August 2016, chose Vonage to provide VOIP services for client's office (law offices), chose Yaelink VOIP phones.
There are 10 phones to be installed, bridged to PC's with built in Ethernet ports on all phones.
Existing service provide is Optimum Online Business 50Gb down/20Gb up. (or thereabouts, old name was 'Boost')
The company has existing phone services with Optimum which would go away once VOIP was successfully implemented.
The Optimum service provided is with a static IP, and therefore a provided Cisco DPQ3925 device (locked down, zero access except to set port 25 ad/or 80), and acts as the cable modem with the static IP.
For the last 10 years, various routers and switches were used, and earlier this year we changed to a Cisco SG-200-18 'smart switch', running in unmanaged mode (no configurations made whatsoever other than turning it on out of the box).
For over 3+ years we had an Apple AirPort Extreme as the primary router/wireless device, assigning DHCP addresses to the office, as well as 2 additional Apple AirPort Expresses.
We recently added a Ring Video doorbell, Blink Video Cameras, Dropcams, etc., which created wireless stability issues with so many devices.
We then removed 2 months ago, the Apple AirPort Extreme & Expresses, and installed the new Eero wireless router/access points (3 of them).
As per Eero's support, the primary Eero was directly behind the Cisco DPQ3925, configured with the static IP and the settings that go along with the configuration. The other 2 Eero's were put into place one by one, authenticated on the network/app, and for over 2 months, this network has been stable, rock solid, zero issues.
However, Eero informs me that it's not really for anything but home use and if I wanted to use it in the environment I have it in, that I should put it into bridge mode. More on that later.
So, we plug in the Yaelink phones from Vonage, they get assigned an IP address from the DHCP from the Eero, and they work horribly. Gurgling, choppy, horrible service. Vonage support says that they don't support Eero, they don't support Cisco DPQ3925, and that we should first try replacing the "smart" switch (Cisco SG-200-18) with a "dumb" switch (they recommend a Netgear JGS524).
I do exactly that, zero communications from any devices on the network, rebooted all equipment and devices 4-6 times, waited for hours, zero communications.
I assume the Netgear switch is bad, exchange it, go through the exact steps all over again, zero network, nothing works.
I then put back the Cisco SG-200-18 switch, everything works.
I then poke around inside the config of the Cisco switch and see there are configurable options for VOIP, I work with a Cisco support agent who informs me that although I've configured the Cisco switch correctly for VOIP services, it won't work on the existing equipment in place, as we need a V-Lan to work with it.
Put everything back again to a working state.
Discuss with Vonage "top tier" support staff, they suggest the "dumb" switch to be paired with a Netgear WNDR3400 router.
I get the Netgear router, configure it, go onsite, remove the Eero, remove the Cisco switch, nothing, nada, at the switch which distributes to the network, however I can plug my laptop into a port on the Netgear router and get services, albeit dead slow, pings timed out, dies, reboot all equipment, comes back, dies. (The router was setup offsite for 48 hours running without issues).
Optimum support assisted and informed me they could "see" the DPQ3925 and the WNDR3400, so in their book, it was not their problem.
Put EVERYTHING back to Cisco Switch, Eero devices, all working as expected before all of the events that I've described.
PRIOR to any implementation of equipment, etc., I interfaced with maybe 5 different Vonage support persons who ultimately handed it off to the top tier support team in Atlanta, which have been for the most part, unhelpful.
So, the question is:
ANYONE in the US with Optonline services for business with a static IP and a Cisco DPQ3925 have Vonage working, and if so, what switch, what router?
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