I keep getting “special offers for only select customers” from my cable company, offering their phone service. On paper, it looks great: I keep my current phone number, have no interruption of service, unlimited long distance in the U.S., and save about 60% per month over the ole-fashioned landline phone service I currently have (and that’s after the “special offer” price expires).
It sounds great, but so did AT&T wireless. Then I found out they were so cheap because I couldn’t get reception in my own home, nonetheless anywhere else useful.
So–is phone service provided by cable companies fully functional and a great deal, or is it new, shoddy technology that is unreliable and crap?
My mom had Internet-based phone service for a while after I left for college (not sure if this is what you’re talking about). Since I wasn’t using it on a daily basis, I can’t speak to the quality of the connection itself, but one thing I can tell you: Internet phone and wireless routers do not mix. When she had it my calls to home would routinely be dropped after no more than five minutes. Be warned!
A couple of years ago I was moving and had an AT&T land line; when I called the salesrep talked me into going with their internet phone service which would let me keep the same number. They’d have to do the switchover the day before I moved but that was no problem.
I got the equipment a couple of days later and I set it aside for the 10 days or so until I could hook it up in the new place. A few days later I got a phone message from AT&T saying that since I hadn’t hooked up the equipment to test yet they were going to push back the cutover 2 additional weeks which means I’d have no phone service in the new place. I called them back and spent a lot of time arguing with them but they maintained that their system only allowed 1 rescheduling and they’d already done that even though there was no reason for it.
When it finally got turned on I had a high-pitched noise on the line which nobody I called could hear but which drove me nuts. After many hours on hold and talking with the service reps they told me that I needed a cordless phone for the noise to go away and when that didn’t fix it that I either had cheap phones or was hearing things.
I no longer have AT&T internet phone. I went back to a standard land line and have no problems, even with my cheap phones and auditory hallucinations.
I’d pit them but they aren’t worth the effort. Internet phone service overall may not be a scam but I’d avoid AT&T like the plague. The only meaningful caveat I’ve seen is that 911 service may not be like a standard phone but different carriers vary in that from what little I remember when I poked around at the time.
I get my phone, my cable (digital) tv and my internet from my cable company (Cox). In the four years I’ve had the service, I’ve had tech problems with the cable and with the internet (all minor and easily, quickly fixed), but none at all with the phone.
Included in the bill (by my choice) is a flat rate long distance service ($40/month) that makes every call within the continental U.S. a local call. (Meaning I don’t pay for any of them, no matter how many or how long.) This was a service not offered by anyone else in my area. With family scattered all over the country, this has payed for itself many times over.
If the offer your cable company sent you is for an “internet phone service” (like Vonage?) then disregard my experience. And throw the offer in the trash (IMO). But that’s not what my service is. AFAIK mine has nothing to do with the internet.
I don’t know about the offer you recieved, but if it is the same as mine, I would definitely look into it. Call the other phone providers in your area and see what they offer, then do the math based on what your needs are. But, you needn’t worry about getting a phone from “the cable company”. (Unless it is an internet based line, as tbdi and shimmery have mentioned.)
I had digital phone service from AT&T (before it was gobbled up by SBC) and it worked okay. This was not cable service - we already had the cable yanked by this time.
The only problem was when we wanted DSL. AT&T DSL didn’t work with AT&T digital phone service. (Actually, I know why it doesn’t). We wound up going back to SBC, and then getting DSL. And I still have a cool looking connector box in my garage I should do an examination some time, being a former telephone person.
They mix just fine. I’m not sure what the details were of that particular situation, but in general, there is no problem using an internet phone system with a wireless router.
We’ve had digital phone from the cable company for a couple of years. Works great, no problems that I recall (maybe some confusion in our recent move, but I don’t remember for sure).
Read the fine print and check on all the fees, though - our bill ended up being only marginally less than the phone company after the intro offer expired. The Cox here only has a particularly good rate if you have all their services combined.
We switched over a couple of months ago to Comcast Digital Voice, along with cable TV and brodband. I can’t tell any difference in quality from our old land line service, plus we get unlimited long distance at no extra cost. We’ve only had a technical problem once, and that was because of a bad phone jack in the house, nothing to do with the service.
I switched to Charter Cable phone service about 9 months ago. I had no end of problems with getting features on/off, working, or whatever, but I can’t really blame that on the technology, just the switch in providers.
Now that things have settled down, it works well.
Note that I’m talking about standard phone service (ordinary phones) thru a cable company, NOT Internet service where you plug directly into your computer. The standard phone service inserts a box between the incoming cable line which translates the signals into POTS signals which are then connected to the rest of house wiring just as they existed for AT&T. No phones need be changed.
One caveat – Unlike POTS, a local power outage will take down your entire house’s phone system even if the cable is not severed. The solution to this is a rechargeable backup battery which fits in the phone modem. The one I have claims a 4 hour backup talk time, but I haven’t tried to test it.
That wouldn’t be so bad except the cable installer doesn’t carry batteries and they must be ordered separately by the customer, who has to wait 2 weeks. The installer wrote down the wrong modem model number, so of course I got the wrong battery, and when I got the right one, I found out too late the modem had an optional provision for one twice the size that I didn’t know about!
It’s an absurd way to treat customers. Still, I woudn’t switch back.
I have Rogers Home Phone (i. e. cablephone) service. This is not their VOIP service, but a separate service. It was a bit glitchy at first–several times I made calls to people and they couldn’t hear me, though I could hear them–but I have had no problems in the past couple of months.The price, bundled with Rogers high-speed internet, and basic analogue TV, is about CAD 80 to 100 per month, depending on how much I use the phone. This is close to, still less than, what I was paying with Bell landline phone and Rogers high-speed internet, with no cable TV.
I have a phone interface on the cable line that has a six-hour backup battery for power outages. (Now, if only my VCR had that…)
We just added cable telephone to our cable package 2 weeks ago. As Musicat mentions, the phone signal comes into the house on the cable line, but then is split off, run through a box in the basement, and patched into the existing phone wiring in my house. We’ve had zero problems with it so far.
For what we were paying in monthly fees for local and long distance (no actual long distance calls included, just the fees and taxes) we now get free long distance to the US and Canada. I checked on a couple of international rates and they were pretty cheap. No contract, cancel at any time, caller ID, 3way calling, call waiting, and voicemail. We even kept the same phone number. So far, there isnt’ a down side.
(Actually, I know why it doesn’t). We wound up going back to SBC, and then getting DSL. And I still have a cool looking connector box in my garage I should do an examination some time, being a former telephone person.