Cable company phone service (Atlanta, Roswell: house, taxes, live in)

[cao2007]

I was wondering if anyone else uses Charter's phone service and if you have the same problems I have. I live in Smyrna and the phone service has been unreliable. I intermittently cannot get a dial phone, or calls get dropped. I work out of my house and, more and more, am using my cell phone because I just don't know if my landline is going to work. I also sometimes do not get my voice messages for several days.

I'm not sure if the problem is the cable phone service, my phones (which are less than a year old), or the phone lines in this old 1958 ranch house (which probably has the original phone lines).

I'm moving to Roswell next week and am trying to decide whether to give Charter another chance for phone service -- or to go back to good old Bell telephone. (Or is it AT&T?) I've had good service from Charter in general, so I'm planning to keep them for high speed internet. But I rely on my landline for my work, so I can't risk bad phone connections.

So I was just wondering what others out there have experienced in terms of phone service (from the phone lines or

Thanks

[lane421]

We use Comcast's phone service. I think it's like $39.95/month for unlimited calls. It works great and we have no complaints.

[masonbarge]

Originally Posted by cao2007

I was wondering if anyone else uses Charter's phone service and if you have the same problems I have. I live in Smyrna and the phone service has been unreliable. I intermittently cannot get a dial phone, or calls get dropped. I work out of my house and, more and more, am using my cell phone because I just don't know if my landline is going to work. I also sometimes do not get my voice messages for several days.

I'm not sure if the problem is the cable phone service, my phones (which are less than a year old), or the phone lines in this old 1958 ranch house (which probably has the original phone lines).

I'm moving to Roswell next week and am trying to decide whether to give Charter another chance for phone service -- or to go back to good old Bell telephone. (Or is it AT&T?) I've had good service from Charter in general, so I'm planning to keep them for high speed internet. But I rely on my landline for my work, so I can't risk bad phone connections.

So I was just wondering what others out there have experienced in terms of phone service (from the phone lines or

Thanks

Okay, here's an uninformed opinion, LOL. Well, it's uninformed by personal experience, but I've done a lot of research on the issue.

Internet telephone service simply is not reliable enough to tempt me, considering the small savings. AT&T is rock solid for telephone at about $37 (including all the million taxes and fees) for local service. You are going to have constant connectivity, quality, and customer service issues with cable at almost no savings. It's not even a close call for me.

Being assured that I can pick up the telephone and get a dial tone, 24/7/365, with a top-notch connection, is worth a lot more than a couple of dollars a month. One 911 call could be a life-or-death difference.

The only big savings will come if you do a lot of long-distance calling. I personally would either go to my cell phone service for long distance, or else get a per-month long distance plan connected to my land line.

If I had so much long distance expense (I'd ballpark $200+/month) that crummy cable service was worth the money, I might spend the money to get a second line on cable. I still wouldn't drop my telephone company land line service.

[RainyRainyDay]

I strongly agree with masonbarge. I can't figure out why people use VoIP service at current pricing and unreliability, unless they do enormous amounts of long-distance calling.

I pay AT&T $27.86 per month - that's the total I pay, including all fees and taxes - for local service only. Interesting that masonbarge pays about $10 more than that. Like masonbarge, I consider the basic landline service indispensable for reliability.

I also have a cheap third-party long distance package that costs me $5 per month or less, most months, for what I'd consider normal or slightly above-normal residential use of long-distance. Many of our long-distance calls are to Canada, where we have family, and the $5 or less includes those calls.

[masonbarge]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

I strongly agree with masonbarge. I can't figure out why people use VoIP service at current pricing and unreliability, unless they do enormous amounts of long-distance calling.

I pay AT&T $27.86 per month - that's the total I pay, including all fees and taxes - for local service only. Interesting that masonbarge pays about $10 more than that.

It's add-on services like voice-mail and stuff.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

I strongly agree with masonbarge. I can't figure out why people use VoIP service at current pricing and unreliability, unless they do enormous amounts of long-distance calling.

I pay AT&T $27.86 per month - that's the total I pay, including all fees and taxes - for local service only. Interesting that masonbarge pays about $10 more than that. Like masonbarge, I consider the basic landline service indispensable for reliability.

I also have a cheap third-party long distance package that costs me $5 per month or less, most months, for what I'd consider normal or slightly above-normal residential use of long-distance. Many of our long-distance calls are to Canada, where we have family, and the $5 or less includes those calls.

