(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick




Vonage VoIP Stops Working

from the reliability... dept

One of the few remaining hurdles for most users concerning any plan to ditch a traditional landline and go completely VoIP is the reliability of the service. If your power goes out: no VoIP. If your broadband connection goes down: no VoIP. Now, Vonage, the leader of the independent VoIP providers just convinced a bunch of people to hold off a little longer by having their own internal problems, so that many users couldn't make outgoing phone calls for an hour and a half this morning. There are plenty worse things in the world that could happen, but people are used to being able to pick up their phone and dial without having to worry about whether or not a dialtone exists. Update: Turns out Vonage wasn't the only VoIP provider having problems. Over in Hong Kong, two independent VoIP providers are accusing broadband provider PCCW of disrupting their VoIP connections on purpose -- to keep people using PCCW's landlines. It seems unlikely that the same thing happened with Vonage, but it does raise that issue of network neutrality again.

Leave a Comment..

 
 

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It