Comcast offered me a digital voice phone service deal, but I question the technology and quality. My phone is a critical piece of business equipment, so I can’t afford to muck around with something unreliable or poor quality.
I have a standard land line and a dedicated fax line through SBC / AT&T at about $85/mo. I have cable TV and cable internet through Comcast at about $115/mo. CURRENT TOTAL = $200/mo.
They said the “triple play” package (cable + internet + phone) would be $99.99/mo for 1 year, plus $10/mo for the second line for the fax. Each year thereafter it would be $129/mo. + $10/mo. TOTAL = $109/mo for the first year and $139/mo each year thereafter.
There are other threads on VOIP and similar topics, but they looked old and perhaps outdated.
Please let me know your thoughts on cable phone service. Thanks.
One of my duties at the local cable company is troubleshooting digital phones (I’m the guy who calls you back eventually after all other tech support has failed)… not for Comcast, however. I know nothing of their set-up, but I would assume it is similar to ours.
Couple of things:
-the voice quality, assuming your internet service is OK, is indistinguishable from POTS.
-although 99.9% of the time it works just fine, it is sometimes prone to weird problems… for example we have an issue right now where certain customers who traffic through one particular router can’t call internationally. These issue can sometimes take a few days to get resolved.
-if you switch over to DP, and then back to a different service, you have to be careful that you don’t lose your phone number (sometimes it can be reclaimed, sometimes not).
-if you lose power, you lose phone. (unless your modem has a battery and the node your service comes from still has power… this happens occasionally)
That’s all I can think of off the top of my head… if I think of more, I’ll post it.
I just signed up for Comcast’s voice service about two weeks ago. Prior to that, I was using my cellphone… and the reception gradually grew worse and worse, until I could only consistently use my phone in the back yard, which sucks in the cold and rain.
Overall, it’s pretty good. It’s routed over the internet, so they had to install a router-like thingy into my cable and then into my wall phone outlets. I can use my landline phones all over the house, from any other outlet. Call quality is good- at least, there haven’t been any complaints.
One problem I’ve run into is that I had a lot of trouble accessing their call webpage, where you can manage your phone settings like forwarding and such. Eventually, though, I managed to get through it, and I haven’t had any problems.
Since it uses a router, it’s completely useless if the power goes out. Not a huge deal, as I can use the cell in that case, but that may be an issue for you.
I have it, and it’s fine. The modem has a backup battery. Sometimes it takes half a second for the line to “connect” when I pick up the phone, but it’s not a problem for me.
I’d be wary of depending on it as my primary phone service. Traditionally, there’s been a huge gulf between telephone networks and cable/data networks in the way that they were designed. Telephone networks were optimized for reliability and cable/data networks were optimized for cost. Some of that difference has faded in recent years, but I’d be skeptical about claims that cable companies can match the reliability and availability of the traditional telephone companies.
I’ve had it for about two years. I switched because I was using Qwest for DSL and phone, then Qwest screwed up so consistently with the DSL that I went to cable to internet. Qwest then couldn’t seem to get the phones right after I canceled. What a bunch of maroons. The Comcast phone service has been flawless since day one. I put on an addition where the cable comes in and had the cable buried. We also later upgraded to the full voicemail package, which required a new modem. So I’ve had a bit more contact with their customer support than the average bear. Their techs are prompt and pretty good. They all seem to be subcontractors, young guys with their own trucks with the magnetic label slapped on. They phone first and make it on time. Better than banging my head against the wall with Qwest.
A friend of mine has it and says Comcast cannot block his number re caller ID, as promised. He has gone in circles with Comcast trying to get caller ID block to no avail. He says he will go back to regular phone because of this. Anyone else have caller ID blocked?
Have had comcast packaged service for almost a year now and as for the phone, we have better quality than we had via our standard AT&T line. Same modem handles our high speed internet and digital voice phone service. Modem has a battery but we are still utilizing out old phones and if the power goes out they don’t work, so in our case it doesn’t really matter that the modem has a battery.
Only issue we have had over the last year was a modem issue, which they replaced twice, since then - no problem.