asterisk users - Mar 2005 - Vonage Linksys Router - Life after Vonage

I setup a vonage account last year, and cancelled it last night when I 
put my asterisk box together and signed up for a Broadvoice account to 
use with it.

Now I would like to use my Linksys router as an MTA, but realize it is 
still programmed with all of vonage's proprietary information and I do 
not know how to clear it.  I understand that just pushing the reset 
button will not do it.

I've read that someone was able to do it by contacting vonage and 
getting instructions for clearing the router of the vonage information.  
Does anyone have the instructions for completing this or is this 
something that only the vonage people can provide. 

I've spent the last 2 hours and 30 minutes in the vonage phone system 
trying to get to tech support to find out how to do this without any 
luck.  Their phone system and indeed their customer support in general 
is really lacking.

(On top of which, they charged me a $40 termination fee to terminate my 
account - just a parting shot I guess).

If anyone has any suggestions, or the instructions for clearing the MTA 
on this linksys router, I'd be very greatful.

GP



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GP wrote:
> I setup a vonage account last year, and cancelled it last night when I
> put my asterisk box together and signed up for a Broadvoice account to
> use with it.
>
> Now I would like to use my Linksys router as an MTA, but realize it is
> still programmed with all of vonage's proprietary information and I do
> not know how to clear it.  I understand that just pushing the reset
> button will not do it.
>
> I've read that someone was able to do it by contacting vonage and
> getting instructions for clearing the router of the vonage
> information. Does anyone have the instructions for completing this or
> is this something that only the vonage people can provide.
>
> I've spent the last 2 hours and 30 minutes in the vonage phone system
> trying to get to tech support to find out how to do this without any
> luck.  Their phone system and indeed their customer support in general
> is really lacking.
>
> (On top of which, they charged me a $40 termination fee to terminate
> my account - just a parting shot I guess).
>
> If anyone has any suggestions, or the instructions for clearing the
> MTA on this linksys router, I'd be very greatful.
>
> GP
The PAP2-NA's have a web interface. I realize you don't have a -NA2 but
you
could try it.

-Matthew

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005, GP wrote:
> I've read that someone was able to do it by contacting vonage and
getting
> instructions for clearing the router of the vonage information.  Does
anyone
> have the instructions for completing this or is this something that only
the
> vonage people can provide. 
> I've spent the last 2 hours and 30 minutes in the vonage phone system
trying
> to get to tech support to find out how to do this without any luck.  Their 
> phone system and indeed their customer support in general is really
lacking.
on the Cisco ATA-186s which they used to use (before Cisco EOL'ed them) 
Vonage had them configured to use a (64-bit?) RC4 key to encrypt the 
configuration and programmed a random password to each device. Every time 
an account change prompted an update to the ATA's configuration, it would 
be encrypted with a new RC4 key and get a new password. So don't expect to 
find a universal back-door password, I doubt you'll find one.

I too have heard of people persuading a vonage tech to provide the 
password to log into and factory reset their device, but I get the 
impression that it is an uncommon occurrence.. you'd be lucky, basically.
> (On top of which, they charged me a $40 termination fee to terminate my 
> account - just a parting shot I guess).
yup.. That right there was the primary reason why I skipped over them in 
the beginning. It's buried in their terms of service somewhere, along with 
all their other over-restrictive junk..
> If anyone has any suggestions, or the instructions for clearing the MTA on 
> this linksys router, I'd be very greatful.
you could try faking out the box by setting up some DNS and network 
spoofing to make the box think it is talking to vonage when in fact it is 
talking to your * box. If you use autocreatepeer in sip.conf then * will 
accept connections from the PAP2 even though you haven't added the 
credentials in sip.conf. This is quite a kludge, however..

When it comes down to it, I think Vonage thinks it is better to make 
people throw equipment away rather than allow it to be reused.

Greg

> > I too have heard of people persuading a vonage tech to provide the
> > password to log into and factory reset their device, but I get the
> > impression that it is an uncommon occurrence.. you'd be lucky,
> basically.
> 
> I have an ATA-186 that Vonage unlocked for me. They used to just
charge
> $20 or so (on top of the cancellation fee) to unlock any device that
> wasn't active. You'll have to get through their first line of
support
> and eventually transferred. They *may* have changed the policy with
the
> linksys boxes, as they couldn't do it when they first came out (I
> tried). Now that linksys sells an unlocked version they may well be
> willing though.
> 
We are an authorized Linksys service provider (meaning we can buy
Linksys ata's for use with our service from distribution) and I know
from our agreement that vonage, or any other itsp, is prohibited from
making the Linksys ata's available in an unprovisioned state. Even the
"NA" product can only be sold to authorized itsp. I think this is why
vonage will not unlock the Linksys for you. If it gets back to Linksys
that they did it they will get a hand slap from Linksys.

Why not just return the Linksys to vonage, get your 40 bucks back, and
buy the sipura spa2000? They are the same thing, also sold under the
vegastream brand.

If you really want to try to hack the Linksys try looking for
information on how to recover a sipura password, not sure it exists, but
you might have better luck.

In the end you will probably just end up with a $40 paperweight. If you
are successful and post the process you will make a lot of unhappy
ex-vonage customers happy and Linksys and vonage not so happy :)

Brian, are you sure you cant port your number aware from Vonage?

I was at a VOIP conference last week and the Vonage spokesman said quite
clearly that Vonage allowed people to port numbers out - although he did
say that not all carriers were set up to receive them.


Cheers,
Dean


-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Brian
Capouch
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 2:31 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Vonage Linksys Router - Life after Vonage

Matt wrote:
> Indeed.. there is no $40 cancellation fee unless you fail to return
> their ATA.. then they charge you and it's yours... what you think
> those devices are free?
I'm pretty sure Vonage added that termination fee some fair while after 
they began offering "free" ATAs as an inducement to use their service.

I signed up in May 2002, and at that time there was no mention of a 
termination or disconnect fee in their TOS.

It wasn't until after a very lively cottage industry sprang up selling 
"cancelled account" units on Ebay that they retroactively added that
charge.

But $40 for a ~$150 ATA was still a good deal for the grifters, and 
after continuing to take a beating on Ebay, Vonage finally inveighed 
upon Cisco to put the "nuclear option" password on the unit, which
made
it a brick if one didn't know the magic string.

An irony quickly followed: Cisco wasn't all too keen on doing that 
change; they were aware of the negative PR that would follow when they 
would be forced to tell people, "Nope, you have to just send it to a 
landfill."  But within months of Cisco's reluctant accomodation, Vonage
dropped them like a hot potato when Motorola walked in the door with an 
ATA that was .000000000001 cents cheaper per unit.  Ha ha.

Vonage sucks, and if I could port that number I've had now for almost 
three years, I would drop them just like they did Cisco.

B.
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