Cisco PAP2 Phone Adapter for Vonage Phone Service

I have had Vonage for the last 4 months and it has worked far better than I had expected. In fact, I've had 2 episodes in that period when my BellSouth phone line went dead (though I have to say they do respond quickly and effectively to online service outage reports). More interestingly, my Internet service provider is Charter Cable (they do not respond to any kind of service requests!) and when my cable TV went out last month after a bad thunderstorm, my Vonage kept working fine! Hmmm.Anyway, my network is built around a Linksys WRT54GS router. I had no open ports on the router so I connected the Linksys PAP2 Phone Adapter for Vonage to a Linksys EZXS55W switch and installed the software. This took me to the Vonage webpage where ordering my service (2 lines, $24.99 for the unlimited line and another $10 for a fax line) took 5 minutes or less. The 2nd neon blue indicator light on the PAP2 (the one for Internet connection) stopped blinking in about 1 minute and my phone then instantly had a dial tone and my fax was working fine. Connections have been perfect and there is *absolutely* no difference in sound quality on either end of the connection between my POTS and my Vonage....none.I have disconnected my BellSouth fax number (saving about $45 a month) and was able to get them to put a recording on that line that "the number you have dialed has been changed...the new number is.....". Pretty soon I will disconnect my old BellSouth regular number as well. The savings from that move will be more like $75 per month.While having a backup makes sense, my cellphone will fill that need quite well. Meanwhile, I am a totally satisfied Vonage customer.

I have read many of the other reviews and understand their complaints regarding Indian tech support, but you will have the same experience calling any company's support line INCLUDING AMAZON.COM. It seems a necessary evil, at least for the time being however I find it amazing that they can't find the same quality or better tech support here in the USA.The quality of the phone service itself is great. Those people that have had problems with it could have just as easily blamed their internet service provider for the quality of their connection. Your Vonage connection will only be as good as your internet connection. Seeing how I have had excellent service from Vonage during the same time that many of these people have had horrible service I'd say that their internet connection is to blame. Cable modems are bad, you are on a passive ring with the rest of the cable customers in you immediate area. If a cable service comes out to connect or disconnect one of your neighbors, there is a very real chance that you will get dropped calls. Contrary to what you see in the cable commercials you stand a better chance of getting a better quality connection with the same or better speed for about the same cost using DSL over cable modems.I'd give them 4 stars, the quality of the service is 5 stars but using poorly trained support people in India is ZERO stars. I have only had one problem so I am not docking more than one point because of their poor support.

As far as getting a brand new functioning adapter I was pleased. I don't have qualms with the seller as they sent it and I received it promptly. I could have ordered one from Vonage and saved alot of money but I needed an adapter QUICK. My beef is with Vonage customer service. The call center is apparently based in India. In my 1st call to CS to get the MAC address activated I could only understand every 3rd word from the rep. I ended up hanging up and getting a new rep. After finally getting the unit activated we realized they had deactivated our one working line(we have 2 different adapters). My stomach turns thinking that I have to call Vonage CS again

unless you truly need help to get this thing working, in which case it ain't so funny. I'm talking about Vonage, not Linksys, but Vonage is who you'll be dealing with. Here's my story:-- Bought the Linksys adapter from Amazon.-- Went to the Vonage website to activate new service. This requires that you go through a series of screens to select the phone plan you want, enter the MAC ID of the adapter, and enter your credit card and billing info. After completing the next-to-last screen with my credit card info, I hit continue and got an error message telling me I had to call their customer service number, which was listed in the error message. I tried backing up and re-entering the info several times, but it didn't work.-- Called the number, navigated a long series of menus and after waiting on hold for about 15 minutes, got a service rep (or so I thought), who listened to my problem (or so I thought), then began collecting the same info I'd already provided at the website. When she started telling me about the adapter they were going to send me, I interjected that I already had an adapter. I had told her this at the outset when I explained my problem registering online, but she either completely missed it or -- more likely -- ignored it. It was obvious that she was simply a sales rep and didn't have a clue about tech troubleshooting. She kept insisting that I'd have to go online to register since I already had an adapter, despite the fact that I kept repeating that online failure was what had brought me to her in the first place. She was totally nonplussed, but eventually told me she'd need to hand me off to a "customer care" rep (now there's joke if I've ever heard one -- read on).-- I waited on hold for another 15 minutes before a so-called tech rep picked up. When I explained my problem, he sounded more dazed and confused than the first person, rambling and muttering for awhile before telling me he had an alert saying that his tech's were "workiing on the website" and that I should check back in a few hours. To say he didn't sound very sure of himself is to put it mildly. He said, "you got the error message on the last step, right?" I said, "no, I got it on the next-to-last step". That threw him, since it didn't jibe with his expectation. There was a very long silence while he apparently pondered what to do/say next, but he eventually decided the website tech thing was his story and he was sticking to it. Before I could he object, he thanked me for using Vonage and hung up. Despite the fact that I was pretty peeved at this point, I almost burst out laughing. These two lovely's were so grossly incompetent and comical that it was hard to be mad at them: neither had a clue what he/she was doing. This pair would have been perfect in an old Marx Brothers film or a Three Stooges episode.I opened a different browser and tried going through the web process a fourth time. This time it worked. Within a few minutes I had the adapter set up and after a few technical glitches, I got the phone working (for some reason, it wanted the line 2 jack on the adapter rather than the more intuitively logical line 1 jack).So, beware: if you anticipate needing any tech support at all, pick a different VOIP carrier, 'cuz you'll get nowhere with these guys. One call to Vonage and you'll think you're in a 3rd world country talking with Barney Fife.