Any Vonage Client is having any problem for last two days

ishtah --> What kind of Qtel packages you have - 1 MB/2MB/4MB? Mine is 1 MB. Did you make any other changes with your modem? Lower bit-rate or anything? Mine was not working so great last night. Today I am going to try with 30 Kbps. Btw, do you have a regular internet connection or a coporate connection?

What's going on with rest of you? Any luck yet? Please provide us with your vonage status here.

Cheers

Roots,

My vonage has been working very well for the last 2 days. My setting has been on 30kps and audio quality has been good both ways. I didn't try changing the bandwidth to test.

Good luck!

Hello Guys,

Mine is working 85%. I still have some audio problem. Today, I was able to make a phone call to my wife through vonage where bandwidth is set to 50kbps. I spoke to her for 20 mins. My wife was able to hear my voice properly -100%, but I was hearing around 85%, still some distorted audio.

Majnoon Ajnabi --> Were you able to solve your problem?

ishtah --> Did you hear anything from ictQatar?

In one of my previous comments, I provided with an instruction how to change the bandwidth, if anybody needs it.

Cheers

I talked to Vonage and spent a long time with them. Even though the delays seem to be better, they are still too high. We isolated the jump in latency to be between the qatar server and the server in Paris. I called Qtel and gave them this information, but I'm not sure it registered with them.

I ran tracert now and the latencies seem to be much better. Most are less than 200 ms. However, I still have the same problem. I wonder if there are some ports blocked now as well? Can someone else check on their end and post what they are experiencing?

Majnoon Ajnabi,

Based on the response from Vonage that you posted, have you been able to resolve the issue and get normal audio quality? Has anyone been able to get it to work now?

Majnoon Ajnabi,

Based on the response from Vonage that you posted, have you been able to resolve the issue and get normal audio quality? Has anyone been able to get it to work now?

VOIP being blocked by Qtel: I am told by a friend who has been living here for about 20-25 years, who has a friend working in Qtel that they have hired people along with new hardware to block voip. Don't know how true is it though. I miss using my vonage. This is the only way I kept in touch with my family back in the States.

Dear xxxx,

>

> I understand that you are in Qatar and you are experiencing audio issues with Vonage phone service.

>

> Scott, we have received confirmation from our engineers that this issue has been resolved so you should no longer experience any problems. However, if you are still experiencing problems, then the issue could be with ISP end. I also checked your account settings and see that your Vonage phone adapter is communicating well with our server in regular intervals.

>

> In order to resolve your issue, first we need to make sure that your ISP is not blocking the ports that are required for using Vonage phone service. Hence to confirm the same, I have provided the ports that required to be opened by your ISP for using Vonage phone service. Kindly contact your ISP and check whether the following ports are opened on their end:

>

> The following ports are needed for OUTGOING Internet communications from the Vonage device to the Vonage servers.

>

> DNS: Port 53 UDP (Domain Name Server - for resolving server IP addresses)

>

> TFTP: Port 69 UDP (for profile upgrades/downgrades)

>

> HTTP: Port 80 UDP (for firmware upgrades/downgrades)

>

> NTP: Port 123 UDP (Network Time Protocol - so the device can sync to the proper time for Caller ID)

>

> SIP: Port 5061 UDP is used for older Vonage devices (devices provisioned before 2005) Also, BSP Proxy Groups 1-8, and a.voncp.com communicate on port 5061.

>

> The following ports are needed for INCOMING and OUTGOING Internet communications from and to Vonage devices and servers.

>

> RTP (Voice) Traffic: Ports 10000-20000 UDP. When a call is made, a random port between 10000 and 20000 is used for RTP (Voice) traffic. If any of these ports are blocked, you may experience one way or no audio.

>

> If you have not already gone through the support available on our website for details regarding the ports, you may now do so by visiting the link given below.

>

> http://www.vonage.com/support.php?article=1098&category=44&nav=3

>

> Once the above ports are confirmed to be opened, have a reboot your network devices and check for the status of the audio issue. If you are experiencing any issues, please get back to this email and I will be happy to assist you further.

>

> If you have any questions, your Vonage team is available to assist you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Contact us whenever and however it suits you!

>

> - On-Line Help Center at http://www.vonage.com/support.php

> - Contact Us at http://www.vonage.com/help_contactus.php

> - Or call Toll-Free at 1-VONAGE-HELP (1-866-243-4357

Has anyone gotten anywhere with this????

