# Vonage and Directv (yes another one)



## Indiana627 (Jan 24, 2003)

Sorry for making another Vonage thread, but I did a search and couldn't find an answer. I don't have Vonage yet, but am thinking about it. I understand how to disconnect the phone service coming in from the street and then plugging the Vonage adapter into 1 of my phone outlets to make all my phone outlets live. My question is which Vonage adapter should I get? I have 2 Directivos and want both to be able to call in. I have 2 computers (1 desktop and 1 laptop) so I want a wireless router. Would gettting the D-Link VWR be OK? Or should I get a separate wireless router and then a separate Vonage adapter? If separate wireless router and Vonage adapter - then which ones do people recommend/have success with? (The wireless router would only be used for our laptop - I would still plug my Directivos into the phone outlets.)

The only thing that makes me hesitate about Vonage is reading all the threads about Directv and Vonage not playing nice together. Thanks.


----------



## lostman72 (Jul 12, 2003)

You can read and look up info on Vonage at there web forms. Lot's of people say Motorola or D-Link work very good for what you need it for. Also you might have to call Vonage and have them change some setting in your VOIP box at your home.

http://www.vonage-forum.com/forum1.html


----------



## sloan (Feb 13, 2003)

Personally, I don't like the "integrated" units.

I went to circuitycity, and got the "standalone" vonage box that is free (after rebate).

You'll have more flexibility having a seperate box. Because you can put the wireless router anywhere you want. and run a ethernet cable and put the vonage box anywhere you want.

Here is a thread dealing with vonage and (in generial) tivo's.
http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2003/07/how_to_setup_a_.html

Search this forum for
+vonage +tivo +212 +HDVR2

and you'll find the specific directv instructions.

I don't think the model of the vonage box matters that much.
I think the settings, and using the NY number are more important.

Having said that, when I am first trying to get everything to work, I disconnect all computers, and have simply the router and the vonage box connected AND a straight (and shortest possible) telephone wire from the vonage box to the tivo.
After I complete a test call, (and hence I know things work), I then add in the extra stuff. Computers on the network (hence using bandwidth) and then tying into the existing house wiring.
and then RETEST. If it doesn't work, you know you may have too much noise in your existing house lines or the computers are hogging up too much bandwidth.
You'll drive yourself batty if you have all variables in the equation at first, and it doesn't work.

Get the simplest case working first, then build up from there.

I actually ran a brand new "clean" line specific for the d*tv tivos. What I mean is that I put a wall-socket in near the vonage box (bedroom3) and ran telephone wire under the house, and put a new wall socket near the tv area.
I bought a splitter for the vonage box (simple plastic thing), and I run the house wire on one, and the clean/new/straight line on the other. Probably overkill, but that's what I did.

Keep in mind that during heavy internet usage, you're d*tv may not connect. You're fighting a bandwidth war in that case.


----------



## tazzmission (Oct 15, 2002)

This is my personal experience with Vonage...

I signed up for Vonage about 30 days ago. I canceled the service a few days ago and swithced back to Verizon. The service was up and down all the time. The service is very inconsistent. The call quality was very bad too. I had a ton of issues trying to get my TiVo's to dial in. I got that working 50% of the time.

For me, the cost savings was not worth the trouble I had rewiring my home and using the service.

The service was down for two days and after being on hold with Vonage for over an hour with tech support I gave up and canceled.

I would NOT recommend Vonage to anyone.

Vonage is now trying to steal $39.99 from me for canceling too. They tell me that I am past 30 days, but I am not.


----------



## dv8 (Sep 13, 2004)

All I have to say is I tried and read everything I could find to get my HR10-250 to work with vonage and I had the worst of luck, I could get my Phillips DSR7000 to work no problem with the 212 # but that damn HR10 would'nt do it for the life of me... In the end, I do have a happy story, I ended up buying a cheap external modem off of ebay and wired it up with a mini headphone jack and success 100% of the time now... Total cost to make dial outs was just over 12 dollars with shipping and I save that each month in vonage phone bill costs.


----------



## generalpatton71 (Oct 30, 2002)

I've had vonage for a couple years now and love it, You just have to know not to run bittorent and other bandwith hogging programs at the same time. Some people have a slow connection or little bandwith compared to others and that causes the issues Tazz is describing. Like I've said I've had them for two years and never had them over bill me or have any type of issue that wasn't caused by somebody else. I have 2 HR10 and one is now calling out several times a day waiting for 6.3a. The set up that works for most calling out is
Call waiting prefix- *99,,#019,,
Dial prefix- 12122773895

The dial prefix is the actual call in number you will select. This number has been set up to help vonage customers call in with there tivos. For most people this will work. I had allot of "negotiating" going on if I hadn't called in a while but it's actually downloading stuff when thats going on.


----------



## swartzentruber (Jun 21, 2006)

I've had an okay experience with Vonage and Tivo, but not great. I've found the call quality okay, but my sister, who also has Vonage, has had terrrible quality. I still find myself thinking about going back.

My recommendation is to get separates. The integrated units tend to be not as good, additionally they are expensive, which goes against the whole reason for Vonage. Also if you want to replace one piece (say for a new wireless protocol), you need to replace the whole thing. I do recommend a call to Vonage to ask them to adjust settings for Tivo -- I've had a lot more successful Tivo calls after doing that. If you do this, immediately ask for advanced support (or ask for Tivo support), once someone is on the line.

One other note. Plugging the Vonage adapter into house wiring does work, but I found after doing that, my phone didn't get enough voltage to ring, so normally I just leave it unplugged from the house wiring except when I want to make Tivo calls.


----------



## davetroup (Aug 15, 2004)

I have been using Vonage for quite a while now and have been very pleased. The voice quality is indistinguishable from my old phone company wired line, and I've never experienced dropouts or any service interruptions.

