anybody have vonnage or other cable phone service?

1: How reliable is your broadband service? If it goes down, so does your VOIP. 2: How do they handle 911? Do they support Enhanced 911 with full address being passed on to your local emergency service? Or do they handle it through some out-sourced, off-shore 3rd party company that just takes your message and phones the police/fire for you?

I'm using Vonage for a 2nd line and it works great. There are two issues that prevent me from using it for primary line:

1) Reliability: It's only as good as the power company, Comcast, and the internet connections between Comcast and Vonage. I've mitigated the power issue with a UPS. That said, I haven't had any outages due to network issues in the 8 months I've had Vonage. 2) Vonage's 911 is not E-911. If I use it, it calls the local public safety dispatcher on a non emergency line, and the dispatcher does not automatically get my address. Since I have small children in my home, this is an important issue for me.

By moving my 2nd line from Verizoin to Vonage, I cut $35/month from my "telecommunications" bill.

If you do sign up for Vonage, make sure you get a referral from a current customer (like me). Both you and the current customer will get one month of free Vonage service. I haven't sent you a referral, as I don't send unsolicited email to people I don't know. If you'd like me to send you one, post again with the email address you'd like to use or contact me at "spam8888 comcast net".

-Gary

"shockwaveriderz" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de:

I'm using vonage... but reliablity has been flakey lately.

I'm not sure if it's my router... or the service itself.

I've never knocked an eye out with a stick, but you never know what tomorrow will bring. :)

Right, but if the MTA is in front of the router you will need to have at least two IP's from your ISP, one for the router and one for the MTA. On what do you base your concern about forwarding the required ports from the router to the MTA, (if the MTA is behind the router)? I wouldn't think there's any real security issue there; in fact, it's probably better than putting the MTA out in full view like it would be if it were in front of the router.

I am currently paying Alltel $45 for Local only and I pay 10 cents per minute to Verizon for LD service(they will start charging a $1.50 monthly fee in Sept).....I hear Alltel in Lexington Ky where I am moving to is $62 per month...! just for local service... Vonnage at $30 per month for both local and LD would save me at least $20 per month .....

I currently have Comcast in Etown KY and they have been 99.5% reliable with only 2-3 outages of short duration during the 2 years I have had their service ..most of the outages have been lately due to the storms and there was no electricity so no cable....

I will be moving to Lexington Ky and using InsightBB and they offer the ATT digital but I thought I would go with Vonnage as a way of helping a smaller company compete against the big boys.... Anybody from Lexington Ky care to comment on InsightBB ?

And I of course have a cell phone ......

I've only called 911 once in my entire life so that's not an issue.... what concerned me was having to have certain ports forwarded ... But this only applies if you have the phone behind the router and not in front of it correct?

thanks to all who responded..... I think I'm still going try Vonnage out and see how it does..

shockie B)

thanks for that info Bill, I didn't know if it was outfront the MTA would also need a separate IP.... that might involve a charge from some cable modem companies, so I guess I'll consider placing it behind the router.. My only concern about port forwarding is that it allows some degree of access behind the router/firewall although I also use ZA for a soft firewall inside my lan..... It just seems to me that opening ports and people knowing what ports are used for Vonnage for example, people could strobe/scan your IP and see that you exist and perhaps devise some form of attack/exploit against those ports.. perhaps I'm just too paranoia for my own good, although I have been on the internet now for 8 years and never been compromised .....knock on wood...... poop happens as they say.. but that's why I have a cell phone.... :-)

shockie B)

I've been with Vonage sincr November of 2003 and have loved just about every second of it. At first there were some issues with the MTA, but after those got resolved everything has been smooth sailing. I especially like the virtual number feature.

CIAO!

Ed N.

shockwaveriderz wrote:

I have them as primary lines with 4 numbers and had them over 2 years, not a single issue. Very good service. We dropped our primary line a while back and never looked back on it. All outlets in the house have access to vonage. Our business line has the fax service with them. Many kudos to Vonage.

Since we have 512kbps upstream from our cable company, the compression is fantastic.

Not true. The Motorola VT1000 that Vonage uses today has a built in NAT router. It is enabled by default. When the NAT router is on, you can still have another router (NAT or otherwise) behind the VT1000. I run an old Netgear RT314 behind my VT1000, and only use one IP address from Comcast.

