Customer Reviews

Vonage Vportal TA/Router

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

In fairness, I am a new Vonage customer, having signed up April 27, 2009. Within 48 hours after signing up, I received this new adapter (paid $9 and change for it - was a Vonage deal) and hooked it up to an ethernet switch. Hooked up a corded phone to the device, and had dial tone. I kept this hook-up for 3 weeks, making LOTS of phonecalls and sending faxes to be sure I was ready to say bye-bye to my Verizon landline ($42 a month and never touch the phone for an outgoing call because of the costs involved). I have a networked setup: Modem --> Wired Router --> Ethernet Switch --> Vonage adapter. (I also have a wireless access point connected to my wired router,just to be precise.)
There are 3 PCs hard-wired and 1 wireless laptop. My cable provider is Cablevision (Optimum Online) at 10Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

Service is great. You could not tell between Vonage or the landline. The only issue I had was with faxing via my Canon MP780 all-in-one (outgoing faxes would not complete), and that wound up being just a matter of shutting down and re-starting my Canon. If you have this issue, please do not make yourself crazy changing your fax baud rates or ECM to off until you shut down your fax, remove all cables, replace cables and restart your fax. When I changed my baud rate from 33000 to 9600 because of many, many threads on the net, my fax capability was completely crippled. Now, it works great. And I don't have a dedicated fax line, it's done through my regular voice VOIP line.

After the 3 weeks, we cancelled the landline, disconnected the incoming Telco lines from the house, and then plugged the Vonage adapter into our phone jacks which back-feeds the signal through all of the phone jacks.

I have spoken to customer service for matters relating to my office (which also uses Vonage on 3 lines) and customer service has always been helpful and polite and there pretty much without a wait. Nice to have them available 24 hours, 7 days a week, if you did need them (better have a cell phone too though -- duh!)

I also have the line split and going to my Dish Network ViP722 DVR, which enables the ViP722's on-screen caller id. (So it is compatible--could not confirm this prior to trying it myself.)

As for complaints from others about bad sound quality, please realize that the service will be as good as your internet connection. If you don't have a stable, strong connection -- do not bother with VOIP. And, DSL filters can interfere with the signal, so read up on that. And never, ever plug these adapters into telephone jacks that still have Telco lines connected to them outside -- you can short out your equipment.

I got the $9.95 a month for 3 months deal, and thereafter it will be $24.99 (approx. $32 with tax). I did not port my home telephone number because the Vonage site informed me it was not available, but I was able to search through loads of telephone numbers and pick one that was memorable. Yes, I am in it for 2 years or I will fax a $39.99 disconnect fee. But, as far as I concerned, Verizon violated me for years with its fees and nickel-and-diming for every feature and call. I have to say that I wanted to try Vonage when it first came out, but was hesitant. Since my office has had it for over 2 years now, I decided to just do it myself.

Besides the many features listed on the website, you have access to alpha features like Vonage Fax (free outgoing faxes through your PC) and Vonage Talk.

Also, others here have complained that your trial starts as soon as you order, even though you don't have your adapter yet -- but you immediately can make calls through your computer with a headset. They assign a temporary number if you are porting your own, and the service and online features are instantly accessible.

And, as for the disconnect fee of $39.95, it's still less than what your cell phone provider would charge, so what's the big deal? You can't have everything.

Oh, the adapter...forgot what I was reviewing! The adapter is great. You have an orange backlit screen that shows the date and whether you have missed calls. It has built in caller-id, and you can initiate a call-back right from the adapter itself (your home phone will ring to tell you it's calling the number back). It has some other features too, like calling weather and traffic for free, and you can call your voicemail too.

Highly recommended. If you want to try it, try to do so without porting your number (check if you can port it free after you're sure it works well for you.) Try it risk-free (but keep an eye on the calendar!).

I've been a VOIP user for a while, starting with AT&T Callvantage service but had to switch when CallVantage got discontinued. Decided to go with Vonage because they are the biggest and most established player and because of their remarkable new World Plan, which allows you to call 60 countries around the world and the US for a flat fee of $25 a month. (With extra taxes, 911 charges, it ends up being closer to $33 a month but the cost is very predictable.

