On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Ben Bargabus wrote: > Vonage users, did you have to purchase any hardware to make the system > work? Did the hardware they provide (if any) just plug right into your > network hub/switch and run? Anything you wish you'd known ahead of time > that you can pass on to a potential customer? If I had to do things over again, I'd get a landline first, and port the number to Vonage, instead of having Vonage assign me a number. Since they've assigned me one, I can't port it out to anyone else (basically, vonage leases their DID's from another company, so Vonage is the customer on record for the phone number - to port to another provider, you have to be the customer on record for the number. Even if Vonage wanted to port, it wouldn't be easy.) If I had brought the number in with me, I'd be able to take it out to another provider. Other than that, I haven't had any problems with Vonage as a landline replacement. I've just outgrown them; I run my own Asterisk box, and would rather have full control over the number instead of routing it through an ATA first. What I ended up doing is getting a DID from another provider, and have Vonage simultaneously ring that DID (which rings into my Asterisk box) and the ATA, instead of just ringing the ATA. Oh, yeah, for those of you wondering if a modem will work on Vonage, the one time I tried it I got a 28.8 connection (to AOL from a friend's laptop); I was rather impressed. Of course, YMMV. :) As long as you've got a decent firewall (IE, Linux box), you shouldn't have any problems getting Vonage to work behind it. You can also use their router if you desire the built-in QoS; I just use Wondershaper on my Linux firewall to handle the QoS stuff. -- Nate Carlson <natecars at real-time.com> | Phone : (952)943-8700 http://www.real-time.com | Fax : (952)943-8500 _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list