got my voicemail working and it was fine. Had some friends call in from work to show them how great Vonage was. Voicemail message had mysteriously disappeared and was replaced by an annoying beep, beep, beep. . . and you couldn't leave a message. Called in and finally got through to someone after several attempts and they said that they had an outage. Ok, so I reset my message.
Set up a virtual number for my parents to use to call me. Did not work. I called Vonage and of course couldn't get through on the line (busy signals, dropped calls, and answering machine after being on hold). I sent an email to support several days ago. To this day I have received nothing and of course I can't get though to anyone on the phone.
Since Saturday, today is Monday - phone service is off and on due to outages. Saturday it was for several hours. Sunday a few minutes. Monday a couple hours. Not able to make or receive calls. Not acceptable
Customer service is not accessible. When stuff goes wrong, and believe me it does, you just have to sit back and wait and use your cell phone. No wonder they let you transfer your calls to another number for free. Your number never works!
I have yet to be a satisfied customer. I had four friends ready to switch Vonage and I told them to stay with Verizon. Verizon may kill you on taxes, but hey, at least you get to use your phone and you can rely on it!
No, it's not my setup - I have Earthlink cable modem - 2.3mbs down and 384k up. I know how to build and manage networks so it's not my configuration. Vonage is a bit ahead of their time. Like Microsoft, they should have worked out their bugs before releasing such a poor service to customers.
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anonymous
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Joined: 04 December 2003
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| Posted: 02 September 2003 at 12:16pm | IP 192.0.0.44
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I agree with you that Vonage's customer service leaves a lot to be desired.
I've used Vonage now for over 6 months and have only experienced four outages - none of them apparently Vonage's fault. I would dial and get a fast busy or when I tried to dial into my Vonage number I would get a fast busy - just as your describe.
In order to get it to work again I had to reset/unplug one or more of the following: my cable modem, Linksys router, and the Cisco ATA-186 box. That usually did the trick. I suspect it has something to do with my router's DHCP lease which expires every two weeks. Or it might be the Linksys firmware, but I have a fairly unique Linksys box that they stopped making new firmware for as of 7/22/02.
I've yet to experience an actual outage at Vonage - but maybe I don't make or receive as many calls as you do.
I hope your experience improves with Vonage. I know I have saved around $1,000 already using their service.
p.s. Just to be safe, I do have my cellphone as a backup.
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anonymous
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| Posted: 09 September 2003 at 8:07pm | IP 192.0.0.44
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you might want to check out the www.vonage-forum.com there is some good stuff there to solve some commen problems
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anonymous
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| Posted: 23 September 2003 at 3:24am | IP 192.0.0.44
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Just solve your problems by using Skype.
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anonymous
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Joined: 04 December 2003
Location: United States
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Posts: 99
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| Posted: 24 September 2003 at 3:45pm | IP 192.0.0.44
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Information on the new Skype P2P solution can be found here:
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2003/Sep/1020187.htm
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Dave
VoIP and Call Center Guest Group
Joined: 01 December 2003
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Posts: 3138
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I agree that Vonage totally sucks. I got the service in mid November.
It never worked at all for the phone number that was the whole
reason I got Vonage. So I finally got fed up with dealing with
customer service and canceled online. Well, apparently you can't
cancel online. So no that I'm back (Jan, 5th) I saw the email saying to
call and I did. The guy in cancelations told me that he was sending
me to credits so that they could credit me for this month's service.
The guy in credits told me that according to his screen I canceled
today and there is nothing he can do for me. I asked to speak with a
supervisor and he told me that there is no supervisor. I feel that they
should credit me pro rated from December 12th, when I canceled
online, but even if they can't they should credit me pro rated from
today!! I had to pay a full month for five days of service that I didn't
use at all. By the way that fast busy signal. That's what I got all the
time. I'd say people got through about 25% of the time.
Vonage Sucks!!
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tkeating
VoIP Admin Group
VoIP & Gadget Guru
Joined: 01 December 2003
Location: United States
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Posts: 165
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>>By the way that fast busy signal. That's what I got all the time.
Hmmm. Seems like it's hit or miss with people's experience with Vonage. Some people love it, others have had nothing but problems.
