Customer Reviews

Cisco PAP2 Phone Adapter for Vonage Internet Phone Service

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(36)

 

 

I am going to strictly comment on the Linksys PAP2. A lot of the reviews on here have been for the Vonage service. The Linksys PAP2 is NOT THE Vonage service, but one of many adapters you can use.

I am extreamly satisfied with my Linksys PAP2. It is small, light weight, and perfect for those who need to travel. The voice quality is excellent and people say I do not sound like I am talking over VOIP. There is no line noise, static, popping, etc.

I am giving this product 4 stars. Why? Because there is only ONE ethernet port. If you have a router, just connect the PAP2 to one of your available ethernet ports and you are good to go. If you do not have a router, consider getting another Vonage phone adapter with built in 4-port router. There are several.

We have had our Linksys PAP2 Vonage phone adapter for over a year and never have had a problem with it. Its too bad people are reviewing Vonage's "service" vs Linksys' "product" in these reviews. I've never done anything but plug the adapter in and it works like a charm! Good job Linksys!

I've been wanting to switch from traditional phone service (Verizon) to VoIP (Vonage) for a while, and I jumped in with the release of the Linksys products.

Here's what I really, really like about the Vonage service: Setup is a breeze, and PAP2 is diminutive, so if you are travelling to a location with broadband service, you can take the box with you to make/receive calls. In addition, the Vonage service is full of features that are either not available from the local telco, or would cost a small fortune every month.

As much as I like the service, it does have drawbacks and limitations that you should be aware of:

* Power or Broadband outages - If you lose power, or your broadband service is unavailable, you will not have phone service. Even though Vonage can ring your cell phone if this were to occur, this fallback can take up to 4 hours (per the Vonage website).

* 911 Service - Unlike most VoIP services, Vonage *does* offer 911 service. However, you must register, and when/if you dial 911, your call is routed to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) in your area, and unlike traditional 911, the PSAP will note have access your location/address.

* Tivo & Modems - Although you most likely will never use a modem when you have broadband access, if you have a Tivo that only has a modem, you may have problems getting the Tivo to make its Daily Call. This is the major issue I have with Vonage. I tried all the "tricks," and even bought a DSL filter, with no luck. I like my Tivo more than Vonage, so I'll be cancelling Vonage and going back to my local telco.

* Phone Number & Caller ID - If you have Vonage assign a new phone number to you (instead of porting your existing telco number), when you dial others from your Vonage phone, they will not see your Name on their Caller ID, only your phone number.

Of the above points, only the Tivo compatibility issue keeps me from switching to Vonage. You should also note that the Linksys PAP2 *requires* a broadband router. If you do not have a router, you should buy the Linksys RT31P2, which is both a router, and a VoIP/Vonage device in one box.

If you have an existing broadband connection with a router and/or firewall, then this product may be the easiest way to go to use your phone over your broadband connection. It should take you less than 10 minutes to get this all hooked up and working. The PAP2 connect to your existing phone and your existing network. A few changes will have to be done on your router/firewall for this to work, but all the instructions for doing this are easily available at the Vonage.com homepage.

There is a degree of technical skills and understanding required to make this work. However, if you are looking for VoIP phones, you probably already know enough to set this up.

The bandwidth requirement for using this service is not bad at all. The default setting is 90Kbps, and that should not be an issue for most people with broadband connections. However, you can tune this down if it becomes an issue, but sound quality may degrade when doing this.

The most basic service with Vonage is now $14.99/month with 500 free minutes (including Canada, but excludes international calls), which is a great deal unless you are constantly on the phone. All the services comes with Voicemail, Caller ID and something called "Network Availability Number". The later allows you to set a phone number (i.e. for your cell phone) that calls will be forwarded to in the event that your broadband connection goes down.

I already had a WiFi router and the combo, co-branded Linksys / Vonage routers have had some awful reviews. I've had this for about eight months and it works fine. Simple, plug-in set up, plays well with my router and network. Never given me any problems of significance; I had to reset it once after a power outage, that's the worse thing.

