Stupid, Stupid Phone

When we moved, I decided to give Vonage a try. We'd had VOIP in DC for a few months, and it worked okay, but this time it's a pain in the butt.

A few weeks ago the cable modem started to freak out on me. I thought it was an internal problem and tried replacing the modem and all the connecting wires. And of course I couldn't call Time-Warner to report the issue because the phone didn't work. Finally a neighbor called it in, and we found out that there had been a tree on the line. Another week went by and there were still problems with the connection dying. But it was a weekend so I had to wait for Monday to report it in person. They came out again, and said this time it was definately fixed.

But it's still screwed up and ridiculously slow. It's like having dial-up. Forget watching the streaming baseball service I paid good money for, or uploading photos. I got a service man to come out again (it was about 5 visits total) and he blamed the phone router. That's unbelievable, that after three weeks of it being Time-Warner's fault it would suddenly be Vonage's fault. But I can't argue it, because I can't call Time-Warner and do all the various ping tests with them. (We have a cell, but there's no service in or near the house.)

Meanwhile, the phone is worse than useless. I can talk for about two minutes before the signal degrades so badly that I have to hang up. TIVO can't update my listings, so as of today it doesn't know what's on TV anymore. I tried setting up a new service last week, but it was a discount company that couldn't seem to deal with the fact that we don't have a landline already, and apparently tried to call instead of e-mail me when they couldn't fill the order. So today I ordered up Verizon, although it will be a week before it goes in. Grrrr Arrggghh. That's what I get for trying to save $30 a month.