[Sumner2306]

Let me preface this by saying that my husband, Scott and I were happy Vonage users from June to early-December 2007. Our first problem was when I tried to call home one night in December as I was leaving work and the number was not in service. Scott called Vonage and they said they were doing emergency repairs and the phone would be out for 24-48 hours. Okay, it was annoying but things happen and we had cell phones.
Then later in December as the holiday season was coming into full swing our phone was having problems again. There was an obvious delay when we spoke. Our DSL connection was acting up as well. It was the speed of dial up. We thought our DSL must be the problem but when disconnected from the Vonage device, the internet connection seemed fine. After my husband spent literally 8 hours on the phone with Vonage in total (and we were sent another refurbished router) and 2 phone calls to our DSL carrier, someone from the DSL carrier finally had the insight to tell us the very basic fact that DSL needs a landline. No, we did not know this. We thought "aha!" that must be the problem. We switched DSL carriers and added a basic land line. We thought we would see if it worked and then ask the new carrier who supplied both DSL and a phone line to stop the phone service and give us a DSL dry loop once everything was working properly. We have not gotten that far yet because Vonage is still not working properly. After another 2 hours on the phone with Vonage troubleshooting, we were sent a new router and a tech. The tech came this past Friday. He was a strange man who did not instill much confidence. He said he was very sure that our problems would be solved if we switched to cable for our internet connection. I asked him how the two worked and he didn't know the technology behind DSL vs cable. He said Vonage would not admit that DSL did not work well with their technology but he was adamant that I should switch. I prefer to be given a reason before I spend more money trying to salvage our relationship with Vonage. If not, I already have another phone carrier right now and just need to try and switch our numbers.
The tech only hooked up the Vonage device to one phone so we could test it. We do have a dial tone but have not been able to successfully make an outgoing call yet. I am skeptical about a cable internet connection finally being the solution to our problem. We have not had a landline with Vonage in a month and a half. Every time we call Vonage, we talk to a new person and they run us through the entire trouble shooting gambit because they do not seem to trust that we have done it all before. We finally had to insist upon a new router and a tech visit. If I did not like the phone service when it was working and the low cost, we would have already left them for good because they do not seem concerned that our phone does not work.
Does anyone think a high speed cable internet connection would help Vonage work again?

[ScottGem]

All I can tell you is I have Vonage with a Cable Internet service and I've not had any significant problems with it.

[KISS]

An internet connection is just that, an internet connection. The quality and speed of the internet connection may matter. The carrier MAY matter. How far you are from the DSLAM will matter. The cable provider MAY provide better internet service. Having dial tone on your DSL line doesn't matter squat. Using filters/splitters correctly will. Only 5 filters are allowed.
No filter on the DSL modem.

Vonage ringing your phones will depend on the quality of the internal lines. Look at the router and find the REN of the number of 500 series phones it can ring. Normal telephone is 5. Vonage may be 3. Add the REN's of all your telephone devices and bells. Your probably need to 0.5 for the one in the NID (likely). If it's a cordless with multiple handsets, only the base counts.

[Lowtax4eva]

If you need a DSL connection plus a regular phone line to make your vonage work switching to cable internet might be cheaper anyway, even if it doesn't fix your vonage dilema... just thinking out loud here.

I also have vonage with a cable internet connection and have never had a problem with it slowing down my connection.

How do you have it wired though? I took the wire going out from the modem into the vonage box and then from the vonage box to my router controlling my 2 pc's, wii and ps3 and all 4 devices have very fast connections, nearly 6 mbps and the theoretical max my cable internet provider has us on is 7

[Sumner2306]

Thank you very much for your responses. I am strongly thinking about giving cable a try since there are still happy Vonage users out there. We had switch to satellite TV to escape the cable companies constant rate hikes so here we go again.
The cable company has a choice of internet connection speeds. I would opt for the slower one because after being at work all day I rarely use our computer at home (we have a 2 yr old) and my husband does not use it too much either. However the speed would probably effect the phone. The choices are Basic for speeds up to 1.5 Mbps/256 kbps and Standard for speeds up to 10 Mbps/512 kbps. (By the way, DSL with a dry loop phone line is the same as the basic rate for cable before taxes and fees and the standard rate is $25 more before taxes and fees in case people are wondering about cost) What speed do successful Vonage users have?
I will definitely give you a final post to let you know how we ultimately made out with this problem so others can benefit from it.

[mark160]

Let me just say I used to work for vonage, the equipment works great along with the technology.. the customer support just isn't there and it seems like VOIP out grew the company's ability to keep up with customer demand. It will take weeks to get anything done. And can be expensive when you have two pay two phone bills while you await a number transfer.

Regardless with DSL and Cable I don't think it will have any impact. DSL is a very fast connection, a lot of the times much faster than cable.

Bottom line.. vonage sucks. As you can already tell. If it doesn't work flawlessly by now, probably a waste of time calling trying to get assistance. You'll only hear "red tickets" being made or it being escalated off to another dept.. Its all bull those work orders stay in queue for weeks and weeks.

Not much help.. there isn't much you can do except wait or cancel

[ScottGem]

Actually Cable generally works faster than DSL. I decided to switch to my cable phone service because the savings I would get were too much to pass up. I called Vonage to cancel and they offered me a month free while I tested the new service.

[evolkmar]

Let me just say i used to work for vonage, the equipment works great along with the technology.. the customer support just isn't there and it seems like VOIP out grew the company's ability to keep up with customer demand. It will take weeks to get anything done. and can be expensive when you have two pay two phone bills while you await a number transfer.

Regardless with DSL and Cable i don't think it will have any impact. DSL is a very fast connection, alot of the times much faster than cable.

Bottom line.. vonage sucks. as you can already tell. If it doesn't work flawlessly by now, probably a waste of time calling trying to get assistance. You'll only hear "red tickets" being made or it being escalated off to another dept.. its all bull those work orders stay in queue for weeks and weeks.

Not much help.. there isn't much you can do except wait or cancel

You are absolutely right. Vonage sucks big and only because it is cheap I stay with them. Lot's of problems, not always work, can't dial certain numbers (some 800 and local 311 to city of LA) and it is annoying as hell. When phone company will reduce their prices I will be the first to leave that vonage crap.

[TexasParent]

you are absolutely right. Vonage sucks big and only because it is cheap I stay with them. lot's of problems, not always work, can't dial certain numbers (some 800 and local 311 to city of LA) and it is annoying as hell. when phone company will reduce their prices I will be the first to leave that vonage crap.

I've never had a problem with Vonage and I have an 800 number set up through them and 4 virtual numbers including one which is a Canada local which people in Canada can call and get us here in Texas. We've never had a problem dialing out to any number.

We have cable, not DSL so I can't speak to the DSL problems; but I can say we love Vonage.

[evolkmar]

I've never had a problem with Vonage and I have an 800 number set up through them and 4 virtual numbers including one which is a Canada local which people in Canada can call and get us here in Texas. We've never had a problem dialing out to any number.

We have cable, not DSL so I can't speak to the DSL problems; but I can say we love Vonage.

I have cable with t he highest speed (10M) Vonage sucks big and you will find out later or you don't expect too much and also TEXSAS? Mybe there Vonage is better then the phone company. You have to understand, Vonage is in New Yourk and there are LOCAL 800 numbers in TEXSAS that you won't be able to call them, since they specified they don't want to get outside calles, you will be consider calling from New York,
It won't happen a lot but it does. I use the phone for business so I get into more calles then you, so it more likely that only time will show you that Vonage sucks.