General > General info Somewhat hot tub related

Cable TV Phone Service

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Vinny:
My only concern would be if the cable went out, what would you do for a past time ... no TV and no internet ... and thankfully no phone.

I recently was forced to upgrade to digital cable - the company forced me but somehow I didn't have to pay anything extra - go figure. Anyway they were pushing the tv, inet and tele deal which I didn't take and about a month after I got the digital box - the cable went out - no TV and I was glad I didn't have anything else on it to go out.

Of course this is extremely rare but at least I was able to keep the kids amuzed via the internet.

wmccall:
I went to Digital with the purchase of a Hi-def (please bury me with it) TV.   My home phone is less important to me now than ever, so I may give it a try.  

tuggnet:
For those of you having problem with Vonage service echoing or sounding like you're in a tin can.  All you need to do is call Vonage and ask them to increase the bandwidth they use on your modem.  It's a 10 second fix (once you get to talk to someone).

I have AttCallvantage and love it.  It is important to have your VoIP router and cable modem on UPS.

One advantage AttCallvantage has is that it offers E911.  Vonage does not (at least not in the Denver area)  What this means is that if I dial 911 the police are coming if I say anything or not.  Vonage subscribers do not enjoy the same feature.  Most Vonage 911 calls are routed to non-emergency call centers.

You should checkout the E911 compliance with your VoIP provider.

Cheers

Brewman:
 I'll pass that bandwidth tip to my sister, who's using Vonnage, and sounds like the tin can.  
 I did establish that with the cable phone service, it's compatible with most, but not all security systems.  I don't have a security system, so it's not an issue for me.  Good to know for the future, though..
 And we wont' have any problems calling 911, either.  
The phone service is fully compatible with our 911 call center- address pops up on the screen.  Certain cell phones give them trouble, but not the cable phone service.
 Installation is set for the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  
Hopefully, it works out okay.  If not, switching back is always an option.

dkersten:
There is a big difference between Vonage VoIP services and true telephony from your cable company.. the basic technology is the same but that is where it ends.

Vonage uses any public internet connection, and since it cannot guarantee where you are at, you cannot get 911 services.. Bandwidth on their end can be worked on, but they have no control over your internet provider, so they cannot guarantee quality of service.

Telephony uses the same IP based technology, but uses private networks to send the information back and forth.  The cable companies already laid their own fiber optic years ago, and dont even have to buy bandwidth from telecoms.  It is all theirs (in most cases), so they have complete control.  If they want to guarantee QoS, they can, but for residential, they usually dont.  At any rate, they do designate a certain portion of the bandwidth to the phone service, and the only reason there are issues is because they are constantly pushing the envelope of how much bandwidth to dedicate.  The phone service is on its own IP, and isnt supposed to be affected by how much bandwidth you are using for your internet or TV.

Most cable companies have a 99.9% uptime, but outages do happen.  The same goes for phone service, but when you are talking POTS (plain old telephone service) lines, they have been around so long, and the technology is so well developed, that the service is more like 99.999%.  

Regardless of Quality of Service guarantees, if your phone is down, its down.  It is more likely that your phone will go down if you are using some sort of IP based solution, over the tried and true POTS lines.  Because of that, I have avoided IP based solutions in business situations, with the exception of T1 based services that I have tried in a few locations.  T1's are very solid, and the outages I have had in the past have been almost 100% construction related.. with a couple outages from wildfires..

I stand by my earlier statement though.. Cable provided IP phone service is good enough for home, but not for businesses.  I would not use Vonage myself, but I have full service with my home phone now, and my cell phone has nationwide long distance as well, so I have no reason to even look at something like that.

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