Linksys PAP2 Phone Adapter for Vonage Internet Phone Service

Rating:
Summary: Perfecto
Review: After trying another VOIP company first, I tried Vonage with Linksys's PAP2 adapter. Not a single glitch. I love it.

Rating:
Summary: Vonage Does Not Lie About Rates
Review: As someone who signed on early with Vonage, I can attest that their service has been quite good and has improved over time with new features, lower prices, and better reliability.

In my opinion, they do not lie about international rates. They have rate charts on their site which make the rates to mobile phones clear. As someone who calls Europe frequently, I have not found this to be a problem. It is up to the consumer to check the rate charts and see which calls are charged at higher rates.

I do not believe that they misrepresent anything and have found happily used their serice for some time.

Rating:
Summary: It's great when it works
Review: Here is my Vonage story. Yesterday I made one of the toughest decisions I had to make regarding technology. I had to cancel my Vonage account. A week ago I purchased the PAP2 Telephone Adaptor (TA) at a Circuit City. With the Vonage rebates the unit was free. I was very excited about this technology but I was ready for installation hell so after getting home I read through the installation instructions and thought, "Could it be this easy?" It was. After signing up for Vonage on-line, I literally took the TA out of the box, connected the included Ethernet cable from my Linksys router to the TA, plugged my phone into the TA, plugged the TA into a power outlet, waited for it to boot and picked up the phone and had a dial-tone. I couldn't believe my ears so I looked back into the manual to make sure I had not missed anything. The instructions said that if I have a dial-tone I could begin making calls. So I did and it worked perfectly!

I was so excited to now be able to dump both my Qwest local phone and my long distance company all in one fell swoop that I walked around my living room trying to digest that fact that this could all be this easy. I began calling my friends from my new Vonage line telling them how cool this new technology was and recommending Vonage to all of them. Then I occasionally began getting real fast busy signals whenever I tried to call out. No rings, just an unnatural busy signal. I emailed Vonage about this problem but before getting a response my service returned to normal. Just a one-time glitch in the system? I was hoping so. It seemed to work fine then for the rest of the day.

Then as the week progressed I began getting emails and some calls from people who said that when calling me they got a few rings and then a very fast busy signal and the call wouldn't go through. Sometimes they said that they got a "This call cannot be completed" message. I began troubleshooting and found in the Vonage trouble shooting guide that doing some specific port forwarding on my router could be the fix for the problem. I configured things just as they suggested but the problem remained. After a week of trying figure this out, I called Vonage to cancel my account. The gentleman in the cancellation department was courteous and patient. He said, "Would you mind if we did a few tests to see if we can find the problem"? I said "No problem!" and we began what ended up being a one hour and 20 minute phone call. (Much of the time I was on hold). But I wanted this to work so bad that I thought that if we could get this corrected I could get excited and call the rest of my friends to tell them how cool this is.

After about an hour with the cancellation guy trying a few things with the same results I was forwarded directly to a tech guy. This guy said that he had just uploaded a few updates to my TA and he was in the process of sending another as we spoke. After completing these he called me several times to check it out and it worked just fine each time. I tried a few out-going calls and it worked perfectly as well. Yippee! Problem solved!

After leaving home for a couple of hours I came back and went into my office where my Vonage phone is and saw on caller ID that a friend from Seattle had called. There was no voicemail. Hmm... I called him back and we chatted for a few minutes and then I asked him if he had had any problems with his call to me. He said that he called but it rang just a few times before he got a real fast busy signal. Good-bye Vonage. I called the next morning and cancelled my account. Again they were very courteous and understanding.

Even with all I have been through, I have a hard time not recommending this service. If not for the intermittent problems I would give Vonage 5 stars. If you sign up for it and it all works fine, this is the coolest technology to come out in a long time. The sound quality was very good, the call forwarding and voicemail options are totally cool, and the price is great. Just be sure you check it all out thoroughly to make sure that everything works before your 14 day trial period ends.

Rating:
Summary: Dont Buy!! Unless you can get a Local Number
Review: I did my homework and when I got my Vonage number it turned out it was 200 miles from where I was---So it means when your next door neighbor calls you--Its a long distant call.

