ZDNet has a piece pointing to Vonage forums and some users claiming a conspiracy over using Vonage over a Vonage connection, as if Comcast might be “doing something” to degrade the Vonage calls. At the end, the ZDnet piece asks:

Are these complaints scapegoating by Vonage users, or is there something here?

I’m not sure what the experience with Vonage running across Comcast is for the people complaining and I didn’t click over and read through the complaints to see, but as of March 15 we’ve been with the Vonage + Comcast combo for two years now and our experience has been extremely positive. We use Vonage + Comcast 100% for residential use and Vonage + DSL 75% for business. We use Skype for both businesses and have experienced more call quality issues with Skype than Vonage.

In fact, we have experienced even more call quality issues (but still not anything that significant or abnormal) with our local small phone company DSL than we have with Vonage hooked in through Comcast. Our local phone company POTS line has had issues. They phone guys have been out a couple times to check the POTS lines in the same period of time that we’ve had our black Vonage box. And we are still using the same two black phone boxes we bought two years ago. So no need for new equipment either yet.

Thus my opinion — at least anybody in our area — is it’s scapegoating. This doesn’t mean these other Vonage users don’t have legitimate complaints. I remember Chris Pirillo complaining about his Vonage + Comcast connection up north and believe he eventually gave them both the boot. I’ll definitely report back if/when things should ever change.

Disclaimer: we are still (I think) in the Vonage affiliate program, but don’t bother linking to them any more in new entries. We never made a penny from their affiliate program so my advice on that one is much different: don’t bother. I’m 99.99999% certain we sent people over to sign up and it disturbs me that we never got paid. Still, one can have a good service and a lousy affiliate program. Prospective affiliates beware.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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