Motorola VT2142 Review - Teletypewriter

Before I begin my review, I'd like to mention few things.

TTY stands for teletypewriter and it's use for deaf, hard-of-hearing, hearing impaired, and those with speech disabilities. When a "dialer" (person who makes a phone call) dials a TTY number via a TTY, a dialer receives a response from a caller (for example, "HELLO THIS IS TAMMIE GA") which translates to TTY tones from their TTY and in my end, my TTY translates from TTY tones back to text typed from a caller. ("GA" stands for "Go Ahead" and "SK," which was not mentioned, stands for "Stop Keying.")

About the "relay" that will be mentioned in my review, when you dial 711, a state relay operator will answer a phone and types "FL OPR ID###### NBR PLS GA" (where ##### is an operator's ID number) for you to dial the number from your TTY and when done, you type "GA." Now, let's get to the point on how relay works. When a relay operator dials a number you've provided, the relay operator dials the number for you. When a caller picks up the phone and says "Hello," as an example, the relay operator types "HELLO GA" to you, and you identify your name and start typing for beginning your conversation. The relay operator takes the place for speaking to a caller and if necessary, explains the relay to a caller (but not all the time, in order to save time between you and your caller). This is very handy for those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

So, with those two out of the way, let's begin a review.

Well, in case you may not know, Vonage doesn't support 711 dialing. The reason for this is if you block International Calling (good thing to prevent anyone in your house/apartment from making International phone calls to save your money), if you can hear and have a standard phone, you will hear "International calling had been blocked" and I've experienced this since the Vonage services thinks that 711 is an International number because the first digit starts with "7." Thus, I get no text in my TTY. I've e-mailed Vonage Customer Support as a request to add support for dialing 711, but Vonage told me they don't offer feature request. And I found it as a bummer for those who use 711. To remedy this, you will have to do a search in the Internet for a state relay number and dial that 1-800 number. It's a pain to remember but it's true.

If you have an ability to hear, Vonage V-Forecast (700-WEATHER -- 700-932-8437) is a great feature if you don't have time to turn on your computer or watch TV to look at the weather forecast. It's a time-saver! But there's a disadvantage to those with TTY (including me): No TTY support! Another disadvantage is the synthetic speech--it sounded like the woman is ill and didn't seem to pronounce the words very well but can almost understand the numbers, so the speech synthesizer really needs improvement.

I've not used most of the features, but one feature is the Autometic Call Return. You have to be able to hear and speak if you dial *69 and so you can call back.

The service and call quality is great! I haven't been missing a single character in my TTY and haven't got a wrong character in my TTY. I have my TTY connected to my Motorola VT2142, which connects between the cable modem and my D-Link DI-524 Wireless-G Router. With the highest bandwidth used, devices like Motorola VT2142 and VT2442 supports G.711 codec, used for plain old telephone standard (POTS) back on 1970s.

Vonage also has a Voicemail service but you kinda need to have a standard telephone and follow the instructions for setting up a greeting. However, I've made too many mistakes and went over the limit, which made me feel nervious (I sweat) and will have to try it again later (my fault in my part since every mistake will be recorded in the greeting message and made too many changes over the limit). I'll suggest you use your TTY's built-in answering machine if you have one. For me, it's not that easy to not look at the keyboard since by lending my back forward, this could increase my chance of making more mistakes than when keeping my back straight typed with little to no mistakes possible.

Overall, I'll give Vonage 8 out of 10.
Reviewer: GraysonPeddie