I will say this though - I too have gotten fast busies with Vonage. Hoever, I only get fast busies when I'm using P2P (peer-to-peer) networks or when uploading a file to my work PC across the Internet. Since my cable provider only provides a scant 128Kbps of upstream, emule, Kazaa or other P2P clients EASILY can fill up this small pipe leaving no bandwidth left for incoming calls. (The ATA-186 uses 64Kbps or 80Kbps with overhead)
Although I don't see why Vonage or the Cisco ATA-186 unit requires that much bandwidth to be notified of an incoming call. I too was frustrated by the fast busies and had to reduce my allocated bandwidth to my P2P applications. Though I do need to copy/move files from time-to-time so it is a bit frustrating when the fast busies occur.
Looks like you already cancelled your Vonage account, but I would be curious to know if you are a heavy P2P user. Maybe that was your problem all along.
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willie garcia
VoIP and Call Center Newbie
Joined: 29 January 2004
Location: United States
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Posts: 2
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Vonage the rip off broad band company
Waiting time for CS. is all ways 20 min. plus.
Try calling Billing, god help you!
Never get any straight answers. They say one thing on the phone and guess what they follow up with: different email answers.
You pay your phone bill and they still cut you off. They then promise to reconnect and it never happens.
And you pay for phone line you have not used, but they still want you to pay them in full.
They are not licensed by the FCC.
The state of Minnesota has seeked remedies against them.
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tkeating
VoIP Admin Group
VoIP & Gadget Guru
Joined: 01 December 2003
Location: United States
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>>The state of Minnesota has seeked remedies against them.
You're not talking about the Minnesota lawsuit to try and classify Vonage as a phone service are you? If so, they lost that lawsuit.
Judge Michael J. Davis of the district of Minnesota wrote that VoIP provider Vonage is an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service" and therefore exempt from state regulation. The opinion was issued a week after the judge ordered an injunction permanently barring Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission from forcing Vonage to get a telephone operator's license to do business in the state.
You can read more about it here:
http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/articles/2003/120403rt.htm
I hope you aren't knocking broadband VoIP for the sake of knocking broadband VoIP. There are thousands of happy broadband VoIP users. If on the other hand you are knocking Vonage due to a personal bad experience, then by all means feel free to rant on this forum.
But I hope you are not equating poor service with Vonage with poor broadband VoIP in general.
I'm one of 50,000+ happy broadband VoIP users! 
If indeed the state of Minnesota is now trying another legal "tactic" for going after Vonage, post some links so I can check it out.
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Tom Keating
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willie garcia
VoIP and Call Center Newbie
Joined: 29 January 2004
Location: United States
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Posts: 2
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no broad band is a fine service
just vonage
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laler1
VoIP and Call Center Guest Group
Joined: 01 December 2003
Online Status: Online
Posts: 3138
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Dave wrote:
I agree that Vonage totally sucks. I got the service in mid November.
It never worked at all for the phone number that was the whole
reason I got Vonage. So I finally got fed up with dealing with
customer service and canceled online. Well, apparently you can't
cancel online. So no that I'm back (Jan, 5th) I saw the email saying to
call and I did. The guy in cancelations told me that he was sending
me to credits so that they could credit me for this month's service.
The guy in credits told me that according to his screen I canceled
today and there is nothing he can do for me. I asked to speak with a
supervisor and he told me that there is no supervisor. I feel that they
should credit me pro rated from December 12th, when I canceled
online, but even if they can't they should credit me pro rated from
today!! I had to pay a full month for five days of service that I didn't
use at all. By the way that fast busy signal. That's what I got all the
time. I'd say people got through about 25% of the time.
Vonage Sucks!! |
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laler1
VoIP and Call Center Guest Group
Joined: 01 December 2003
Online Status: Online
Posts: 3138
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Vonage certainly sucks,
I subscribed on Sept.29 and still my # hasn't been transferred. I have been calling and writting, but no response. I am still paying both service providers. Half of my house is connected to old provider, the other half to Vonage. Asked several times to speak to somone in charge, and they just give me another customer representative. I even sent mail to the head office, but they are ignoring me too.
Think twice before you decide to switch....
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custynomore
VoIP and Call Center Guest Group
Joined: 01 December 2003
Online Status: Online
Posts: 3138
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these clowns hire telemarketers as techs
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VoipNotVonage
VoIP and Call Center Guest Group
Joined: 01 December 2003
Online Status: Online
Posts: 3138
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have you been able to get a straight answer out of anyone? WHY DOES EVEYONE THERE SOUND SO FAT? especially that melanie and her buffy the vampire stories to stall you
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