Good service, good adapter, still some VoIP problems
Written: Apr 09 '09 (Updated Apr 21 '09)
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Pros: Adapter and service work fine together, the LCD screen and controls are a great idea
Cons: Adapter is proprietary to Vonage, can't help end-to-end lag on calls
The Bottom Line: Worth trying, very flexible phone service if the call quality is ok for you.
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| Ames100's Full Review: Vonage VDV21-VD Router |
I did my own trial of several VoIP services recently, including Vonage. I know a few friends and family members who use Vonage (+ cable internet) as their primary phone service. They seem satisfied, and I haven't noticed any problems calling them, so Vonage was at the top of my list to test. Vonage offered a free trial for 60 days and shipped me a free adapter (the VDV21-VD). Caveats: you pay for adapter shipping (refunded if you return it), you must buy the adapter if you don't opt for the higher-priced monthly plan, and you get hit with a $50 cancellation fee if you decide to cancel after the free trial period ends and before 2 years are up (plus the price of the adapter if you got it free and you cancel before 1 year is up).
I signed up by phone, and my Vonage account was activated right away with a local phone number for my area. I got my first wrong-number voicemail within 8 hours! The adapter showed up about a week later, but I was able to do some testing with the free Vonage Talk application running on my PC in the meantime.
The adapter is nicely packaged in a fancy Apple iPod-like box, and makes a good first impression when you open it. The VDV21-VD ("Vonage Portal") is what's known generically as an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter), intended to connect any standard analog telphone to an IP network. It comes with a power supply and ethernet cable. The jacks are color-coded and the connection instructions are clear enough. All you have to do is connect the power supply, the ethernet cable to your internet modem or router, and your analog telephone to the telephone jack. There are actually two telephone jacks so that you can support two separate telephone lines (with different phone numbers) using one adapter if you purchase a second line from Vonage and have them do some remote configuration for you. If you already have a router, Vonage advises connecting their adapter between your internet modem and your router so that it can prioritize voice traffic (it has in and out ethernet ports so it can be connected in-line, acting as a 1-port router). But for most people it will work fine when attached to an existing router like other devices on your LAN. I tried it both ways, and it worked fine either way for me since I had no issues with my router or with competing traffic on my home network.
The adapter has an orange-backlit LCD screen that shows status information and command menus, and a set of control buttons to step through the menus and select options. It's actually possible to configure and operate the adapter entirely without a computer. The display shows useful information all the time, such as line status, voicemail waiting, and caller ID when the phone rings. It's really very impressive - I wish all routers and similar components had this capability!
The adapter initialized and connected to Vonage automatically when I powered it up for the first time. The only disconcerting thing was that it immediately went into a very long "firmware update" cycle, which it had to repeat a second time because there was apparently a glitch during the first attempt to download the firmware. It was stuck in this mode for so long without any apparent activity that I wondered if it was broken, but it eventually woke up and activated the phone.
From there on it was easy. My test calls to and from the Vonage phone worked fine. The Vonage feature set is great - I found pretty much everything I was looking for, although a few advanced features are found only in Vonage's "Alpha Test" site (http://alpha.vonage.com/), such as Vonage Talk and the contact manager. The only thing that confused me briefly is that Vonage's Softphone application works only with phone numbers specifically purchased as softphone numbers - you have to use the separate but similar Vonage Talk application to make PC calls with regular numbers.
Call quality was usually good, except for occasional faint echo. Unfortunately lag was always an issue (i.e., the end-to-end delay from speaker to listener). There was enough delay that both parties in the call were frequently stepping on each other in back-and-forth conversation. The end-to-end delay varied, but often it was up to half a second. This lag is an issue with all VoIP providers, and it seems that your luck may vary depending on how close your internet gateway is to the VoIP server. I guess I wasn't very lucky with Vonage in this respect. It was this issue which ultimately decided me to cancel Vonage before the end of the trial period and return the adapter. I have read some complaints from other people that they had trouble canceling Vonage, but I had no such problem - it was prompt and courteous, and the charges on my credit card were refunded once the adapter was returned.
The other issue that some people might have with this Vonage adapter is that it is proprietary to Vonage and locked down so that it can't be used with any other VoIP service. Vonage also does not allow open SIP access to their VoIP service, so you must use one of their supported adapters. They offered business SIP access for a while, but dropped it last year.
U.S. pricing seems reasonable for the service and hardware you get. By comparison the same service is a bit overpriced in Canada, but it may be negotiable if you try.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 20
Driver Availability: Other
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Epinions.com ID:
Ames100
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Member: Doug Ames
Location: Texas
Reviews written: 90
Trusted by: 8 members
About Me:
An engineer who likes thorough product research and testing
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