Reviews:
 ·PHONE POWER
| reply to acensor
Re: [Telephone] Use Charter phone & KEEP one tradtional phone li How often is cable internet out? For me, it has probably a 99% uptime. Not quite POTS reliability, but pretty good.
I don't use charter for the phone. I use Phonepower (VOIP service). This is more reliable that the HSI service. Almost every outage is due to HSI, not the VOIP provider.
Nice thing about Phonepower (and probably other similar providers) is the network failover call forward to another number.
Plus the voicemail comes in an email.
I have my VOIP service fail over to my cell phone. How often is the cell service out?
I feel that one way or another, I will know a call came.
So if the OP uses a internet based phone line, plus a cell based phone line, the reliability would be very close to POTS.
And for the savings, I think the 0.05% of the time a call might me missed due to simultaneous outages isn't worth the extra expense of POTS service. And even then, the call still makes it to a voicemail system. |
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mdavej
join:2004-06-09
Greenville, SC | reply to acensor
My internet is probably 99% reliable like yours (only a few hours downtime per year, usually due to bad weather), plus I have a cell phone backup. So VOIP is fine for me.
But my parents, on the other hand, probably lose internet at least once a month, sometimes for days at a time (very rural area and have a terrible cable company). And they have no cell phone backup to use when it does go out. So they couldn't even call the cable company to report a problem.
They need their one and only line to be 100% reliable, especially at their age. So I still have to recommend against VOIP in a situation like that. Unless a couple of cell towers get knocked out at the same time (which I can't see ever happening), the Verizon / Straight Talk Home Phone device is 100% reliable. Even if the power is out, the battery lasts for days. |
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| reply to compuguybna
said by compuguybna:The recent "Home Phone Connect" systems provided by Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and now StraightTalk (verizon), work off a cell phone tower, so unless there is a tower issue, you should have phone service. Thank for the nuanced take on these alternatives AND your report on your experience with Charter phone. Both useful.
Apologies if I'm repeating myself, but one thought about the Home Phone Connect option.
Yeah, it should be very reliable, expecialy as an alternative/backup phone connection. But if power is down the box transceiver box that the cell-phone provider provides is powered on the AC 120volt line and if the power is down (unless it your you have a battery backup on their box it, too, would be down even though all the cellphone towers would probably be up.
Alex
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Alex C. |
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mdavej
join:2004-06-09
Greenville, SC | reply to acensor
It includes a rechargeable battery that lasts about 48 hrs, so it doesn't go down in a power outage. |
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| reply to compuguybna
Thanks, compuguybna, for your overview of the options from the perspective of someone who's tried several.
Most useful!
Just a comment FWIW:
"Home Phone Connect" from a cellphone provider would come with a transceiver that plus into the AC-socket IIRR.
If the AC 120volt power is down even though all the cell phone towers are up and running, you're phone service is down (unless you or the transceiver provider set up a battery backup).
Not so with traditional POTS line.
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Alex C. |
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| Shoot..... I see my last two messages are essentially duplicates.
Sorry guys. It had looked to me like the earlier one's were not posted, so I duplicated my attempt.
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Alex C. |
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| reply to acensor
During a power outage, the cell towers are on battery backup.
So is the Telco central office. (or generator) |
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| reply to acensor
I tried Ooma once for a bit. Didn't like it all. Not only did their support not know where the best place to connect it to, in front, in middle or behind router, the unit didn't act like it did either.
Went with Vonage and have had it for about 3+ years now. Am on the $9.99 for life plan and love it! Only draw back to that plan is no international calling. Don't know a soul overseas anyway, so no biggie!!
Have it setup BEHIND router, which is where ANY VOiP adapter should be anyway, ans QOS is awesome!!
Have cell phone for backup, even though I don't get that great of a signal in my house with it.
Couldn't fathom using a POTS line again!
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The Firefox alternative.
»www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/ |
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| reply to lineofsight
said by lineofsight:During a power outage, the cell towers are on battery backup.
So is the Telco central office. (or generator)
t
Yup. Knew that. During Sandy many cellphone towers exceeded their backup battery life. But for that matter the POTS Telco central offices were probably down in some places too. Of course you can't protect against EVERYthing... and if hit by something like Sandy, loss of your phone service might be he LEAST of your worries. ;-(
Point is, nice to have at least two very different lines of communication..... or maybe three ... for all the "what ifs."
Yeah, Interent can go down, so can cell-phone, and probably last the POTS line..... but chance of all three going down at the same time are WAY less than any one going down.
Guess if I were a hard core survivalist type I'd get a ham radio and/or a sattelite phone too if I could afford. Just got to draw a line somewhere on cost and complexity you're willing to incurr for "what if."
Alex
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Alex C. |
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rd1144
join:2009-02-26
Denver, NC | reply to acensor
Get a Obi Device and google voice. Way Cheaper than Ooma!
»www.obihai.com/googlevoice.html
Obi100 = $39.99 on Amazon.com
Google Voice = Free again for 2013 
911 service through CallCentric = $1.50/month, configured for second line on Obi100
Port existing Landline to T-mobile pre-paid = $10 for 30 min plan and SIM
Port T-mobile pre-paid to Google Voice = $20 |
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mdavej
join:2004-06-09
Greenville, SC | reply to acensor
acensor,
I still don't understand what you are trying to accomplish. In your first post you said you wanted to keep a "traditional phone line" because you didn't want to rely on Charter. And now you're totally fine with VOIP even though it depends 100% on Charter just like Charter's own phone service.
So what exactly is your goal here with redundant, essentially identical phone services? If cheap VOIP like Ooma is good enough, then drop Charter phone AND your landline. Having two internet phone services that rely on the same piece of coax is completely pointless. You can just as well use google voice in an emergency for free. |
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