 | ATT No Longer accepting New CallVantage Customers
rating: 3
ATT is no longer accepting new CallVantage customers so confirm before you buy this product. Oct. 15, 2008
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Excellent Seller
rating: 5
Excellent seller, found the product as mentioned. willing to buy again from the same seller in future.
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Flexible features, and a small UPS makes all the difference
rating: 4
We've had model DVG-1120M for over a year. CallVantage is a very full-featured service with many options. For example, if the electrical power goes out at your house, you can set up CallVantage so that house calls are automatically routed to a cell phone or to voice mail. There are also many other great features we use.
The VOIP box has been reliable though there are a couple of irritations.
- The documentation that comes with it is quite sufficient for basic plug-it-in-and-make-a-call. But for users who have a home network and want to set up networking features, the documentation is scanty to say the very least.
- The model we have has a few bugs and we (so far) haven't received a firmware update for it. (Maybe customers have to *ask* for bug fixes?). The biggest bug-a-boo on our model is we can't enable MAC filtering. The VOIP box stops responding the internal network whenever MAC address filtering is enabled. To re-enable the internet requires a hard reset and then reconfiguration. As another user suggested, it may be better to let the VOIP box act as a pass-through and use another more sophisticated piece of equipment to control the networking.
- We have a cable modem. After a power interruption the VOIP will usually not work right away if all the attached equipment - cable modem, voip, router, and computer - powers up simultaneously. The VOIP box is quite picky about the reset sequence of all attached equipment. Even a sub-second mains power outage may affect the cable modem and VOIP box.
- After a power outage the reset sequence of the VOIP box and attached equipment is painful. The documentation says to power off all the attached equipment and power them up, in sequence, with a couple of minutes in between. We get frequent power interruptions, often just 1-to-5 second outage blips, sometimes a few times a day. Resets were a major burden until we got a UPS.
To avoid burdensome resets due to brief mains power outages, buy a small UPS at a computer store or office supply store. It resembles a large heavy power strip and it will eliminate the seemingly-endless hours of hassle if your power is as unreliable as ours. (A UPS will not, however, last through a power outage lasting more than couple of minutes - exact time depends upon the size of the UPS and the power draw on it).
We enjoy the flexible, custom features of CallVantage and the VOIP box is fairly easy to use with the addition of a UPS.
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just gave up
rating: 1
i had callvantage for about 10 months and it was always spotty. set up was a cinch, and the website they provide is excellent. however, from the moment i plugged the telephone adapter in, i had problems. i can't recall the model number of the TA, off-hand. but it was one of their earlier linksys models. the installation instructions stressed that the TA needed to sit between my cable modem and wireless router.
my first issue became apparent immediately after installation. my phone worked just fine and i made a number of calls. my wireless router, unfortunately, was totally neutralized. i could connect to it directly. dhcp still worked. i could log in and play with my administrator settings (to no avail). i just couldn't access the internet. as best i could tell, the Telephone Adapter was totally and completely blocking traffic that was coming from the wireless router.
this problem was eventually resolved by their tech support. i believe what they did was open up the TA to all traffic coming from my router's IP. i didn't question the safety of this solution... i was just happy to have my internet working. it was at this time that i was made aware of an interesting feature of this (and perhaps other) telephone adapters. the TA tests and maintains a minimum amount of bandwidth with the outside world. if the TA detects too much non-VOIP traffic passing through it from the internet to devices inside its network (or vice versa), it resets itself and/or blocks the traffic.
that bears repeating. if the TA determines its not getting enough bandwidth, it claims it all for itself... this has nothing to do with whether or not you're using the phone at the time -- an incoming call could come at any moment. but when the TA does this, and i never figured out how to adjust that cutoff threshold, you've got no internet.
at times, it took 10 or 15 minutes before i could connect to the outside world again. for someone who works in IT from his home, this is unacceptable. worse, for those 10 or 15 minutes, all the cost advantages of using this service evaporate. i'm paying $40/month for broadband internet access that i can't use. in my mind, callvantage just got $40/month more expensive... because that's all i can use my cable modem for.
