RE: Vonage complains about VoIP-blocking

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1

Odd regarding the Vonage connection. Their sitting on UU from where I
can see and I have excellent transit to them from Comcast.

I've tested Vonage, only because I had it, with the Semena NE2000 Network
Test Device and introduced multiple error, path, and latency issues and it
stood up very well. At one point, I jacked up the latency to 4000ms and I
was
still able to place, communicate, and drop calls effectively. I was
very surprised at how it handled that large introduced latency.

I don't know about Vonage support. Never tried it.

-M<

2

Odd regarding the Vonage connection. Their sitting on UU from where I
can see and I have excellent transit to them from Comcast.

I'm on Sprint, and the service was fine for a year and a half. In recent
months it deteriorated to the point where more often than not I couldn't
understand the other party at all, even though they always said they could
hear me fine. Since my connection is symmetrical (t1, not dsl or cable)
and my stats always say I have spare inbound capacity, I'm sure it's not
at my end.

I've tested Vonage, only because I had it, with the Semena NE2000 Network
Test Device and introduced multiple error, path, and latency issues and it
stood up very well. At one point, I jacked up the latency to 4000ms and I
was still able to place, communicate, and drop calls effectively. I was
very surprised at how it handled that large introduced latency.

It wasn't latency, it was jitter and mostly dropouts. I think they have
vast amounts of buffering so latency is tolerable if you can stand the
talking to the moon effect.

I don't know about Vonage support. Never tried it.

That's the problem. It no longer exists. E-mail is auto-acked and
ignored, phone calls go through the usual voice jail tree until you get to
the point when it would queue me for a person, where I always got a busy
signal.

Calling the number to cancel was no problem getting through, but by then
it was too late, I'd already ported the number to Lingo who is slightly
cheaper and has a much larger local calling area, roughly Honolulu to
Helsinki.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.

3

> Odd regarding the Vonage connection. Their sitting on UU from where I
> can see and I have excellent transit to them from Comcast.

I'm on Sprint, and the service was fine for a year and a half. In recent
months it deteriorated to the point where more often than not I couldn't
understand the other party at all, even though they always said they could
hear me fine. Since my connection is symmetrical (t1, not dsl or cable)
and my stats always say I have spare inbound capacity, I'm sure it's not
at my end.

Hmmm, despite a fat cable modem connection (6Mbps down, 768K up) I got substantially improved results with Vonage when I instituted prioritization of traffic in the firewall box I use at home, allowing the Vonage to have higher priority for a small portion of the total bandwidth.

What caused that issue was file transfers and other bursty traffic overwhelming queues, resulting in vonage traffic being stomped.

> I've tested Vonage, only because I had it, with the Semena NE2000 Network
> Test Device and introduced multiple error, path, and latency issues and it
> stood up very well. At one point, I jacked up the latency to 4000ms and I
> was still able to place, communicate, and drop calls effectively. I was
> very surprised at how it handled that large introduced latency.

It wasn't latency, it was jitter and mostly dropouts. I think they have
vast amounts of buffering so latency is tolerable if you can stand the
talking to the moon effect.

> I don't know about Vonage support. Never tried it.

That's the problem. It no longer exists. E-mail is auto-acked and
ignored, phone calls go through the usual voice jail tree until you get to
the point when it would queue me for a person, where I always got a busy
signal.

When I last called support, it sucked. Voice mail system now takes 20 to 30 seconds to ask you for your password. Clearly they have outstripped their capacity on all but perhaps the actual voice gateway systems.

4

What caused that issue was file transfers and other bursty traffic
overwhelming queues, resulting in vonage traffic being stomped.

My router is a BSD/OS box and I see no evidence that it's losing
packets. Keep in mind that the trouble was on inbound traffic, and my
internal network, a 100Mb switched ethernet, is a lot faster than my
T1, so it's hard to see how there'd be any queueing under any
circumstances.

I did traceroutes, looks like it was in either Sprint-land or the NSP
to NSP gateway.

5

Having sudden difficulties with VoIP service here in Bangkok
(two providers) I called Vonage tech support who have recommended
a comprehensive channel test (using a utility they recommend)
from which the fault location should be analyzeable. I am
running the 6-hour test now. Anyone interested contact me
offlist

Kind regards,

Jeffrey Race, today in Bangkok Thailand

6

(two providers) I called Vonage tech support who have recommended
a comprehensive channel test

Wow! You got someone on the phone!

(using a utility they recommend)

I'd be interested, even though my Vonage ATA is about to go back. Tnx.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"I shook hands with Senators Dole and Inouye," said Tom, disarmingly.