[geeks] Vonage adaptor question.

[Mark G. Thomas]

Hi Geoff,

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 09:34:13AM +0200, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> About two years ago signed up for Vonage service through their Israeli
> distributor. At the time they sold me a Cisco 186 ATA (analog telephone
> adaptor). 
> 
> Cisco discontinued the unit a few months afer I got it. It has two voice
> ports and a 10 Base-T ethernet port.
> 
> It has worked withoutproblems since them, but I am wondering if having a
> newer unit would improve latency problems (for example, I can't send
> faxes) or improve voice quality.

I am under the impression that to send faxes you need an additional "fax line"
option on your account, just going to a different ATA won't do it.  Maybe
you also need a newer ATA, I don't know.

When I signed up, I was sent 3 Motorola units, which worked fine for months,
then after my T1 was down for 3 weeks and came back up, it was as if I was
locked out of the system.  Vonage swore up and down that I had some problem
on my end, but interestingly a linksys unit from a friend's account worked
just fine here after the outage.  I don't know if something happened to the
Motorola units or if Vonage broke some setting on my account, but when I
finally threatened to cancel my account after hours on the phone of repeatedly
resetting the units and so forth, they sent me linksys replacements which 
immediately worked just fine, and have ever since.

> Since I paid for it, I can keep it to play with. It's "locked" to Vonage,
> but it can be easily unlocked.
> 
> Vonage is now using a Motorola unit and I can get one for $99. If I don't
> like it, I can return it for the cost of shipping both ways as long as
> it is in "the original packaging".
> 
> I don't like to do that because when I'm done the original packaging, no
> matter how carefull I am, is a pile of useless trash. I also don't like to
> take advantage of people's kindness for my entertainment.

All the units they have sent me have been in a cardboard box with egg-carton
like cardboard inserts, easily preserved and returned.  I had no trouble
with the returns on the three Motorola units.

> Does anyone have any experience with Vonage Motorola unit and have any
> comments about it. I would NOT be using it as a router, just and ATA.

I suggest the Linksys unit simply because of my headache which seemed to
correspond to the three Motorola units I was using.  I lost track of how
many hours I spent repeating network-for-dummy steps over and over again
with one then another of their customer support people.

Mark


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Mark G. Thomas (Mark at Misty.com)
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