My experience with Vonage has been flawless. I called them up and asked them to port my number. They shipped me the router you see here, which was much better and more intuitive to use than the rather primitive Dlink device that came with CallVantage. The company did an excellent job or communicating with me via e-mail at all times on the status of my request, shipping info etc. When I got the router, was able to get it set up and working very quickly and was able to use a number they gave me until my old number ported over, which happened on schedule as promised

The sound quality has been fantastic - no dropped calls, no tinny sounds or echoes and of course I love all the features of VOIP including the ability to check your voice mails on line, call logs, conference calling etc. and the regular flat fee.

My connection at home is a Time Warner cable connection. I've seen bad reviews about Vonage but I have to say that I have had a pretty flawless experience and would highly recommend the service to anyone, especially if you need to call overseas frequently.

I run a business and use Vonage for our phone service. We have five devices in our office. The bottom line is that as of June 2009 the Vonage technology is just not there yet.

Part of the difficulty is that several of the issues we have are periodic and temporary; akin to taking your car to the mechanic and trying to explain that "sound" it is no longer making.

Here are some of the issues we have had:

* Getting Vonage and modem, router and switch to communicate. Trying to communicate with Vonage techs gave my IT guys a runaround and hours of billing.

* Periodically the box will misread the number we dial. It's not "fat fingers", the box genuinly misreads the key tones and results in dialing an incorrect number.

* Outbound calls are sometimes met with "dead air". This requires a reboot of the device, unplugging, etc... think of rebooting your PC. Its always inconvenient.

* Vonage customer service- American location is good, Indian location is noticably lower quality and more insistent on repeating every troubleshooting step despite having gone through them already. Unfortunately, the location you call is hit or miss.

As a business owner there are several issues you have to be concerned about. In hind site, I would use regular phone service. It's more expensive but it is reliable and straight forward. I have spent more money on the time it has taken me with tech support than it would have been for me to just do regular phone service to begin with. Not to mention the headache. Frankly, business owners have plenty of other things to worry about besides constantly attending to phone issues which should be quite basic and trouble-free.

All in all, Vonage technology is not ready to replace traditional phone service yet... yet.

I've been a Vonage customer for a year now. In the beginning I started to get complaints that callers could not hear me, voice would cut out. My first hook up was Cable Modem to Vonage adapter then adapter to a router set up as a ethernet switch. This is the way Vonage told me to hook it up. Started getting problems. Then I tried the router into the modem and the Vonage unit into the router. Nothing but dropped calls! I now have my Cable Modem connected to my Linksys Router 160N wan input and one wire port one output to a 8 port ethernet switch which handles all my wired computers and the Vonage adapter. Now Vonage works mint! Perfect call quality and no dropped calls. Note: When you call customer support they will tell you what ever hookup works for you you should use. If you check you will find that the first 5 star review listed on Amazon, listed as "no complaints glad to get rid of Verizon" lists his hookup exactly as I listed above! I wish I had read his review months ago. Now I am happy and loving my Vonage unit. I am on the 17 dollar plan which comes to $25 after taxes and I get 500 minutes a month which my wife and I don't come close to. I love the Vonage feature that sends the voice mail message to my cellphone when I'm not home. It allows me to listen to who called very cool. You can also log into Vonage and see all the calls to date with # and ID. Very Nice. Anyone having problems, don't give up and try this hookup it really works.

UPDATE AUGUST 2010:
While the connection listed above works. I have also found that if you go into your router and disable the SPI fire wall setting (you should find this in the security area) your Vonage unit will work fine plugged directly into your router. I have done this now and no problems! It seems that the SPI firewall functions see the VOIP data flowing from the Vonage adapter and cut it off. This is why there are so many negative reviews. You can read about this on the Vonage site in the support pages. I have since changed to the $9 Vonage plan, which is working perfectly. Most of my calls are on a cellphone these days.

I am a long-time Vonage user, and when my previous VoIP device, my Linksys WRT54G, went out, I purchased the Vonage VDV21-VD gateway/router and successfully put it into service with my Linksys WRT54G as a router only (the router portion still worked, just the VoIP module was bad). Easy. Tip: Both devices cannot use the same subnet. It works.

The phone service itself works well. However, in order to get you to sign up, they will tell you anything and make any promise it takes. When it comes time to deliver, they deny ever claiming the service has that particular feature or they inform you that the feature is extra. Their terrible customer service destroys any value their product has.

