Pat wrote:
I just switched to Vonage.

It's a mixed bag but seems to be getting better as I straighten out my
problems. For me it was not as straight forward as I had hoped.

The sound quality at times is very good and at other times it is very
poor. Seems like if my kid is playing a game on the internet and
streaming video, the band width is sufficient but some dastardly
firewall is slowing the packets down and causing sound problems. The
firewall is built into the router and the router is not programmable
because it's pretty old -- Verizon DSL estimates its 8 years old.
That's the biggest issue but will be fixed in "2 to 3 business days"
when the new router gets here.

The second sound issue came and went and I finally tracked it down to
Carbonite. So I had to throw Carbonite into Low Priority mode. That
seems to fix it.

So it's up and working. I guess my biggest issues are that I have the
older router because I've had DSL for so long.

If it wasn't for those two issues, it would have been a much easier
install.

Anyway, I thought I would throw it out there in case anyone else is
considering switching. In the long term, I think it'll be good. In
the short term, it could be an easy install but it was a on the tough
side for me.

Good luck if you're trying it.

We have VOIP here. Our cable speeds are 8.5/2.6 Mbps.

We also have DSL from AT&T. It's about 750kpbs.

We use cable internet for regular stuff and the VOIP plugs into the DSL. We
got the DSL when the cable went down for six days! Heck, man, we couldn't
even buy stamps (although I did score a personal best at Solitare during
that time).

Anyway, on the third day of cable outage, we signed up for DSL. We now have
redundant capability - like having a spare tire.

In ordinary usage, nothing interferes with the VOIP connections. If the DSL
goes down, we simply plug the VOIP input wire into our cable-connected
router and we're back in business.