Some perspective from someone who has used Comcast's CDV and now has POTS from ATT. First, you can only get the bargain $27.86 (or similar) if all you want is local service. Add the features that many people want (and cable and VoIP providers include) like caller ID and call waiting, voice mail, combined with unlimited long distance, and you're at a much higher cost.

POTS is 130 year old technology that works pretty well, is very reliable, and can be used with an alarm or E911 with no worry. Traditional VoIP service from the likes of Vonage relies on your underlying ISP for it's transport, can't work with an alarm, and is kludgy with E911. You are subject to the quality of service (QoS) found on the Internet, and you are subject to the latencies and other issues on the public information superhighway.

Comcast and other cable companies use a hybrid model that is 100% digital and uses VoIP technology, but has nothing to do with the Internet. They maintain their own network, so your calls never use the Internet. They send their trunks directly to their telecom provider. QoS can be predicted and managed, and E911 can be provided. You get unlimited long distance in the US and Canada, as well as cheap calls to Europe and other areas, combined with voice mail, calling features, a web interface for managing your voice mail, call forwarding, and other call data.

I had Comcast digital voice for a while in New England and it was very reliable and cost much less than a traditional POTS provider for the services I needed. Here in Atlanta, there are some issues with my alarm, but I may try to get those worked out. If the conversation is about value and cost, then cable offers a HUGE value compared to traditional providers, especially if you get the triple play with HSI and TV. Even if all you want is local, I think Comcast has a $24.95 deal just for local service.

[wxjay]

I currently have no landline service. It's 100% cell for me, and I could not be happier. My phone goes everywhere with me and I can make calls to whomever, whenever and wherever in the U.S. for a flat monthly rate.

I have a feeling in about 20 years, landlines will become more and more rare in households.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Comcast and other cable companies use a hybrid model that is 100% digital and uses VoIP technology, but has nothing to do with the Internet. They maintain their own network, so your calls never use the Internet. They send their trunks directly to their telecom provider. QoS can be predicted and managed, and E911 can be provided. You get unlimited long distance in the US and Canada, as well as cheap calls to Europe and other areas, combined with voice mail, calling features, a web interface for managing your voice mail, call forwarding, and other call data.

I had Comcast digital voice for a while in New England and it was very reliable and cost much less than a traditional POTS provider for the services I needed. Here in Atlanta, there are some issues with my alarm, but I may try to get those worked out. If the conversation is about value and cost, then cable offers a HUGE value compared to traditional providers, especially if you get the triple play with HSI and TV. Even if all you want is local, I think Comcast has a $24.95 deal just for local service.

I agree it's all about the services you want. I'm happy with my POTS at $27.86 plus around $5 or less for long distance, because it meets my needs. I don't like call-waiting, use an answering machine for messages, and I don't need to pay more for "unlimited long distance" since I don't limit my long-distance calling, yet the cost of the services I use doesn't add up to the basic VoIP service cost. I also have nationwide long distance on my cell phone, so I just don't need even more long-distance service.

We don't want cable TV in our home but we do use a lot of internet, and have DSL with a third-party ISP (not AT&T), because AT&T doesn't offer some features we want, such as static IPs that allow us to do some hosting. (Our ISP is Atlantic Nexus, by the way, and I'm happy to give them a plug in passing. They're an excellent choice for "geeky" users like us who aren't satisfied with the standard cable and phone company internet services). My spouse vehemently disapproves of Comcast's traffic filtering practices and wouldn't use them unless they were the last ISP on earth, I suspect.

Happily, there are some choices out there. There's just no one right answer for everyone.

By the way, AT&T is starting to roll out UVerse in our area by offering it to selected customers. People seem to like it. So that's another triple-play choice that will be a live option for most Atlantans pretty soon.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by wxjay

I currently have no landline service. It's 100% cell for me, and I could not be happier. My phone goes everywhere with me and I can make calls to whomever, whenever and wherever in the U.S. for a flat monthly rate.

I have a feeling in about 20 years, landlines will become more and more rare in households.

That's a great option for single people who live alone or with another single roommate, but it's not an option for married people with families, those with poor cell reception at home, or those with a monitored security system.

As far as U-Verse, the only weakness there currently is the TV options. You are limited to 4 video streams and even their most updated service only allows for 2 of the 4 streams to be HD.

As was said, different people want different options.

[cao2007]

I agree. My cell phone service (Spring) is even less reliable than my landline, but it would cost me $400 to leave right now. (The old locked-in contract that I'm hoping Congress makes illegal soon.)

I sometimes don't get my voice messages for days and often, when people call, I don't get a ring -- just a voicemail later. Cell phone service is going to have to get a lot better before I can use it for my little home business.