Vonage drops off the net

VoIP service Vonage has reportedly dropped off the net, with UK customers complaining that their voice service has disappeared since lunchtime today. Vonage customers have been complaining that the service disappeared around lunchtime today, and that once they manage to get through to technical support they are told that there …

[Pirate Dave]

You tried to contact Vonage?

Ah, did you happen to try email? They may be having problems receiving phone calls...

[Alan W. Rateliff, II]

Did you try...

...calling them (Vonage) on their VoIP numbers??

"We tried to contact Vonage about the problems but the company hasn't responded to our enquiries. "

Paris, because she hates my sense of humor, too.

[Steven Knox]

UK only?

Vonage seems to be workin here in the States...

[Anonymous Coward]

in the absence of vonage calls...

an alternative communications medium is required.

Oi scamps, get on yahoo. i need to talk to you about stu [-]

[Tim Beeber]

Appears to be a UK problem, mostly.

I called my US vonage #, and the VM picked up - that's about as far as I can test it remotely.

From their website:

"Some customers are presently experiencing an intermittent issue affecting their ability to make or receive calls to their UK phone numbers. Inbound calls to some virtual numbers to Italy, Spain, France, and Ireland are also affected. Our engineers are aware of this issue and are working to resolve it as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience in this matter."

[Dr Who]

Not just price

I switched from Vonage to UK based outfit Voipfone when it looked like Vonage was going to go UTITs up a couple of years ago over patent disputes.

The main benefit of Voip for me is not price, but portability. Whether I'm in the office, at home, or abroad, I can have my office phone with me.

Before anyone mentions call divert or roaming mobile phone services they should gain a deeper understanding of how Voip works and how it is therefore significantly different from those two things.

[PaulW]

Man the phones!

One assumes that El Reg tried to call them for a comment? Somehow I dont think that is going to work for some reason...

[Inachu]

They are all bad bad bad bad bad!

That is why I got OOMA.

100% free phone service :-)

Never been happier and canceled my iphone subscription with AT&T.

[Gerard Krupa]

Working fine

Works perfectly for me now. Didn't notice any problems but then I haven't tried to call anyone until just now.

[Anonymous Coward]

contact?

We tried to contact Vonage about the problems but the company hasn't responded to our enquiries

I take it you didn't phone ......

[Anonymous Coward]

Vonage response

"We tried to contact Vonage about the problems but the company hasn't responded to our enquiries."

They tried to call you back, but their phones are down.

[garetht t]

Back once again

It's up again, according to their *shudder* twitter feed... http://twitter.com/vonage_voice

[Keith Williams]

Mine works

Of course, I'm in Canada...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was back around 8pm GMT on 2 November 2009

I logged a call - took 20 mins to get through (dialling 150 from my Vonage phone). They called me to let me know service was restored - in fact, it was the same customer service agent. OK, having such a long outage is bad, but the customer service was good.

I've been using them for a couple of years, this is the first bad outage. On other occasions, "Lines are temporarily busy". If you're really desperate, you can always use your old BT line (I don't use Vonage to receive calls).

[Anonymous Coward]

VoIP for price? Why?

As has already been pointed out by Dr Who, VoIP's real selling point is flexibility.

If all you want is cheap there are plenty of legitimate simple ways of getting cheap whilst sticking with real phones and without the hassle of VoIP.

[Jeremy 2]

Company hasn't responded...

You might have better luck writing them a letter.

I've been considering setting up with Vonage with a view to dumping the landline service if they prove reliable enough over time. Maybe I'll just sit and watch how this plays out...

[Stuart Gepp]

Communications in the modern age

"We tried to contact Vonage about the problems but the company hasn't responded to our enquiries"

You have to send them a letter - the phones are out. Hang on, the post is useless too.

Get a megaphone and shout to them.

[James O'Brien]

This brings to mind...

*cue stupid tone music*

We're sorry but the number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check your number and dial again.

*cue music again*

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: VoIP for price? Why?

Having been on the receiving end of a VOIP sales pitch from a salesman who misrepresented the details to the point where I would describe him as a conman, I would say most people think they can save money based on some very selective picking of facts.

[Bassey]

VoIP for price? Why?

Depends where you live. We aren't all in places served by competing Telecom companies. The wife is from Dublin. Our phone bill used to be £15+ per month, mostly due to expensive (long!) calls to her folks.. With our VOIP service it's under £2 a month. It also gives us completely free local calls that we just could not get from our local landline provider. The only other alternative would have been something like skype but that just isn't convenient.