Vonage VoIP Stops Working
from the reliability... dept
One of the few remaining hurdles for most users concerning any plan to ditch a traditional landline and go completely VoIP is the reliability of the service. If your power goes out: no VoIP. If your broadband connection goes down: no VoIP. Now, Vonage, the leader of the independent VoIP providers just convinced a bunch of people to hold off a little longer by having their own internal problems, so that many users couldn't make outgoing phone calls for an hour and a half this morning. There are plenty worse things in the world that could happen, but people are used to being able to pick up their phone and dial without having to worry about whether or not a dialtone exists. Update: Turns out Vonage wasn't the only VoIP provider having problems. Over in Hong Kong, two independent VoIP providers are accusing broadband provider PCCW of disrupting their VoIP connections on purpose -- to keep people using PCCW's landlines. It seems unlikely that the same thing happened with Vonage, but it does raise that issue of network neutrality again.
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