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OK, this from the FAQ's of the Vonage site:

Will I still be listed in the Phone Book?

If you are transferring your number to Vonage and were listed in your local telephone directory's white pages before, by checking the two boxes on the Letter of Authorization (LOA) form, you will remain listed in the white pages of the directory. Otherwise, you won't be listed.

Customers who get a new number from us will not be listed in a telephone directory.

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1998 BMW Z3
1987 BMW 325is
2000 BMW
1996 F250 Turbo Diesel

Thanks Charlie. That's what I remembered but couldn't accurately put into words.

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

I hope folks are still reading this thread. I have a question from somebody here at work. He got Time Warner VOiP. Now he wants to switch to Vonage. He says Time Warner came out & did something inside a phone box in his apt to switch it to digital. He says Vonage tells him Vonage won't work with a digital line & that Time Warner should come back out & switch his phone line back. However, he says Time Warner just tells him they aren't going to come out again (I guess because he's leaving their service). Anybody have any advice for him as far as what he might be able to do to the line himself?

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The person with too many names...
Mary E./ME/Emmie Fisher/Daniel/Daniel-Fisher
(& some others not suitable for posting!).
Help support our habits; BUY http://virginiabreeze.us !

There isn't anything digital about phone lines. Maybe TWC installs their box in a non-servicable place, thus keeping it out of the hands of the consumer?

Scott

It sounds like TWC setup his house to work from the VOIP box instead of the phone service. He should be good to go. Vonage will tell him they don't support that because they don't want the hassle of trying to diagnose any wiring issues.

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In need of car.

I do find it funny how Time Warner is charging $15 per month more than Vonage for the same service. I understand that people like to bundle services and all, but paying 60% extra for this seems a bit much.

I guess the support could be better, being that it's local and all, but it would take a lot of support in order to make up for the $180/year difference - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

For what it might be worth:

My parents have what is now Comcast digital phone (originally was AT&T when AT&T was the owner of their cable system). The hookup/router/cable modem/??? is OUTSIDE their house where the traditional phone and the cable TV etc. connections are. It appears that the digital phone service connects to the house's internal phone lines at this point. Note that I could not spot any sort of AC adapter, etc. to "power" a "router". Note that my folks are in Washington State north of Bellingham (aka about 3000 ft from Canada)

I have Vonage service at my home from a "consulting firm" I am supposedly getting work from (I wish ). It uses a Linksys router which connects between my Time Warner Cable Modem and my home network router. I plug a normal phone into the Vonage/Linksys router. I have not tried to first disconnect the Bell South wiring at the main connection to the house wiring and then toconnect the Vonage stuff to my "normal" in house phone wiring at a phone jack close to the Vonage router. Sounds like an experiment to conduct this weekend.

Dick

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Experiment worked just fine. Disconnected from Bell South at the Network Access Point and connected to the Vonage router from a phone jack near the Vonage router. Got back to the router just fine from anywhere in the house.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Dick,

You should definitely disconnect your BellSouth lines from the house wiring if you're using the using the output of the Vonage modem to "light up" your regular phone jacks. If, for some reason, BellSouth decided to ring your line, that 90 volt ring signal would be going right into the back of your Vonage modem. As I'm sure you know, most electronics don't like receiving voltage at their outputs.

Of course anytime the Vonage modem makes your phone ring, that ring voltage would also be going out into the wider world, as would your conversations, I suppose. Obviously the phone company has some way of isolating everyone's calls from each other, but still, their gear may not work perfectly for signals coming from the "wrong" direction.

It's kind of like why you want to turn off your house's main AC circuit breaker if you're using a generator during a power outage.

BTW, as for the power source for your folks' digital phone, I bet it's supplied on their coax cable from somewhere inside the house. TWC installed an amplifier outside our house, but it's powered from a wall wart plugged into an outlet inside. The wall wart has a coax line attached, and it puts a DC bias voltage on the whole system. Since cable TV/internet is all about the signal, apparently they don't care what the DC component is. I thought that was pretty neat.

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Carl Fisher

Be Cool to the Pizza Dude:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4651531

Carl,

Thanks for the info. Since my folks house is 3000 feet from Canada and 3000 miles from Raleigh I won't be looking for an AC adapter until my next visit:

Thanks also for the heads up on disconnecting Bell South BEFORE hooking up to Vonage. I didn't think about the ring voltage!!!! (I did disconnect though).

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Hmm, 4 years with great service and now it sounds horrible. I've done all the troubleshooting steps and still have excessive static. I get static as soon as I pick up the phone, it only gets worse when I dial. This is a new problem in the last few days.

"Jenny" the nice Indian woman at the tech number had me go through all the troubleshooting again. To her credit, she was friendly, and as helpful as the script allowed her to be. She even tried a few things I didn't think of. Every time I had to reboot the router (about 5 or 10) she called me back because we were disconnected (I was too cheap to waste my cell minutes on this).

At this point, I have virtually unusable phone service, and my problem has a "ticket" number for tech support.

I'm fairly certain my router is going south. I don't know if Vonage will comp me with a new one or not. I don't really even mind paying for a new one if I have to (it's not much different than my phone breaking). Do I just need to go to best buy and get a new one, or can I expect Vonage to send me a new one.

I guess I could switch to packet8 or others and probably get a free router...

Scott

I'm out on vacation, but if you don't have a new router by Thursday, you can come pick up mine and see if it fixes your problem.

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In need of car.

I'm looking at craigslist (there is one good prospect) or just $50ish new. Hopefully I can find one at Sam's or Wallyworld, so if it doesn't help I can just take it back real easy like.

I guess I can just take mine to someone else's house and see if it still sucks.

Scott

Scott,

How do you have your phone connected to the router? For example where the old phone line enters into the house, I have that connected to my router, so all regular lines in the house connect to the router. I have had interior wiring issues that caused static.

Have you tried connecting a known good phone directly to the router?

Richard

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

You sound like the vonage tech support

I've done that, used new phone cable, new ethernet cable, new coax cable, different room, different circuit for the plug, different power brick for the vonage modem, etc.

Of course, I've only had this problem for the last 4 days out of the last 4 years with vonage.

from what I've read, I have gotten greater than average life out of my cheap Linksys vonage router.

Scott