However, I can't comment on making Tivo phone calls over Vonage, as I have a separate fax/DSL line that my Tivo also uses. I imagine Tivo could use the Vonage VOIP "line" but I haven't tried it.


----------



## themoviebuff (Feb 14, 2003)

I have had vonage for over 2 years now as well and have had no problems either. I for one think it is a great service. I originally had the standalone vonage box and a Siemens Speedstream Wireless router until I recently replaced both these items with the integrated Vonage/LinkSys Adaptor/Wireless Router which unfortunately I had to pay full price for since I was not a new customer. I have a wired connection to my PC (in the same room as the adaptor) and a wired connection down to my basement home theater room's media closet. My wife uses the wireless for her laptop.

I had previously had quite a bit of trouble getting vonage to dial in with my HR10-250, but after getting the initial software upgrade a year ago I just unplugged the phone line as it was not necessary since I would not be ordering pay-per-views. Upon hearing the 6.3 upgrade was available I re-hooked up the phone line and had numerous failed attempts with several different configurations found here and elsewhere. I called Vonage and they gave me a different number to call and ajusted the packetization rate on my new router and just like that I make calls just as if a regular phone line was hooked up. I have no special dialing codes other than the 212 dialing prefix and call-in number and it works like a charm. Now I just need to successfully get 6.3 on my machine and I will most likely disconnect the phone line again. So to answer your question I would get the integrated Vonage/Linksys box. I like it fine, and it does all I need it to.


----------



## sloan (Feb 13, 2003)

I've had great success with my vonage.

Its been stable. If the power goes out, then naturally it doesn't work.

Again, you gotta use common sense.

Its a device which needs internet bandwidth to work.

You can't download torrent files all the time, and think it won't negate voice performance.

But for just browsing the internet, checking emails, if that's what you do most of the time, then it is usually fine.

If you're on cable modem, and everyone in your neighborhood downloads huge files all the time (low odds), then that might be a reason.

Once I get my settings in correctly, I've always gotten connected.

I think people who use the house's built in wiring.... don't put together that this might compromise some performance.

That's why I recommend going with a "baseline" install. Router, VonageBox, fairly short telephone wire, and the TivoBox.
Get that working, then you'll know if you're causing an issue by introducing other elements to the equation.

But as far as vonage is concerned, I'm very happy. They email when I get billed, they email when I have a new voice message. That's really nice.

I don't have outages. When I get home, the thing works. Its not perfect, but its pretty close, and considering the cost savings, that's good enough for me.

..


----------



## SeeAndAvoid (Dec 1, 2000)

I've had Vonage for a few months, and overall I like it. I'm not sure about the "issues" with the combo units, I have the Linksys WRTP54G and it's better than the BEFW11S4 it replaced. At first Vonage was spotty, but that was due to my wireless broadband at the time, with it's lousy upload speeds. Now with Comcast it's been better, although I wonder about Comcast and what they do to Vonage users being they have their own VOIP service, this is talked about alot on Vonage's forums.
I had DTV with an R10 and UltimateTV, I used the 212 number and it worked occasionally, but it also made several calls a day, so that tells me it was pretty flakey. My new Series2 worked with Vonage also, but it was similarly flakey until I got the needed software upgrade to use the network.
So now I use a wired usb adaptor and it goes into a........Vonage router, hehehe. It works great, but that's the non-Vonage part of the router technically.
Vonage/Directv/Tivo is too hit and miss to consider seriously. Some cant get it to work no matter what, some get it to work occasionally, some all the time - I can't see any rhyme or reason why and I havent seen anyone explain how this can be.

As far as power outages affecting Vonage, get a UPS for your router/modem (and probably cordless phone) and you're set - for a little while. And if your Vonage goes down completely, you can set it up to forward all calls to a cell phone or some other number, or voicemail.

Chris


----------



## tbeckner (Oct 26, 2001)

dv8 said:


> All I have to say is I tried and read everything I could find to get my HR10-250 to work with vonage and I had the worst of luck.


Check out the *TiVo Underground forum*, the HR10-250 can make it's calls via a broadband connection.


----------



## jrmsp (May 20, 2004)

M'kay, last week I got a message on my HR10-250 stating that the 212 dial-in number will be discontinued soon and I will need to choose another. Anyone know what's working these days?


----------



## ctromp (Sep 26, 2006)

jrmsp said:


> M'kay, last week I got a message on my HR10-250 stating that the 212 dial-in number will be discontinued soon and I will need to choose another. Anyone know what's working these days?


My HR10 has dialed in several times over the last couple days using that number and I have not received that message.


----------



## ctromp (Sep 26, 2006)

I've had Vonage for almost 3 years now over Comcast cable. I have never had bandwidth issues but I am using Comcast's 6 mpbs service. I use an old befw11s4 wireless router and an older Vonage rt31p2 router with 2 phone ports as the phone adapter. I have 5 phones in the house all connected to my regular in-wall phone jacks and they all ring fine. 


The key for me has been setting Vonage to the highest call quality setting that you can do through the vonage.com web site. Using the tivo phone setting mentioned above I'm able to connect every time. What works for me is that 212 number above. What's strange is that i use totally different setting for my R10.


----------



## jrmsp (May 20, 2004)

jrmsp said:


> M'kay, last week I got a message on my HR10-250 stating that the 212 dial-in number will be discontinued soon and I will need to choose another. Anyone know what's working these days?


Actually, realized that since the 6.3a upgrade last week, I've not been able to connect to the 212 number at all; have tried quite a few times, only to get "call interrupted".


----------



## jrmsp (May 20, 2004)

Tried it with the PC turned off and got a successful call. Go figure.


----------