other issues abounded, but they all seemed to trace back to the fact that my TA was bunk and seriously hogging my connection. i had a desktop computer connected directly to the TA and it exhibited every symptom of this problem you could imagine. slow downloads. pages not loading. strange browser errors about not being able to access a domain (blocking traffic to/from my DNS servers?) and web pages that would only load if i typed "http://" before the "google.com".
i called callvantage customer service at least a dozen times, but not with great regularity. regardless of what the other reviewers have said about customer service, with the myriad problems i had with callvantage, not once did their customer service line keep me on hold for less than 10 minutes. these customer service representatives are trained to guide you through exactly two procedures: 1) resetting all of your hardware by powering down, then powering it all back up in order and 2) testing the speed of your internet connection using speakeasy.net's online tool. most of the problems i had with the service required multiple calls to reach resolution (or reach kludge, depending on your POV). however, these first line customer service reps ALWAYS insist on you doing these two things first... carefully and calmly explaining that you called an hour prior and 1) reset everything and 2) tested your speed is useless.... say it to the wall before you call them... that might ease the frustration.
there were a couple times where it appeared that resetting everything solved the problem... but the solution was never permanent. and not once while doing the speedtest did a customer service rep tell me that i did not have a fast enough connection to continue using (and paying for) their services.
the final straws for me came when i suggested that perhaps they should send me a new telephone adapter, perhaps a more sophisticated model. the customer service rep explained, without a hint of irony in her voice, that it was company policy not to replace hardware until the customer had called 5 times about the same problem. the catch there is that, even if you call up every tuesday and friday to complain about the same problem, if you wait more than 24 hours between calls, they kick you out of the ticketing system and the next time you call it's a "new problem".
i explained that this was my 6th or 7th time calling in the course of a month about web pages not loading on my computer connected to the TA and she told me that i would be bumped up to the "next tier" of technical support. that pretty much did it... who the hell had i been talking to all along? the "next tier" conferenced into my call and there was some jabber about whether or not i reset the cable modem and TA properly (hilarious)... then they told me someone would get in touch with soon. two days later, at around 10pm, i received a call on my cell phone from a technical support person. i explained that i was miles away from my computer, and that it was friday night. he asked me to call him back at a certain 800 number which, now, i wish i could share with the world. unfortunately the piece of paper it was written on was torn to shreds when i called the number that saturday and was told that my "problem ticket" had been "resolved". i would have to go back to "first tier" customer support, reset my adapter and test my speed a half-dozen times, and then maybe someone technical would be willing to hear my case.
that was when i gave up.... problems with loading web pages in my browser were clearly not going to be resolved by these people. what's more, the phone itself started cutting out in the middle of calls. i'd pick it up and hear no dial tone. i'd call someone and get an operator explaining the number was not in service. simply deplorable.
when i called to cancel, the fellow i spoke to asked if he could entice me to stay by offering me a free month's worth of service. i explained that my service had been near-useless for the last month and pretty damned spotty for the 9 that preceeded that. i'm rolling it back to a regular land-line. there isn't enough "UNLIMITED CALLING!!!" advertising in the world that's going to make me consider using this again.
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Does not work well with others!
rating: 2
My initial experience was very good, until I added a wireless internet video camera to my HOME LAN. Evidently, remote access to your HOME LAN is impossible with the D-Link DVG-1120M connected between your Cable/DSL modem and your router.
Despite the information obtained from the AT&T Call Vantage Support Web site(see "Full Installation Guide" identifying an option for connecting the D-Link DVG-1120M off of a router connected to your cable modem), you will get no support. My request to activate the AT&T CallVantage D-Link DVG-1120M T/A in this configuration was refused, since it is "not supported" by AT&T CallVantage.
If you have no additional plans to take advantage of the many applications available for broadband internet access, then this should work fine. Otherwise, go with Linksys.
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