I contacted Qtel, They will not own up to any problem, the only solution they are giving is to try to lower the bit rate on the voip. They recommended anything below 24 kbits/s. I am down to 8kbits/s on my Voip box and still not getting good voice quality.

Any one has any ideas?

or do we need to keep bugging Qtel?

I would really doubt that they are going to do anything about it.

I would have to say; from the people that I have talked to the last few days at Qtel; they must have THE WORST customer support of any company that I have ever dealt with.

To file a complaint with ICT, just send an email to [email protected]. They responded to me within the hour.

Everyone send an email...ITS THAT EASY.

You should also call Qtel at 111 and log a complaint there.

To ishtah --> Great work!! How did you file your complain to ictQatar, could you share the process with us? I will do the same. My friend also called QTel, and customer rep mentioned that they are getiing same kind of complains from other clients. :) I am requesting all of you to do the same - filing a complain to QTel & then to ictQatar. Let's be positive. :)

Cheers

(start cheering again)

I contact ICT Qatar and got the following answer...I suggest you all call Qtel and contact ICT:

Dear Sir/Madam,

ictQATAR acknowledges receipt of your complaint about Qtel blocking access to VoIP in Qatar.

Please be informed that we are the Regulatory Authority for telecommunications service providers for the State of Qatar.

Please note that the use of VoIP in not illegal in Qatar. Persons are nor prohibitted from using on their own behalf any peer peer VoIP services without a license, and business are permitted to use IP telephoney to connect offices, branches and employees provided that they are not selling these services or providing those telephoney services to the public or carrying on any licensable activities.

If you intend to use VoIP over a link supplied by a licensed service provider in Qatar for internal communications and business activities within the closed group of your organisation, then you would not require a license to do so, and would not be acting in breach of the Telecommunications Law. However, if you used the link provided as a means to offer telecommunications services to any third party (including the public) either for a fee or not, you would be acting in breach of the Telecommunications Law 34 of 2006.

Please note that ictQATAR wil now address this complaint relating to the blocking of VoIP and revert to you with an update and Qtels' response in the matter.

Update as of 5th August, 7 AM

------------------------------

1. Vonage is still having the same problem

2. Skype is working fine

3. Thank you ishtah. That's the right thing to do. That's what exactly I did 3 days back.

Call Q-Tel. Ask for somebody from Technical Services. Slowly tell them that all on a sudden you are having problem with VOIP specially Vonage.

Also mention them, high latnecy causes this problem, as Vonage works when the latency is less than 120 ms.

When more people speak to QTel, there is a better chance they might try to solve the issue.

4.To NDIAPhil & whiskeydelta-->

IP address to tracert : 69.59.224.28

Steps for Windows XP & Vista :

a)XP: Go to Start --> Run --> Type cmd and hit enter

Vista: Go to Start --> Type cmd and hit enter

b) type tracert 69.59.224.28 and enter

When tracert is finished, you will notice consistent higher latency (if anything more than 120ms)

That is why our vonage is not working, we get distorted voice.

If anybody has any other update, please feel free to post here.

Cheers

Yes this happened in 2005 and it got pretty big with people calling the US Embassy etc for help. All Qtel has to do is use QOS and it will mess up VoIP. You may be able to find the Vonage Forum from 2005 and read up on it. This may be the time to buy stock in Qtel.

I have been having the same problem for the past 2-3 weeks. My co-workers have all been having the same problem, too. One of them is now using a personal VPN to connect, and he states there is no problem now. Personally, I have had to start using Skype more often, and that has been working fine for me.

Roots, what ip addresses are you using to tracert and ping to when testing with Vonage?

I'm glad to see that VoIP is allowed because after the incident in 2005 we were all wondering if they were blocking it again, too.

Now I understand why I have also been having vonage problems. For a year it has been fine and teh last two days cannot ehar a thing. What is this tracert? where do you find it and how can we (collectively if needed) get qtel to fix this issue? I also btw have magicjack and the same thing is happening with it, even connected to my pc.

I just talked to Qtel and they were quite helpful. The person on the phone understood it was a voip issue and went to talk to the supervisor who informed her that they received several calls about this. This took down the information needed and said they would look into it and get back to us.

