Category: the Rant Board
I was wondering how many of you have digital phone with your cable company? I do and let me tell you I'm about to cancel it. I have nothing but problems. I'm always losing my dial tone and service and they send techs after techs out here and they fix it but then it breaks again. Makes me wondering if the techs really know what they are doing. Anyone else with digital phone have unreliable service?
Troy
I have digital phone with my cable service, and I LOVE it. I've only ever had problems once, and the fixed it right away.. I am sorry to hear that yours isn't going so well.
What exactly is a digital phone?
Canada and cheap 1 to 5 cents a minute, calls to rest of the world + Skype calls are free).
Quality isn't perfect, it's slightly worse than the Cable companies but not much worse, they're really surprisingly good and I hope the world will move to consolidate the computer and the phone, makes sense to me.
Well, it's fixed now, they found some bad wire, but the tech did not clean up his mess, he left it for me.
Troy
Nikos, I'll leave it to someone else to explain digital phone service that knows what they're talking about, but basically as I understand it, it is possible to send audio over the internet. Its sometimes called Voice over Internet Protocol or VOIP. Having said that, I've talked to one or two people who use it. The audio quality of the phone is fine, but their voice mail outgoing message definitely sounds digitized. My primary concern is that if the power goes out, so does your phone service, and a phone is so important I don't want to be without even with my cellphone. I don't think some areas quite have all the 911 bugs worked out yet from what some people have told me.
Lou
For me I don't see the big deal about power outage and phone service. Yes, granted, when the power goes out you can't call 911 from your internet phone (internet phone does not work when power is not on). I've had one power outage over the last 2 years that lasted about may be 5 minutes (granted I've been lucky I'm sure, we don't have hurricanes and such). I've made one 911 call in that same time period, from the road on a cell phone (not for me but we witnessed some violence downtown and wanted to alert the police).
So, in that 5 minute period when the power is out, what is the probability that you need to make a 911 call? And even if you do need to make one you can just make it from a cell/mobile phone, even a phone with no service plan allows you to make a 911 call.
May be when power is out there's a risk to mobile phone networks as well, I'm not sure, but I don't think so, I think they have back up generqators. And, besides, if power goes out because of weather it's not unlikely that the phone lines will go down as well, in which case you're in the same situation you would be with an internet phone.
I understand those who want to be this careful but I think, statistically, it's a risk that is absolutely worth taking.
A normal phone line from Bell South here, with local plan only comes to almost $60 with unlimited local calls, you're still paying 5 cents per minute for long distance. They say the plan is only $19 or $29 or something like that, but it always came to well over $50 with government charges and taxes and hidden fees and all sorts of stuff like that. With TWC I paid $40 for unlimited calls anywhere in the U.S. and now I pay $40 a year for same calls (granted my computer has to be on in order for me to make a phone call, but it's a small price to say) and I can call anywhere in the world for a few cents per minute, definitely less than Bell South charged for calling to the next state.
I"m sure the governmenthere will catch on and start taxing Voice over IP phone calls the same taxes and fees etc as they charge the regular phone lines and may be the phone and internet companies will succeed in charging you for data transferred to your computer, which might just kill the Voice over IP revolution (which is said because, when it comes down to it, it's a technology that allows the same wire to transfer 10 or even 100 times more phone calls using this technology than a regular phone line so clearly it's simply more intelligent and efficient technology).
Until then I'm definitely enjoying the savings of it all, $20 to $30 a month adds up to quite a bit if you think about it.
cheers
-B
The digital phone I'm talking about is similar, but a bit different. Basically you have your regular standard phone that hooks into your phonejack on the wall and what you've got is a special modem my cable company calls it an advanced modem. Basically this modem caries your internet, and phone signal over your cable line the same cable line that is hooked to your tv. Note that your modem also has a phone cord that plugs into your standard walljack. Your computer does not have to be on to use the service. In case of power failures these modems have a 4 hour battery backup. I believe that this also ties into voice over ip some how but not sure. You also have free long distance anywhere in the u.s but not sure about canada.
Troy
Optimum Voice from cablevision is the service I have. I swear by them, but my sister and her friends swear at them. Basically their issue is if you are
on a call with another OV user, you can't use 3-way calling, which everyone uses liberally.
I have a cell phone and I'm so happy with it. See the rave board for details. I rarely use the home phone because I don't have free long distance and I don't have but two friends in my home town.
sick of seeing all the damn commercials on tV for Digital phone. gur'r'r'r!
i'm interested in trying Lingo. No, not the game show, the digital phone service provider. lol
I recently signed up for digital phone service from my cable company. There are a few problems. We lost cable service for a few hours one day, so of course that meant no phone service either. I do have a cell phone, but not everyone has my cell number. Another problem is that instead of using caller ID, I used to dial *69 if I missed a call to find out who had called. I can't do that with digital service. Also, many menu driven phone numbers, such as Zone by Phone, calling the "backdoor" number where I work to check voice mail, etc. cannot be accessed with my land line phone now. I can call the number, but as soon as I am prompted to hit * or # or dial a number to make a selection, hitting those buttons does no good. So while these aren't major problems since I do have a cell phone, they are still inconveniences.
Back in May, we finally got Cable TV, so we got digital phone service and the Internet as well through our cable company. So far, I've had few complaints about the phone service. The bad quality of people's messages I found was related to the fact they tended to use their speaker phone to record their outgoing message. The quality is more a reflection of that, and my absolute hatred for speaker phones when you have to listen to someone talk on them.
Lou
I think digital phones are interesting, I mean, how they work. I rarely use the home phone, but it works great if the call is not long distance. I'd love unlimited long distance. Does digital phone have that?
My first thought is it depends on the carrier. I know that Comcast does.
Lou
Time Warner does also.
I heard cox has free long distance, but I hear their service isn't very good. What are your opinions about cox?
I think if you want good digital phone service choose vonage.
I've heard from multiple people they suc,. Dropped calls and not good sound quality any more are the top complaints.
oh god. when my husband and i had digital phone from bright house, we had nothing but trouble from them. the service would always either be down, or sound very digitized.
I have a friend with vonage, and when I talk on the phone with him, the phone cuts out, and sounds shaky and horible. He loves it, but it's bad quality.