Update:

I called sales, got right through and got a second phone # to call. After 20 mins or so, I got connected with John. He was super helpful, took 90 minutes to find out that “Joe” had mucked with my box and corrected it.

Now that the MTA was connecting again, he changed my SIP port to 5065 to prevent any possible conflicts with iChat AV. I then called a vonage friend, uploaded files and it sounded ok. We then did a iChat AV while on the phone and that sounded ok. We then disconnected iChat and I uploaded a file, all fine.

Later tonight I will run more Vonage to Vonage tests with my brother to see how it works, and will keep updating this entry.

Many thanks to John for his support

I have been having some QoS issues with Vonage so I called them last night. After 40 mins on hold, Joe called me back on my cell and we tried a number of things to verify my broadband connection, etc. He put me on hold for about 10 mins, then the line dropped. He never called back.

Then my Phone Adaptor went dead and has been blinking all night. No number of resets have fixed it. Another call to Vonage this morning. 40 more mins on hold, then dropped. Now I am just getting busy signals when getting through the meny system (5 menus deep) to support.

Ugh. Not good, Vonage!

I tried faxing over my Vonage line today via the Motorola VT1005 gateway with my Brother M740 fax machine. Nada. Just a click and dead.

So I called Vonage and the dude was awesome. Raised my voice quality back to highest (now need to check my router again), changed my SIP registration expired down to 300 and had me dial with *99, to tell the moto it is a data call.

It worked flawlessly on the first shot!

How often does this happen? I got an email from Vonage and due to their success and greater efficiency, they are passing a $5 a month savings onto me, a 14% drop in monthly rate. Thanks, Vonage!

I have a Netgear WGR614 (version 1) router that I had upgraded to beta firmware to allow WPA encryption. I could never get my TiBook with its Linksys 802.11g card to connect however.

I also wanted to look into using my G5 as a router. So I bought an Asante PCI 10/100 card and went to town.

A day later, I gave up. Here is why:

I had two issues. I wanted WPA from the wireless and my Vonage voice over IP phone would skip and be unusable when uploading files. The solution to the first was to get Netgear to fix their router, but they never did. It might be the chipset, who knows. The solution to the latter was packet shaping, ie some software or hardware that would give the phone priority when it was in use.

The only packet shaping software I could find on the mac was throttled, but I never got it to help much, and sure not dynamically, ie only when the phone was in use.

Apple’s built in Internet Sharing never worked between the built in ethernet and Asante card, no idea why. I could use brickhouse to enable that, which worked, but I still had not DHCP server.

I thought about using an Airport Extreme card in my g5 to be a access point, but apple does not support wpa, does not let you hide the SSID nor do they do cool stuff like block access everyone except specified MAC addresses.

So, what a pain.

Solution to the WPA issue

Netgear is selling their WGR614s for $89.99 with $40 in mail in rebates. I picked up a v4 (the latest chipset). You can tell which one you get by looking at the blue side panel where it says “Package Contents” The model number will have V2-V4 next to it. No V number means it is a V1.

Anyone wanna buy a WGR614 V1?

Solution to the Vonage packet shaping issue

I have not done this yet, but all reports are good. You can call Vonage and request a swap of your cisco ATA-186 with a Motorola V-1005. This box is not only a telephony adaptor, but it also has DCHP and NAT and packet shaping. So you’d create your network like:

Cable Modem -> Motorola V-1000 -> Netgear WGR-614->Computers

You would disable DHCP on the Netgear and let the Motorola handle it, while the Netgear would be the firewall to your local area network.

To do this swap, Vonage charges you $100 for ground delivery (about $120 for 2-3 day) and they disable your phone. When you get the Motorola, you plug it in and your phone works again. You mail back the Cisco and get a $40 credit.

A little pricey, but if it works, the price to pay for being on the bleeding edge.

Whew.

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from my brother about the Vonage voice over IP service. The call was clear and unlike most volP services I had used, it was full duplex, meaning we could both talk at the same time (for the most part)

After reading reviews on the web I signed up. Once I had returned from Canada, my phone adaptor was waiting. I plugged it into my router, went to the website and configured my account and made a call at 1am!

The system works like this. Vonage has a fairly sophisticated three layer network. The Cisco ATA 186 box they sends you plugs into your cable/DSL internet connection you have, and allows you to plug one or more phones (through the use of splitters into it) Once that is done, you can make calls!

Let me be clear - You can call any number in the world. Don’t confuse voice over IP with talking from one PC to another. This uses good old analog phones just like any other phone service. In fact, this same concept has been in use by the phone companies for many years now, you just never knew it. The adaptor box was in their building, not yours. They used their own private networks, not the internet. But the concept is similar.

The proxy servers they have set up keep people from knowing who you are if any packets should be intercepted. We’ll see how this works out over time, if someone is able to gather information by cracking and listening to someone hand out their credit card.

So why the hoopla? What are the cons?

Hoopla