The VT1000's NAT router can be disabled. In that case, a router behind it would pull a 2nd IP address from the network. The advantage is that the VT1000's NAT router has limited port mapping options. So, an advanced user may find it limiting. It works fine for me.

If you sign up for Vonage, be sure to get a referral email from a current customer. You'll get a month free, and so will the current customer. Might as well not leave money on the table!

-Gary

Using that logic, I've never had a fire in my home, so how long it takes for the fire department to respond isn't an issue.

There's a reason why everyone spent so much money building an effective

911 system. It wasn't for emergencies that happened in the past. It was for emergencies in the future. If 911 is as unimportant as you're implying, then you're implying that every person who worked to make it a nearly universal service was wasting their time and our money.

Having 911 service available to you isn't just your business. It's your neighbors' business. It's your family's business. It's your guests' business. It's the business of the letter carrier, the UPS guy, the garbage collector, and anyone else who comes near your property. Their lives and property are at danger any time there is a phone that someone could grab that doesn't go to the local 911 dispatch center, and causes a delay in help.

What ports need to be forwarded should be a trivial priority compared to whether 911 works or not.

I agree. That's the number one reason why I didn't drop Verizon totally after signing up with Vonage. I still have a Verizon line available on all my phones. Each phone also has a large sticker on the keypad that says "911: Line 1," so that visitors to my home will be sure to use the right line in an emergency.

Having two lines also gives me the benefit of giving out one number to business and the other to friends and family. Even before the do-not-call lists went into effect, almost all telemarketer calls were on the "business" line. Now, it's a nice way before even looking at caller-id if the call is business or personal.

Even with two lines, I cut my phone bill by $35/month by switching to Vonage.

-Gary

Before I got a router I had my MTA first in the line, with my PC connected to the LAN port on the MTA. I kept losing connectivity, not just on the phone line bit Internet access as well. Bought a router and placed the MTA after the router and no problem since. Never had to do any port forwarding, either. Just plugged everything in and great service all around.

CIAO!

Ed N.

shockwaveriderz wrote:

Oops, sorry about the bad info. The last time I looked, (maybe a year ago already?), they were using Cisco boxes and I didn't see any mention of the features the Motorola's have. Thanks for the update.

Got and love it. No problems at all. Using it with Comcast Cable modem and Linksys Router.

Yes. But Comcast is pretty satbe, and we have cell phones. Plus you can configure Vonage that when it detects loss of services, automatic call forwarding kicks in - to say - a cell phone.

They have a process where you register yourself with Enhanced 911 with full address being passed on to your local emergency service

The MTA they provide is a NAT router as well. When I put it in between the cable modem and the router - I could not get my work VPN to work.

When I put it behind my Linksys Router - I had to opne a few ports for Vonag - but it is working just fine.

"Gary" wrote in news:M9WdnYRUH5ILUWTdRVn- snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Vonage is now lending VT1005 to their customers :D

This is the STUPIDEST answer I've ever seen. Do you PLAN on having a heart attack? Do you PLAN on starting your house on fire? Do you PLAN on having your child choke on something? Do you PLAN on a guest or yourself having an accident? You NEVER know when you will need 911, and if it's not available, somebody may DIE. NOTHING is worth more than a person's life.

ANYTHING that slows down contacting your local emergency service or dispatch is NOT acceptable. I'm very certain there are going to be big lawsuits involving this over the next few years, if they aren't already happening. Bascially, as far as I'm concerned, ANY phone service at a fixed address MUST have the exact same access to 911 services as landline in that area.

You may want to check into it for your own peace of mind but Vonage does not have E911. E911 is the service offered in most area that gives all of your information to the 911 operator and in many areass shows your location on a map and routing information for emergency services.

When you register with Vonage you simply specify which 911 call center is located in your area. All 911 centers have regular phone numbers that are used by police, alarm companies and others. When you call 911 using Vonage your call gets routed to one of those regular phone numbers at the call center. The operator does not receive any information about who or where you are.

So for example you have a heart attack and your young nephew dials 911 (using Vonage) and says "uncle Bob is on the floor" you will not be any better off than before he called. If you used "regular" 911 someone could dial 911 and even if they just put the phone down someone would be sent.

If you have Vonage you will need to train everyone who uses your phone that

911 does not work at your house and they must be able to deliver your address (and possibly additional directions) to the operator.