October 8, 2006 at 1:31 am · Authored by Ewan · Filed under Mobile, VOIP, WiFi

I’m 30 miles from London in a suburban, reasonably small commuter town with a high street, three high schools, a park, a swimming pool and three golf courses nearby. The town isn’t big enough to warrant it’s own area code. Instead it shares the code with its much larger companion, Brentwood.

On all ADSL maps, my phone number and post code indicates we can receive — nay, we are *on* — a 4.5mpbs connection.

I’ve been seeing “2272kbps” on the Linksys modem page for so long. I upgraded to 8mbps a while ago. It seems that this is only available if you’re right next to the exchange. We’re about 1.5/2 miles from it, I reckon. Got an email saying ‘you’re upgraded’ a few weeks after clicking the upgrade link on the Bulldog control panel … but nothing appeared to change. Then I thought this might be because the Linksys router isn’t ADSL2+ compatible. Basically it’ll only do 2mbps.

I got hold of a new Linksys ADSL2+ device this afternoon and plugged it in. Moment of truth.

It’s still stuck at 2272kbps. Who knows? What the hell is the difference between 4.5mb and 2mb anyway? Not much it seems.

Anyway I took this opportunity to try out Vonage again. I’ve been blowing a tenner a month for a good 1.5 years on Vonage and it’s never sodding worked. Not once. It works pigeon-English style. Pick up the phone plugged into the Vonage box and there’s a dial tone. Dial a number and it rings. I’m able to hear the other personish, with a bit of a choppy sound. But they can’t hear me at all. I cut out, I sometimes echo, … esentially, it’s a total load of shit. I and my token caller (I have to persuade friends and business associates to genuinely help me test it now and again) end up doing that stupid annoying satellite thing of talking over each other then stopping then starting then wondering if it’s Vonage screwing up, or us, or connections or……………

It just doesn’t work.

I can’t believe the industry has degenerated so badly. 100+ years ago, Alexander Bell was able to get it to work with bits of wire. Here I am in the 21st Century paying a tenner a month for a piece of shit.

Now, let’s be clear here, Vonage must work for some people. Surely? If it’s working for you, please do email me and let me know.

You see I reckon that my entire problem is down to the woefully pathetic ridiculous and wholly embarrassingly shit connection provided by British Telecom to my area.

Yes it’s a 2mb connection. Er, actually it’s MEANT to be 8mb and is apparently 4.5 on all the ADSL lookup sites…………….. but yes, that ACTUALLY translates into about 200k per second download (if the server’s located somewhere fast, like the UK’s docklands) and about…….. what? 25k-45k per second up?

So NO WONDER Vonage doesn’t work. Ergo, it’s potentially rather unfair for me to describe their service as ’shit’. But then……….. shouldn’t their service come with a warning or some sort of clause stating that if you don’t live in 24mb central London, expect your Vonage to be appalling?

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Skype works perfectly satisfactorily.

Which gets you wondering.

How come Skype or GoogleTalk works and Vonage doesn’t? Is this the flipping great wads of processor power being thrown at the voice compression by the Apple? I’d have thought the Vonage box would have been more efficient. Perhaps it’s the difference between a Ferrari (Skype) and a Horse Drawn Carriage (Vonage Box)?

I was so willing it to all work. I have been through all the Vonage FAQs, settings and so on

I think, in the end, I need to just go and move into London.

I was, by the way, thinking of getting a place in the countryside recently. Just a small place to visit now and again, perhaps work there for a few days at a time. But I discounted doing so because I know the places I was considering are miles from their local telephone exchanges. I’d only be able to get that crappy ‘well……. look…….. it’s a signal, so shut it’ 128k broadband.

It’s saddening when you begin making location decisions based on the quality of the internet supply.

But then it’s shit all over the place.

Last week I was getting so annoyed I was thinking about buying satellite internet. However I doubt that would ease my pains.

Anyway here are some questions for anyone still reading:

1. Have you or anyone you know actually got Vonage working?
2. If they got it working, what DSL speed did they have? I refuse to believe Vonage works on anything other than a 2mbps connection *IN* central London. Open to being proved wrong. I really want it to work.
3. What do you reckon to dumping Vonage and getting another phone line installed by BT instead? I seriously can’t believe I even wrote that. I’m talking about regressing — about getting another copper wire installed so I can receive and transmit 8k/sec landline calls reliably because my existing wire seems incapable.
4. Is there anything I’m missing?