I HIGHLY SUGGEST EVERYONE CALLING THEM AND DOING THE SAME. The more calls they get the faster they will move.

I use justvoip for talking to USA. I can talk to my children by calling them in their landline or mobile phones. I have to just topup 10 USD and I have 120 days free calling to USA- to directly landline or mobiles. ALso there are few more free countries.

The 10 USD can be used to call india etc.

Try out when vonage is out!

Update as 0f 4th August, 9 AM

-------------------------------

1. To zakmama , ishtah , jhylandmd : Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

2. As I said before QTel did not block vonage, but what happened here is, in their network route there is big presence of higher latency. Last night I have checked with Vonage again, althouth our network speed is perfectly fine, due to high latency Vonage will not work in Qatar, it will require lower latency: 120ms or less. Now QTel can solve this problem, cut those hops where latency is greater 120 ms. I really do not know how much consumer rights I have with this.

So this will be our request to QTEL: "Please check your network and fix or replace those hops where latency is more than 120 ms". And I know it depends on QTel's gentlemanship

3. I already spoke to my wife through SKYPE. It works fine. You need to install Skype and buy a 10 Euro credit. And dial a canadian or us landline or cell directly. Voice clarity is good. But you need to use it from your computer, which sucks a little. Canada is 2 cents/min.

I feel very helpless and frustrated. Because, before moving here, I have checked the VOIP policy of Qatar, everything looked okay and was able to use Vonage for 3 months. I am not sure whether this problem was intentionally created or not. Only God knows.It will be interesting to watch if Qtel intentionally did anything like that, beacuse when whole world is moving forward why they would go backwards.

Cheers (can not cheer any more)

I am glad I checked QL! We have been having the same problems for the last 3 days too! It is very frustrating to not be able to call our families back home in the States. Any solutions? Has anyone tried anything to get it to work even for a little while? We have had no luck, not matter what setting we try with Vongae. Has this happened in Doha before? Thanks Roots for all your info.

Did anyone get anywhere with this? If it takes a bunch of us calling Qtel, can you post the number to call to complain?

Just spoke with Qtel. They are incredibly unhelpful. They state that they do not support VOIP, nothing has changed with the network, and that if my computer can connect then there must be no problem.

Zero,

I even made my bandwidth set to 30kbps. But same thing. Vonage has only three options 90/50 or 30 kbps. I also ran tracert, it shows really really high latency (more than 500 ms)

lol. vonage is a horribly inefficient client - change the codec bitrate to something below 25kb/s and you'll have no drama. 90kb/s uses more bandwidth than a proper international phone call using the phone. i love as soon as people can't access a site or voip slows down it's coz the qtel boogy man is behind it. cmon

to buckeye,

I already talked to QTEL and tell them about this problem. The problem is at QTel's end, I did a tracert and shows unusual very high network latency.When network latency is high,although it does not create any problem with regular browsing, but audio streaming (voip services) can be seriously hampered. In my case latency is 500ms, it should be less than 120ms. I also provided that test result to QTel. Smart solution would be if QTel cuts those hops where latency is greater than 120ms. But it is upto how they are going to solve this issue.

The better thing would be just call QTEL and speak to their technical services and let them know about this problem. When more people raise an issue, it will be resolved quickly. As I said earlier, according to ictQatar, voip is absolutely LEGAL. So I think QTel did not and can not block a voip service unless there are other reasons.According to Qtel policy, if they can not solve your problem you have right to go to ictQatar.

Sorry for my boring technical lecture. :)

Cheers

Hi Guys;

I have a similar service to Vonage called Viatalk. been using it in Qatar for 2 years now, and no major problems. but now for the last two days it has not been working also. I checked with viatalk, they could not tell me where the problem is but they don't have other reports of issues like mine in the US, and there is no reported issues on their side.

So I guess that the stories about Qtel blocking the Voip traffic might be true. I hope that they are not, I hope that its just temporary. We have been spoiled for the last 2 years using this for our call back to the US, i don't think we can live here without it.

To All,

I have heard back from Vonage.They analyzed my tracert result and concluded that the problem is at Qtel's end. Vonage asks me to speak to QTel and let them know that we are having difficulties with streaming audio from various websites. We also need to request Qtel to cut down the latency for hops where the latency is above 120ms, in our case sometimes it is more than 500ms.