Rating:
Summary: Damm near perfect
Review: I have dealt with a lot of imperfect technology in my time. Bad engineering, bad ergonomics, bad tech support, bad manuals, bad ideas. This is not one of those technologies. It was easy to install, easy to configure, and has worked flawlessly with my other network components. It has saved me a boatload of money on phone calls ( the 1-800 option is the way to go). Overall, it has been one of the best gadgets I have ever purchased (Next to my 55" Sony LCD projection screen TV) What can I say, I am a 12 Step Gadget monkey.

Rating:
Summary: Great service, nasty buzz and humm
Review: I love the Vonage service compared with Verizon's old-world service, but my first PAP2 had a relatively loud background humm. I returned the unit to Amazon (VERY EASY!!), but the second unit had the same humming, so I am putting up with it now and will call Vonage sometime again. I've read about this problem from others, too.

Rating:
Summary: Great Service - A couple of minor issues
Review: I've had Vonage for well over two years and use it as the exclusive phone service at my home (NO Phone company :-)).

The service has been great:
- clear calls
- good customer service
- great features...free *69, click2call, caller ID, etc..
- a company that periodically REDUCES rates!! Yeah!
- auto call forwarding during service interruption
- Save family money. They can call you by dialing a local number for only $5/month more.

Only a few minor issues:
- when Adelphia has problems, phone has problems. Relatively rare, but annoying.
- For some reason, Vonage has trouble sending DTMF to third parties. For instance, if you use a teleconferencing service (for work) and you dial in using vonage, the service may not be able to receive your touch tone inputs over vonage. This has been verified by my teleconf company. I have no issues, from any other phone (cell included).

Overall, a great way to save money.

Rating:
Summary: Vonage Service an Amazing Money Saver
Review: In my household, we've had Vonage for nearly six months and we couldn't be happier. The sound is so clear that our friends constantly comment that our voices sound like we're standing right next to them. In addition, the complete control Vonage gives you over their service via the website is a dream. All the information you need is right there (e.g., billing, voicemail, account, etc.). And, we love being able to check our voicemail online. I even have the service set up to send me an e-mail when a new voicemail has arrived.

My only word of warning: The service will only be as good as the system it's piggybacking onto. It sounds like many of the negative reviews are having troubles that likely related to the speed and quality of their broadband service or poor networks setups. If you have great Internet service and a stable network, you will have great Vonage service.

Rating:
Summary: Read the negative reviews, bought anyway, really regret it..
Review: OK, OK, I read the good and bad reviews, but believed that I could overcome any issues that arose. I was mistaken.

I spent two days trying to set it all up, went through every setting (including the required four separate port-forwarding ranges in my router) in my network trying to find what I was doing wrong. Even removed my real router and connecting the PAP2 directly to the cable modem. Finally gave up and called tech support.

Vonage tech support verified it was communicating correctly all along. All the troubleshooting was in vain. Turns out, Amazon sent out a PAP2 that was three firmware versions old; such that it re-connected in 5-second intervals, never allowing the current software to download. After MANY resets and connecting the adapter directly to the cable modem, Vonage couldn't update the firmware and refused to send a .bin to me so that I could update it. As you know, Vonage locks users out of the Admin mode; the current firmware cannot be loaded locally. So, I have to return the box to Amazon.

Vonage then sent me a new phone adapter with a charge of $99.94. So now a box that was going to cost $0.00, turned into a $100 charge. When I called to question the charge, they offered me a $49.94 credit, saying that since I was getting a $50 credit from Amazon when I returned the PAP2, the new box would therefore cost nothing - sounds like the old bait and switch or the old con with the $20 bill. If these are the folks programming the boxes, I am starting to understand the problem.

My mathematically challenged helper could not resolve these issues, so I finally gave up and just canceled everything. Therefore, I'll off to another VoIP provider.

I signed up for another providor, now my international calls are more clear that PSTN service.

Rating:
Summary: Vonage service
Review: Vonage has saved me a lot. The quality is better that the Verison and I don't have to deal with them. No more LD and inter lata charges. I used to pay 8 cents to my neighbors since we were in different zones. Internation quality, availability and price is the best. Search the web for vonage best deal and you can get it free for two months.