Peenie Wallie

I heard an ad on the radio that I could walk into Best Buy and buy all of the hardware required for Vonage for about $25. So, I went into Best Buy.

"I want that Vonage thing."

"Which one? We've got like eleventeen or so."

"Oh. Right. OK. I just want this one then." I pointed to the Linksys one. They're owned by Cisco. I already have a Linksys router at home, so I figure get the same brand, go home, and 'Plug and Pray.'

So, I got home, and decided I should solve my intermittent problem with my Remote Desktop Protocol(RDP) tunnel through the firewall before I set about introducing still more change into the network configuration. It should be working properly, before I start to jack with it, I figured. So, one night I got serious about the problem and solved the Remote Desktop Protocol(RDP) tunnel problem in a couple of hours. I'll miss the Webroot Spysweeper like I miss the clap.

So, I opened the box at home and found eight separate documents, which I surveyed briefly before tackling the project at hand. Eventually, I settled on the "Quick Installation" guide and the "Installation and Troubleshooting Guide" for the "Linksys Phone Adapter with 2 Ports for Voice-over-IP Model No. PAP2."

I followed the directions to the letter, hooked up the equipment as instructed, and went to www.vonage.com and registered for their service, per the directions.

At this point, the directions assured me that "The installation of the Phone Adapter is complete. You may pick up the phone and make calls." Right. As if it were that simple. No dice. I kept getting this annoying message that I may have the phone plugged into the wrong port. No dialtone, just this annoying repetetive voice coming from cyberspace, castigating me for being so stupid.

Eventually, it occurred to me that the billing charge on my account included a shipping charge. Slowly, it dawned on me that they were so stupid that they were shipping me another "Phone Adapter". The problem with this is 1) I already had a phone adapter and 2) each phone adapter has a unique Media Access Control(MAC) address and 3) the MAC address is tied to your Vonage account.

So that's why my phone wouldn't work. These idiots had turned on access to a Phone Adapter that was in a warehouse in the Black Hole of Calcutta. Whereas the Phone Adapter that I had connected had never been activated by Vonage.

So, called back, canceled the original order, made a new order and gave them the correct MAC address of my Phone Adapter. This time, they assigned me two new phone numbers, instead of one phone number like I wanted.

At this point, I had a dial tone, but couldn't dial out or receive incoming calls. And the blue lights wouldn't come on for phone 1 or phone 2. This, after about 2 hours worth of work. I began to feel like starting a little revolution of my own at this point. Dialing out gave me a fast busy signal. Read troubleshooting steps...lots of information about rebooting everything...modem, router, phone adapter, PC, microwave, anything remotely near the network would need to be rebooted 17 times. Nothing worked.

Finally, we decided to assign the phone adapter a static IP address of 192.168.1.200. Turned off DHCP, assigned static ip address. All of this through the steps outlined in "Chapter 4: Using the Phone Adapter's Interactive Voice Responce Menu". A maddening little forray into hell, this was. But I escaped the menu and determined myself to set up port forwarding in my router per the direction in Step 2 of "Appendix A: Troubleshooting". Trying to understand their directions is maddening. For instance, although you have a Phone 1 and a Phone 2 port on your Phone Adapter, these do not equate to "Internet phone 1" and "Internet phone 2" in the port mapping sections in Appendix A: Trouble Shooting. You've really got to put on your thinking cap and realize that, when they talk about "Internet phone 1", "Internet phone 2", "Internet phone 3", and "Internet phone 4", they mean all four of these have to be mapped, even if you only have one phone. There's a special place in hell for the dim bastards that write directions like this. But, eventually, we deciphered their cryptic, directions and I went into my Linksys router port forwarding and forwarded the following ports:

Phone Adapters Internet ports:
* SIP ports 5060 through 5061 using UDP protocol
* TFTP port 69 using UDP protocol
* DNS port 53 using UDP protocol
* RTP ports 10,000 through 20,000 using UDP protocol

I even enable the reclusive and arcane port 123, per these esoteric directions on the Vonage web site:
* NTP port 123 using UDP protocol

I set the port forwarding to forward to the static ip address 192.168.1.200. But, it was all in vain. I could ping the address 192.168.1.200, but still couldn't dial out or receive calls. Dial tone, but that was it. And the blue lights on the phone adapter wouldn't come on for phone 1 or phone 2. (Note: I say "I" for a lot of this, but Robert really helped me a lot, and I'm grateful for all of the work that he did.)

Finally, I took all the documents that came in the box to make sure I wasn't missing something. I looked at the "Vonage User Guide"...woman on the cover..cradling a cordless phone...smiling...carefree. It seemed like a dream. How could a woman set this thing up if I couldn't get it working in 4 hours? Was she smarter than me? Was it possible that a housewife could make it work, but a computer consultant was incapable of breathing life into the same beast?

Finally, I went back to Chapter 4 and verified all of my settings using the tedious little counterintuitive Interactive Voice Response Menu. It does work like they claim it does, but you have to understand that you're keying into the voice over a garbled computer voice, that keeps bleating, oblivious to your commands. So, you just have to have faith...faith that punching the asterisk four times in a row while the voice is chastising you and castigating you for some imaginary, perceived greivances, will produce a meaningful result. Namely, it will eventually dump you into the ubiquituous Configuration Menu.

From here, I was able to coax the following information from my hobbled phone adapter card:

Dial Action Results
100# Check DHCP Status Disabled
110# Check TCP/IP Address 192.168.1.200
120# Check Subnet Mask 0.0.0.0
130# Check Gateway Address 0.0.0.0
140# Check MAC Address 001217FXB692
150# Check Firmware Version 3.1.3

In my mind everything was perfect. Except that I had two phone numbers, neither of which worked. Thanks Vonage. I've got your revolution right here.

Finally, in desperation, I called their tech support line. I got some Indian that sounded like she was in a tin can on the far side of the moon.

"I see you canceled your order today." she quipped.

"Yeah. That was my mistake. See, I followed your directions, so obviously that was mistake. Sorry."

"I see you have two phone numbers on your account."

"Yeah, again, it's probably my fault. I asked for one, and I received two. So, again, I'm sorry."

She walked me through the steps of rebooting everything in the vicinity of my home office. She told me to reboot the fax machine, the refrigerator, even the hot water heater. I just pretended to go along. I lied and told her I was doing exactly what she said. Instead, I just tried to stay awake.

Eventually, she told me to put a secret code into the Interactive Voice Response menu. It was something that wasn't in Chapter 4. I typed in the following:

73738# 7756112# 1

This resets everything in the phone adapter to the factory defaults. Immediately, the blue lights came on and the phone started working. I have no idea what happened, but somehow, a woman on the dark side of the moon bailed me out.

Welcome to the Revolution, indeed.

Synopsis: I like Vonage, now that it's working. I pay $14.99 a month for 500 minutes a month, local or long distance, anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. For $24.99 a month, you can have unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada. You can set it up so that your voice mail is sent to you as an email attachment. However, if you want to set it up, do it this way:
1) go to www.vonage.com and click on "Sign Up".
2) select your plan ($14.99 or $24.99)
3) complete the process, and they will send you your phone adapter in the mail.
4) "Plug and Pray". Plug it all in and pray that it works when you without having to delve into their obtuse port forwarding directions in Appendix A.

If you follow these directions, you'll avoid the little disasterous traps that I fell into. You can walk into Best Buy and buy a phone adapter, but I would seriously recommend against this option. If you do it, you may end up getting hosed, like I did. Keep in mind, their directions suck, and you may end up "Joining the Revolution" in a way that Vonage never expected. ;)