Is it the full moon? Perhaps it's a mysterious meteor shower, or an alien warship disrupting our Earthling communications systems. Or maybe it's interference from the National Security Agency doing all those warrantless wiretaps on the Internet.

Who knows? The effect is that Vonage's Voice Over Internet Protocol telephone service periodically goes from great to frightening in less time that it takes Lon Chaney Jr. to become a werewolf.

I'm a Vonage customer and never know when the service is going to be clear, or scratchy, or when it's going to cough up a hairball of old voicemail. And customer service? Remember Riff Raff, the servant in The Rocky Horror Picture Show? It's like that.