How to be notified when adapter is offline?

[holmes4]

If you guys are having issues, I would recommend keeping the ATA cool. The #1 reason why electronics turn off is because of heat. If you have your ATA stacked between your cable modem and wireless router you need to move it asap. Some of them look like they can easily be stacked, and could be, but they need adequate ventilation.

My ATA is on an open shelf by itself. It does not turn off, it simply disconnects from the service (connection LEDs are off).

[usa2k]

Being offline was more common back in good old 2003 using Vonage.

An SPI firewall commonly used on most routers, stops unsolicited external connections in their tracks. To bring up a web page, the browser initiates the connection, and the server replies. Because the packets are numbered, and the source is known, the firewall will let the data through. This is sometimes referred to as pinhole access.

VoIP is very similar. The provider cannot ring your phone unless the ATA provides a return path. The ATA constantly checks in with the provider's server, and when a call comes through the path is available.

In 2003 it seemed that especially Linksys Routers were causing grief with Vonage. The window for SPI was too narrow, so there would be a loss of registration. This was noticeable from missed calls, and no dial tone the first time you picked up the phone. There are old threads somewhere on DSLReports.com that discussed it back then. These days, the VoIP providers know better how to balance the timing, and likely Linksys made refinements too. Things are much better. Still, a router can be a source of such problems. Also Internet has many links/hops to complete a connection, and though seemingly consistent, there are still exceptions to the rule. Even worse are the intermittent ones.

To lose the lights on an ATA likely means it lost registration with the server. Can you reach the server to register? Was the server too busy to respond in a timely way? These are things that the provider may be able to analyze. VOIPo has some very savvy support engineers. Every customer is fairly unique for the path data travels, so it makes sense that at times one provider seems to work better than another. Many people on DSLR advocate multiple providers, or cell phone backup.

If your issue happens often, make sure you alert VOIPo by submitting a ticket. Maybe even a different server will get better results? VOIPo is best at divining the source of your problem. I suspect it is easier to deduce issues in a faulty connection, than lack of a connection. Hopefully this kind of occurrence will eventually be a distant memory.