I received the VDV21-VD Vonage modem as a replacement unit about 4 months ago. I started noticing slower Internet connectivity since using it. Two weeks ago, my connection started dropping out and I noticed error messages on the VDV21-VD. it got worse daily. One evening, after getting an error, I picked up the unit and was shocked to discover the base scorchingly hot! As I pulled the modem up to my nose I could smell something burning, or close to it. I immediately disconnected it and connected my incoming Internet cable directly to my router. The connection speed was amazing without the modem attached.
I wrote to Vonage online in hopes of alertng them of this potential fire hazard. (I still wonder what could have happened if I had gone out that night!) Vonage customer service never responded." Then I filed a complaint with their 'Board' online and a rep finally emailed me a form letter message with a phone number to call. Called him twice this week and only got is voicemail. Apparently t the Vonage Executive Response Team techs don't answer their phones...at least not this guy.
I'm cancelng my Vonage acct over this.I simply refuse to do business with a company that ignores a serious fire hazard-related issue. I now have Skype as a back up line. If you buy this modem,' monitor the heat of the casing.
FYI.

The product arrived in good condition and with all accessories as advertised. This unit solved the sound quality problem I was having with my old adapter. This item was a good value.

Once it's connected to vonage, it works like a charm. I only had to contact Vonage for a problem with calls dropping. It was due to the fact that I was using a wireless phone. They helped me change the frequency and it works fine now.

I recently decided to ditch my POTS line and signed up with Vonage under the 9.99 Vonage Lite. I received the V-portal in the mail a few days later and plugged it into my router and have been good ever since. The V-portal has built-in QoS which means that it gives your voice calls the highest data priority to help ensure best call quality. Be warned, however, that it must be placed in front of your router for this feature to work. Since the device is 10/100 ethernet those of you with gigabit networks will want to place the V-portal behind your router and enable QoS through your router's interface so it doesn't bottleneck your network.

- Vonage Lite; 9.99 a month (15.37 after taxes/fees) and gives 200 outgoing minutes and unlimited outgoing minutes.
- Easy to set preferences, view calls, billing, voicemail, etc... using the Vonage Dashboard at [...]
- I liked the bandwidth saver feature; by default calls use a 90k stream for incoming and outgoing. My dsl only gives around 300k outgoing so I set the bandwidth saver to the lowest setting (30k incoming/outgoing) and try as hard as I could was unable to tell any difference in call quality.
- One time have I had an issue with call quality. I was torture testing the service by calling my brother while using Netflix, uTorrent, and World of Warcraft when the outgoing sound stopped (ie, my brother couldn't hear me but I could hear him). This isn't an issue with Vonage, rather a limitation of my DSL internet outgoing bandwidth. After configuring the bandwidth saver mentioned above I have been unable to reproduce the audio dropout.

Vonage has all the standard features of a POTS phone plus some extra goodies like Simulring and ability to have it automatically forward a call to another line when the network is down. I tested it a few times by disconnecting my modem and placing a call to my Vonage number and it rang my cell phone instead just as I had set it up in the preferences.

The service is only as strong as the weakest link. That weak link is the internet access itself. I believe the vast majority of issues with VOIP calling is due to wonky internet connections. You can run VOIP tests all day but you just won't truly know if it will work good for you until you actually try it.

If you try it and it works; great! However if it doesn't then you end up dealing with their tech support, this is where things start to go bad. Dealing with the script readers on the phone is painful. Most of it gets outsources overseas and while I'm sure they mean well they simply don't have the capacity to deal with many problems. I've found that using the Vonage discussion forums yields must better results. The moderators there seem to be able to handle far more issues than the phone operators can.

Another issue is the fax capability. It bugs me that they tout fax capability as a main feature when the reality is you are really playing a game of hit or miss when it comes to faxing with VOIP. VOIP was never really designed with faxing in mind and there are simply too many variables that can go wrong causing it to fail. I was able to send a fax successfully only after hours of tinkering with settings. To the average user that is unacceptable.

One last issue that comes up a lot is their use of the word 'Unlimited' and what it really means. Unlimited to Vonage means 2000 minutes per month. Anything more than that and you risk them upping your plan to a business account (more expensive).

Overall the service has been rock solid and is perfect for my needs. Definitely recommend.