My only real complaint is the blue LED lights on the front are REALLY REALLY BRIGHT. You definitely want to put it somewhere where you don't sleep, or conceal it, or, as I did, put some black gaf tape over the lights.

Great device for someone looking something simple and straight forward.

In my household, we've had Vonage for nearly six months and we couldn't be happier. The sound is so clear that our friends constantly comment that our voices sound like we're standing right next to them. In addition, the complete control Vonage gives you over their service via the website is a dream. All the information you need is right there (e.g., billing, voicemail, account, etc.). And, we love being able to check our voicemail online. I even have the service set up to send me an e-mail when a new voicemail has arrived.

My only word of warning: The service will only be as good as the system it's piggybacking onto. It sounds like many of the negative reviews are having troubles that likely related to the speed and quality of their broadband service or poor networks setups. If you have great Internet service and a stable network, you will have great Vonage service.

Here is my Vonage story. Yesterday I made one of the toughest decisions I had to make regarding technology. I had to cancel my Vonage account. A week ago I purchased the PAP2 Telephone Adaptor (TA) at a Circuit City. With the Vonage rebates the unit was free. I was very excited about this technology but I was ready for installation hell so after getting home I read through the installation instructions and thought, "Could it be this easy?" It was. After signing up for Vonage on-line, I literally took the TA out of the box, connected the included Ethernet cable from my Linksys router to the TA, plugged my phone into the TA, plugged the TA into a power outlet, waited for it to boot and picked up the phone and had a dial-tone. I couldn't believe my ears so I looked back into the manual to make sure I had not missed anything. The instructions said that if I have a dial-tone I could begin making calls. So I did and it worked perfectly!

I was so excited to now be able to dump both my Qwest local phone and my long distance company all in one fell swoop that I walked around my living room trying to digest that fact that this could all be this easy. I began calling my friends from my new Vonage line telling them how cool this new technology was and recommending Vonage to all of them. Then I occasionally began getting real fast busy signals whenever I tried to call out. No rings, just an unnatural busy signal. I emailed Vonage about this problem but before getting a response my service returned to normal. Just a one-time glitch in the system? I was hoping so. It seemed to work fine then for the rest of the day.

Then as the week progressed I began getting emails and some calls from people who said that when calling me they got a few rings and then a very fast busy signal and the call wouldn't go through. Sometimes they said that they got a "This call cannot be completed" message. I began troubleshooting and found in the Vonage trouble shooting guide that doing some specific port forwarding on my router could be the fix for the problem. I configured things just as they suggested but the problem remained. After a week of trying figure this out, I called Vonage to cancel my account. The gentleman in the cancellation department was courteous and patient. He said, "Would you mind if we did a few tests to see if we can find the problem"? I said "No problem!" and we began what ended up being a one hour and 20 minute phone call. (Much of the time I was on hold). But I wanted this to work so bad that I thought that if we could get this corrected I could get excited and call the rest of my friends to tell them how cool this is.

After about an hour with the cancellation guy trying a few things with the same results I was forwarded directly to a tech guy. This guy said that he had just uploaded a few updates to my TA and he was in the process of sending another as we spoke. After completing these he called me several times to check it out and it worked just fine each time. I tried a few out-going calls and it worked perfectly as well. Yippee! Problem solved!

After leaving home for a couple of hours I came back and went into my office where my Vonage phone is and saw on caller ID that a friend from Seattle had called. There was no voicemail. Hmm... I called him back and we chatted for a few minutes and then I asked him if he had had any problems with his call to me. He said that he called but it rang just a few times before he got a real fast busy signal. Good-bye Vonage. I called the next morning and cancelled my account. Again they were very courteous and understanding.

Even with all I have been through, I have a hard time not recommending this service. If not for the intermittent problems I would give Vonage 5 stars. If you sign up for it and it all works fine, this is the coolest technology to come out in a long time. The sound quality was very good, the call forwarding and voicemail options are totally cool, and the price is great. Just be sure you check it all out thoroughly to make sure that everything works before your 14 day trial period ends.

I was looking for ways to save money around the house and decided to give VOIP a whirl. I ordered this despite reading some reviews on Voxilla that some of them give off a slight "hum". Mine did not, so I was happy right off the bat.

