Update: 4.35 pst: Many users are still experiencing outages and problems. A couple have posted in the comments section.
ALERT: Apparently people can hear the dialtone, but calls don’t go through. Voicemails are offline, and other such issues as well. Most people on the Vonage Forums are complaining about lack of service. Even Vonage.com is down. Looks like the entire infrastructure has blanked out. The phones into the press office are not working, and website is down as well. I reached their PR agency and they had no information about the outage as well. If you are experiencing the problems, please let me know.
Vonage spokesperson just emailed me: “Vonage is having a minor website outage due to firewall policy and it will be fixed in a matter of minutes in case you receive any additional inquiries. Thanks for touching base.”
Another update from Vonage PR, “In repairing the firewall issue, there may have been very minor isolated call disruptions, such as a fast busy signal but everything should be fine now.” The litany of compliants over on the Vonage forums are out of control, and are coming from all parts of the US.
Vonage has sent out an email to customers: “At this time, some customers may be experiencing difficulty placing outbound calls. Also, access to our website may be slow or intermittent for a short time. Our engineers are aware of the issue and working on a prompt resolution. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
Mark Evans adds, “Maybe it’s just me but I’m beginning to get the feeling that Vonage is becoming more vulnerable to competition and this new reality could soon be reflected in its rate of growth. Perhaps I’m paranoid but Vonage doesn’t have the buzz it once had, and perhaps its time has come and gone. Skype would be wise to learn from Vonage’s experience.”
You are the first person I have seen mention it. I can receive calls and can now make calls but it was pretty confusing this morning until I saw that the Vonage site was down. Everything seems to have started working around 1 pm Central time so you just barely got your story in.
Is this the first time they had an outage like this? If not, how reliable will it going forward?
Elvis, thanks for this. I guess, being on the west coast puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. anyway glad to hear things have started working again.
niraj, they have had outages before, so this is not new. might be new problems. because vonage is pretty good at fixing things.
I have had it for 6-8 months and haven’t had any issues of any kind. I would assume that it will be reliable again but maybe not. If it isn’t I will probably just let it go and only use my cell phone. Going back to SBC just seems so crazy and expensive.
Delathree’s iConnectHere is an alternate VoIP provider. DDDC also provides VoIP anonymously for many ISPs, telecoms (including Verizon and SBC), and other companies, so you may be using DDDC service already. DDDC’s CEO gave a presentation today at a RBC Capital Markets conference, and some may be interested in listening to a recording of the presentation. Yes, I own DDDC shares.
http://www.wsw.com/webcast/rbc32/dddc/
As a protest for Vonage lack of backup systems, causing today’s massive problems and total loss of phone service across the nation, every Vonage user ought to go into their Vonage setup and set simulring to ring the Vonage corporate number (732.528.2600) every time someone calls your phone. That way their corporate number will be swamped, showing a peaceful protest.
If everyone did it for just one business day, it will certainly make the point.
FWIW voicemail is still up.
My service is back down, I can receive but not place. It worked for about 4 hours.
Firewall on web site takes down calls in their production signaling (or bearer) network. Makes 0 sense to me.
Generally speaking production networks don’t work through your standard web portal firewall devices. They are typically behind separate production firewalls or better yet (ideally) behind ACLs on routers rather than traditional boxen firewalls.
Anyhow, sounds like nonsense to me. Reminds of those explanations I used to get from Verizon about how the line was down from a storm. Really interesting especially when the other line at my house was up and there was one (1) path between me and the RT and one path between the RT and the LSO…. Amazing how those trees fall and take out just one time slice of a TDM muxed HDSL pair in a cable…..
-Victor
My vonage service was out for 2 weeks and was able to get a credit for this period. It looks like the support staff is outsourced to a company in India. I would highly recommend everyone who is dissatisfied with Vonage’s service to ask for a credit or refund.
And VOIP is going to replace land line that has 99.9% uptime? Yeah RIGHT!
VOIP will. Vonage won’t.
I had a terrible time making calls today. Finally started using “plan b” …my cell phone to make sales calls. Arghh!!!