I am laughing really hard now, Vonage does not know how difficult it would be to pass this message to QTel. I wonder why all on a sudden this thing happened. Does anybody know any issue with Qtel's backbone or somewhere in their main network ?

Any suggestion guys?

Hello All,

I have learnt from another forum that Skype is having the same problem. I am also working with Vonage, I have provided them with tracert and ping result to their server. I am waiting to hear from Vonage. Vonage can tell us exactly where is the problem. I will update the result from vonage if I get anything.

To dacount1229 --> please do not get upset with vodafone guy, he is just excited about this new company. I am all hoping that hopefully this VoIP problem is not result of price/marketing war between two giants.

Thanks for the info. Where did u buy your magickack from? I guess not from here, right?

Cheers

While it may only be a matter of time until they discover it, I use Magic Jack (another VOIP) device that doesn't require a special phone. $20/yr for unlimited calls to the US and Canada, good rates elsewhere.

According to ictQatar VOIP Policy:

2. No person or business within the State of Qatar may sell VoIP calls or services to the public or businesses without a license issued by ictQATAR. The only two companies currently licensed for that purpose are QTel and Vodafone.

to PeterPerfect: I have not said that V blocked or reduced the upload speed, I said "hopefully not". I am still guessing, this is a temporary technical issue.

btw, just to let everybody know, last time in 2005, when all voip services were interrupted people from US submitted written request to US Embassy to resolve the issue.

http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic9854.html

This isn't the place for a discussion really, but I was just trying to give an alternative view to Vonage users earlier and now we've got a couple of misperceptions to deal with:

Hi, Roots. Vodafone doesn't offer fixed broadband services, so there's nothing for us to block. Unlike mobile, there's still a monopoly in that space.

Hi, Dacourt1229, You might be able to call USA, EU (and many other countries) more cheaply using Vonage, but there are quite a few countries of interest to QL'ers too that are actually cheaper to call using Vodafone right now. (Parts of Philippines, Bangladesh and India, for example)

According to ictQATAR using voip is perfectly legal for personal usage: http://www.ict.gov.qa/output/NewsPage.aspx?PageID=781

Hopefully V & Q are not playing with the bandwidth to keep their monopoly. :)

Guys (vonage clients), Please do a little test.

1. Login to your vonage account

2.Under features --> go to Bandwidth Saver and click Configure

3. If the bandwidth is set for 90kbps , change it to 50 (or 30).

4.Click Submit

5. Follow this order: a) Switch off qtel modem b)Switch off router(if any) c) Switch off Vonage adapter and leave them off for 1 min

6.Follow this order now: a) Switch on qtel modem completely (it should be fully on and operative) b)Switch on router(it should be fully on and operative)(if any) c) Switch on Vonage adapter

Now try if it makes any difference with the voice quality. Just to let you know if you run any p2p application, it can consume most of your bandwidths and leave very little for Vonage. Last month, audio was not working, so that's what I did and started working. Yesterday I tried the same, and it was working for 30 mins.

Mine has not worked in 3 weeks. Can any help? Or know of a service that would fix this issue?

I have not been able to use my vonage for three weeks now. Can anyone help me? Its so frustrating not being able to call home. If anyone knows of a service that does help, I have no problems paying, as long as they fix it.

I too haven't spoke to my children in a couple days. It sucks. To the QLer that mentioned vodaphone....please don't try to promote them to me all my calls are FREE. My vonage has been fine for the last 3 years so I really can't upset over one hiccup. If I find anything else out I will keep you informed.

With an effective international calling rate of no more than QAR 0.50/minute right now, there's no need to go through the pain of using VoIP. Get yourself a Vodafone SIM card and call anyone in the world for less than QAR0.50/minute.

Yes. I have tried this morning as well. Same thing. I think my adapter is okay. My friend is also having the same problem. This is really frustrating for me. I did not speak to daughters for two days. Please, update here, if you find any solution or if you hear any news on this.

Thanks

You are not alone. Mine went out as well. I called vonage from my villa phone and threw a fit..LOL! After an hour of trouble shooting they decided to send me a new adapter. It was actually something with q-tel. I found out that all of the people using vonage in my compound had problems as well. I haven't tried it today yet since I'm at work. Have you tried it out yet as of this morning?