Vonage on last legs

So I get a call yesterday afternoon from Ali who was home.  She first asked if I could hear her, which I could.  Then she starts on a rant about how much she can’t stand Vonage.  She said today during several calls the other person would not be able to hear her or the call would just disconnect.  Ever since we got Vonage Ali has been pretty vocal about her dislike for it.  Unlike myself whom keeps the majority of my phone calls under a minute, Ali will sometimes spend longer amounts of time on the phone.  I have had a few problems even during my brief calls like reverb, garbled audio and some of the drop outs Ali was bitching about but not a ton of them.  We are not alone with Vonage problems.  A 30 second Google search will turn up many, many pages of people complaining about Vonage service.  The scary part is when you read the drama these people had to go through to get out of Vonage.

So anyway, last night after work I did a number of things that supposedly address some of these issues.  I dialed back the bandwidth Vonage looks for from 90k to 50k, I relocated the VOIP box from the computer room to one of the spare bedroom to get it away from the cordless phone and wireless router that supposedly can cause problems and finally I went into my Linksys router and set up QOS (quality of service) for the Vonage adapter, giving it priority over all other internet traffic.  If after all of those changes we still have regular issues I will be forced to endure what is sure to be a customer service nightmare and try to cancel Vonage and port my number back to the shitty POTS system.  My favorite thing about Vonage is getting my voicemail’s mailed to me.

The weekend has no major shining stars.  I have various things to do already lined up in my head.  I want to swing over to mom’s to caulk around the ceiling on the lanai.  I was going to swap out vehicles with her too.  She told me yesterday that she took her Rav4 to the dealer to have them look at an issue with it wanting to stall until it warms up.  Of course once they get their hands on it they come back with a laundry list of “suggested” maintenance to be done which potentially could cost my mom 1700 bucks or more.  I told mom that I wished she would consult me before making decisions on mechanical repairs on her car.  However her car ownership history is filled with her getting socked with huge repair bills and me finding out after the fact. I guess some things never change.

The Eagles play the Cowboys this weekend.  I wish I had a more optimistic outlook for the game.  It sucks going into a Cowboys game with a feeling that a losing outcome is all but ensured.

It’s time for the voting for the Spartan Halloween contest, go there and vote for me!!!! My evaluation of each finishing Spartan is posted here.