My problem wasn’t Vonage, it was Cox’s slow response time fixing my fraped modem. Apparently, when my cbl went down, so did vonage…so I didn’t miss anything. Thanks for the info, though…I may be looking to Skype as an alternative.
I think Vonage is extremely vulnerable to competition because of their price points. When I had a home phone, I was paying about $8 bucks a month for it. Now that didn’t include long distance, but I rarely make long distance calls and I could always use my cell phone if I did need to call long distance. They need to lead in pricing not trail. With the introduction of massive competition to the market, it will only be a matter of time until margins get crushed and they are forced to make some big adjustments to their business plan.
Personaly, I see everything heading to the Skype model and believe that advertising will pay for our phone service in the future. Skype is free, Yahoo just released a beta of their new voice messenger and Netzero said that they would not only be offering their VOIP service for free, to their 45 million dialup and broadband based members, but would also be incorporating their Classmates.com property into it.
I think the key for these companies to suceeed will be interoperability between systems and their ability to create a solution to the last mile problem.
My theory is that if they were to offer access to the last mile, but make users pay for that extra mile, then it would accellerate the adoption of VOIP dramtically.
If you had to pay everytime you wanted to call your friends and relatives, you would probably encourage others to adopt these services.
Just another reason to switch from Vonage to a real VoIP provider including:
1. Outsourced technical support to another country
2. Over spending on advertising
3. Poor call quality
And the best reason…..
4. They don’t pay on referrals
Now here is a company that will provide you better price, service, and quality and they are proving it.
Best of all, you can sign up to be a reseller and make some extra money getting your friends to sign up!
http://www.championcommunications.biz/computerdoc
Is this a hoax?
I haven’t seen anything about this in CNET News, the NYTimes, or USA Today.
just because those magazines did not do the work, you think its a hoax. they all are late to the stories anyway.
The question was meant to be “where is this story”
Here’s a service with 800,000 lines provisioned, embroiled in next gen vs incumbent battles on 911 and (soon) CALEA, with brand recognition and advertising out the wazoo and no story.
What is going on!?!?!? Is Ben Charney napping?
not sure about that, jake… but this is what i have been following this. and its tough getting answers from the company.
Vonage network certainly is having some major issues, I had vonage for 2 years now but august onward the calls do not go through bot incomming and outgoing and website is down too. will have to look for alternatives, reliabilty is becoming an issue it is almost once a week now.
vonage in new jersey and new york works excellent, strongly recommend it sammy
I am extremely disastified with Vonage. I can not understand the customer service people and quite frankly they don’t know what they are doing. I have switched back to SBC It may be expensive but they are local, knowlegable,and understandable
I am on hol dw/ Vonage right now…for the 5th time today. My fax line has up and down 4 times over the past 4 days, and is severely affecting my business activities, working from home. I am alos thinking that my local service, Brighthouse, maybe a better alternative @ this point…VONAGE SUCKS!
I just got off the phone for the second night in a row with Tier 2 Technical service at Vonage. What a waste of time. At day 4 and counting with no outgoing service, i.e. fast busy signal all the time.Also cannot understand the poor English—not his fault but Vonage’s. Ready to jump ship after 6 months of no hassles!!
Vonage is the worst thing that ever happen to me. I order service and then could not use it because I didnt have high speed. Called 3 days later ,return the adapter unopened and they are taking money out of my account each month and will not refund it back. Vonage has taken $223.00 and I have never had the service and they keep giving me the run aound .I contacted the BBB in Trenton Nj. Plus they have these foreign people that cannot understand English. Today I held on line waiting to talk to someone for 27 minutes. BBB has about 892 complaints on Vonage. Please don’t give them the time of Day.
Very Unhappy
I have been having the same problems with my Vonage connection for the last 2 months. It works sometimes and then goes out. I have been very frustrated and there seems to be no fix in site. Until recently I have really had no problem with Vonage except for the fact that when you do try to reach them, it is very hard to get a person and when you do, good luck understanding them. I am going to try to call Monday again and see if I can get a credit on my last 2 months service..
BEWARE OF VONAGE !!!!!!!!!