The PAP2 is basically a rebranded Sipura SPA-2000, which is one of the best VOIP phone adapters on the market. I hooked it up to my home switch, which has a linux server as the gateway. It worked perfectly without having to forward any ports! So easy! I had a working phone number in minutes! I decided to bite the bullet and transfer my existing number to Vonage, which took 2 weeks. It has been worth every penny!

PROS: Small, easy to set up. Cool blue LEDs. Vonage service is great! Goes behind my firewall like the rest of my network equipment. Faxing works perfectly.

CONS: I have to wait until I have been with Vonage 90 days to get the rebate.

I have been looking at Vonage for some time and when Linksys announced the PAP2 it was enough to push me over the edge and give VoIP a try for real. Set up was truly plug & play, I am using a Linksys WRT54G with a WET54GS5. The PAP2 is connected to the WET54GS5. Following the directions, I plugged the PAP2 into the WET54G and the PAP2 went through it's setup process which took about 5-8 minutes. At least in my case, no port forwarding was required to be established in the WRT54 gateway although the instructions say it could be required in some configurations

Registering for the Vonage service was a series of simple Web pages and in a few minutes I was making high quality outgoing calls. You should register for the service before you install the adaptor. After about a week of testing I decided I have had enough of paying my local Telco rates and I have requested Vonage to port my local number to their service (takes up to 20 working days).

You should consider all aspects of using VoIP as your sole telephone provider, especially if your ISP is not the most reliable service. If you have cell phone service as a back up, then go for it. Vonage does provide an automatic roll over to a back up number of your choice if they lose connectivity with your VoIP adaptor (must be configured on their web site).

Since the Amazon's rating system is limited to only one score, I've decided to average it up. My evaluation approach was:
- 5 stars strictly for the adapter's performance and the internet phone service; everything works fine.
- 1 star for the online customer service; very unreliable, inconsistent and lack of responses in timely manner.
- 4 stars for the phone customer service; when you finally get to talk to them, they may help you out if you are persistent enough in presenting and explaining your case.

I have been using Vonage since August 2005. Here are my experiences with them and observations:

1. Signing up for the service and the installation was simple. But I still managed to make a mistake by choosing the wrong price plan when signing up. Even though I realized that right after completing the process and attempted to correct it online the same day, I was facing now a $9.99 New Rate Plan Activation Charge. So, I called the Customer Service right away and explained the situation. To my satisfaction, I was issued one-time Customer Satisfaction credit towards next billing period.

2. You have 30 days for testing the service. That lets you avoid incurring the cancellation fee when you decide not to keep it. For that reason I chose later (instead optional during the sign up process) to authorize the transfer of my main phone number to Vonage (featured from within your account) and to my surprise I was about to face a $9.99 as a New Number Activation Charge. I had to dispute that charge with the Customer Service representative since the web site clearly stated that such a transfer was free. So again, I was granted a credit towards the next bill. To avoid misunderstandings in the future I was advised to contact them before making any changes online by myself (?). But the feature is there...

3. If you experience (frequent) dropped calls, the problem is more likely related to the over all traffic fluctuations on your IP network rather then the adapter itself. Troubleshooting recommends resetting the adapter. After a while that may become really annoying and/but unnecessary. In other words, Vonage is as good as the quality of your internet service. Try decreasing the default bandwidth from 90 Kbps to 50 Kbps in the Bandwidth Saver section of your account. It worked for me. They say it may decrease the sound quality but I haven't noticed any difference after making those adjustments and the dropped calls are a history now.

4. You don't need to buy a dedicated fax line from Vonage, if you want to send or receive a fax occasionally. Of course, you can't talk and fax at the same time because the line is then shared.

5. Getting the Rebate (when offered) takes couple of months even if everything goes right. Such are the terms and conditions. I have experienced additional delay because they haven't received my original claim form. After several weeks of follow-up calls and conversations with the Rebate Center reps (not Vonage) I was finally instructed to resubmit the copies of the documents. The check finally arrived in mid December 2005.