If you are new to the VONAGE TEL. SERVICE, I advise you not to ever attempt asking information or even try to get
a tel. service through VONAGE!!!!! VONAGE made electronic
withdrawal from my checking account for 4months without
having any service from this company at all. The first Vonage employee I spoke with asked me for my bank account No. for the purpose of paying for a VONAGE adaptor to our computer and assurred me it was easy to install it. Then I received it and thought they would only
charge my checking account for that adaptor. We had difficulty connecting the adaptor so we called Vonage for technical support that they had promised. Only to find out they do not have any available service at all except talking with someone in the phone. We had attempted to call Vonage for help several times but we always got someone with an accent or someone who did not communicate well! All telephone calls were directed outside in the US! I ended up saying to one of Vonage employees that I would just
wait for a friend who has this Vonage tel. to help us. He said
it was OK to wait till that friend comes back from another
state.
Our friend is due to come home in May and I told Vonage employee that we’ll connect our adaptor at that time. He
said it was OK but what he did not tell me was that VONAGE
will start collecting money the moment that time I spoke with
VONAGE representative BETTY.
There was no common understanding or explanation that this is their intention and of course I did not give a written
or verbal authority to VONAGE to collect money from my bank.
VONAGE had withdrawn money from my account without
my permission and without any service from them at all.
This is a RIP OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whoever is comtemplating to get services from VONAGE, please be ware of such illegal
collection of money from future customers.
Message from CALIFORNIA to everyone!!!!!!!!!
To anyone who have not tried vonage! This does not work! They don’t help when u need help! I never could even get my phone to work. The commercial says u would get the first month free, u don’t. They told me I get the first month free and still took out a proccessing fee and first month! I looked over that. We called several times trying to get help on getting this going.One representive said we had a bad phone adapter from vonage and we end up taking it back for a new one! Same thing happened with the new one! So we gave up after over a month of trying!
Called vonage to cancel our service and to get our money back for the service that was never provided for us! They told us that they will not give our money back and it will cost another $41.00 to cancel it! How can u false advertise, steal money from someone and get away with this! I just want to warn anyone that is thinking about getting vonage. It is a rip off! They are not getting away with this from me. I’m blocking them from taking any more money from my bank and going to talk to my lawyer! I paid with my hard earned money on service that they did not provide to me, I want my money back!!!
I have had the same problems everyone else is expericeing. vontage stole money out of my bank account without my permission,and also took $119,oo out to cancel service that did not work.plus I did cancel their service the firs day I tried to use their device and it did not work for me.I also returned their device and they did not return the money for giving their device back to the,
Be very careful about the company Vonage. Terrible customer service that will take your money without giving you the service that they promise you. There are other services available now that will give you a much easier transition into the VOIP world. Be very careful as they do not stand behind their return policies and will take your money out of your account, which you will not see even when you follow the guidance of their customer service.
I am extremely disastified with Vonage. I can not understand the customer service people and quite frankly THEY CAN NOT SPEAK UNDERSTANABLE ENGLISH…Be very careful about the company Vonage, they stole money out of my bank account without my permission. Terrible customer service for service THAT DOES NOT WORK!!! Whomever is comtemplating to get services from VONAGE, please be aware of such illegal THIEVERY of money from your bank account. They offer alot of promise’e of Quality Phone Service IT’S A LIE!! Their Phone Service SUCKS!!!!!
Vonage SUCKS!!!!! Don’t be SUCKED INTO THEIR ADVERTISING EITHER!!!! FIND SOMEONE ELSE!!!! VONAGE WILL SCREW YOU!!!!
Heres another reason that Vonage sucks. I stopped paying because they didnt deliver the service and owe them $50 for service i never got. They placed my bill with an agency that autodials my cell phone five times a day and they refuse to stop calling. They are banking on the fact that it I will let them extort the money to get them to stop harassing me. They are the worst company I have ever dealt with.
i have been trying to get in touch with vonage for about 2 months now and havent had much luck. i placed an order and my harddrive broke so i cant use the service, i have mailed thier equipment back and i told them to stop taking money out of my account they still havent and i dont have the service, what am i going to do? i am getting very upset about this and thinking of taking my case to a lawyer do you feel this will be the right thing to do.