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dk1983
join:2003-10-18
Boise, ID
clubs: | Re: Who would buy this... Agreed. 55 with any bundle is outrages.. | |
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d_man60112
join:2004-06-09
Cortland, IL
| said by Boomerang86  :
at $45. a month, when Vonage gives you the identical service for $30.? Even AT&T CallVantage is a better deal than this.
Broadband customers know much better, clueless TW marketing executive types! Aunt Bessie, still on dial-up, isn't going to switch from POTS for you.
I think that it would be viable because of the name (branding.) I don't know that Vonage is going to be there in 6 months. I do know that Time Warner will be there and if not, I got more problems than just phone service. | |
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Kompressor
Premium
join:2002-02-12
Huntington Beach, CA
| Re: Who would buy this... Vonage and Earthlink have struck a deal »news.com.com/2100-1032-990465.html for Earthlink to offer VoIP service. Earthlink »www.unlimitedvoice.com even has a basic plan for only $14.99 or an unlimited plan for $29.99 a month with no activation charge and free hardware! So it looks like Vonage will be around for a while. | |
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dellsweig
Extreme Aerobatics
Premium,MVM
join:2003-12-10
Campbell Hall, NY
 ·Time Warner VOIP
| My biggest fear is that TW in their push to 'entice' TW customers to use their voice services will 'disrupt' current IP services like Vonage over the Road Runner network.
Do TW Customers have any protection (legal or otherwise) against this kind of actin?? | |
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| | cbs228
Geeks Of The World, Unite
join:2000-09-04
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: Who would buy this... IANAL, but as far as I know you have no legal remedy since cable-ISPs do not have to abide by common carrier restrictions. Legally, TW can do anything they want to your connection (including blocking Vonage services altogether). You have no remedy other than (1) kicking, screaming and hope someone listens or (2) discontinue your subscription.
--
"If you stare too long into the abyss the abyss stares back at you." -Nietzsche
GENERAL FAILURE READING ©: DRIVE
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)rivolous Lawsuits, (B)ribe Congress? | |
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Jeremy341
Bye
Premium
join:2000-01-06
localhost | I guarantee that they will do nothing of the sort. Could you imagine the shit storm they'd stir up? They'd love to see the other companies gone, but they will not do anything to disrupt access from their network. | |
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dellsweig
Extreme Aerobatics
Premium,MVM
join:2003-12-10
Campbell Hall, NY
·Time Warner VOIP
| Re: Who would buy this... Wiz - do you realize how easy it would be to 'effect' Vonage service - or any other 'data' service. All an ISP would have to do is make the 'route' packets take to the Vonage server take a more 'costly' route - make them take longer. No one would ever know and the Vonage service would 'look' bad when compared to the local TW VoIP offering.
For that matter - any data service. It would be next to impossible to prove either.....
I do worry about it - what a way to market TW VoIp.... | |
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Jeremy341
Bye
Premium
join:2000-01-06
localhost
| Re: Who would buy this... Just because it would be easy doesn't mean that they'll do it. Again, I will repeat: I guarantee that Time Warner will not do anything. They would be stupid to do so, because people would be able to tell if they were all of a sudden forced to go 30 hops to their VOIP server instead of 9 before. | |
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BIGMIKE
Premium
join:2002-06-07
Westminster, CA | at $45. a month, NO WAY all I need is basic phone service no long distance for list thin $27 a month, | |
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| shashinka
join:2000-09-16
West Boylston, MA
| Verizon Freedom package is $50 a month for unlimited calls anywhere in the country. If you want to say with a hard wire line from a big company then you can use this. Otherwise forget it! Vonage, Packet8 is the way to go. I personally used my cell phone. Cingular with rollover is great, plenty of minutes. Have to pay for it for work and emergencies anyway. I used Vonage but Charter's network sucks, during the day vonage worked fine but at night it didn't, not their fault but charters. | |
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Doubledee32
join:2002-06-20
Charlotte, NC
| Another T/W Ripoff!! No doubt that price is steep and according to T/W this is without voice-mail which is an additonal cost. I belive Vonage,Broadvox,Voicepluse will be here for sometime. Recently I was contacted by a reporter from Money magazine who's doing a report on Vonage and he told me they were shipping out 20,000 units a month.-Not to shabby | |
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58483323
Gurt me
join:2003-06-23
Normal, IL | TW is crazy Those prices are outrageous! Why would you switch from POTS if POTS is cheaper??? | |
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niccolus
Niccolus Leader Of Midgets
Premium
join:2003-10-22
Long Beach, CA
| VOIP = VOIP? maybe there is something different about it that Vonage and other small time voice over ip companies dont have like their own network to control the quality of voice service or technicians to repair any issues that should arise? I mean its easy to be cheap when you just provide equipment when you are faceless. | |
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| dosbubba
join:2002-01-26
Eustis, FL | Re: VOIP = VOIP? Wouldn't that already be covered by the price of their broadband? | |
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jchambers105
join:2004-06-29
Kansas City, MO | twc digital phone what do u do if pots is higher and cannot get a local number thew any voip provider with twc no credit card no problem at least they do a paper bill un like vonage i use cash and money orders what are my options | |
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M A R K
St. Ides Heaven
Premium
join:2001-06-15
Long Island
clubs: | LAME Why would your pay $55 for this? or even $40? Some company's have no clue how do do business... | |
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| niccolus
Niccolus Leader Of Midgets
Premium
join:2003-10-22
Long Beach, CA
| Re: LAME so you wouldnt pay $40 to know that if anything should happen to your phone service you can call one company rather than being forced to call your ISP only to get told that they do not support Vonage and other third party VOIP comapanies and to call them? I would do it just to avoid the run around but thats just me. | |
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| | Doubledee32
join:2002-06-20
Charlotte, NC
| Re: LAME Actually the setup is so easy that you don't have to call a bunch of companies-in my case if I have internet and no phone I call vonage-If I don't have any internet then of course I won't have any phone either so I call my isp-You can't get any easier than that | |
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wilkinsjme
join:2000-10-23
Livonia, MI
| Hope the power doesn't go out!!! One thing came to mind. When the power goes out at my house I can still use the phone.
From their FAQ "Note, however, that Digital Phone does not include back-up power, so in case of a power outage, Digital Phone will not be available until power is restored."
Guess calling "anyone, anytime" isn't 100% correct!!
Have to use my cell phone to call 911. Until it loses it charge. | |
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| scooper
join:2000-07-11
Youngsville, NC | Re: Hope the power doesn't go out!!! 3 little letters take care of that - U P S . Put your broadband modem, router, and digital phone adpater and you can at least call the power company and 911. I have all my computer related stuff on one. | |
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J D McDorce
Premium
join:2001-12-29
Westland, MI
| Re: Hope the power doesn't go out!!! UPS units in the home will work - provided the cable plant "stays lit". While it certainly varies by provider and location, some cable companies have UPS units and backup generators available for their local plants, some don't. If your internet connection goes down during a power outage, your UPS equipment for your VoIP connection won't do much good. | |
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| | barnito
join:2002-03-24
Endicott, NY
| TW has a 3 hour backup built in, no ups needed if the power goes out... Plus time warner has 1 package, 39.99 a month, unlimited long distance, plus the first 3 months are absolutely free!! I work for the evil corporation and I get mine half price.. :P | |
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quatra
Premium
join:2003-06-22
Matthews, NC
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Here in charlotte they use a digital phone modem called an arris it has a battery backup, I think it only lasts 8 hours though. TWC does have quite a few advantages over other voip offerings my personal favorite being that it doesn't travel over the internet or use your bandwidth so you can upload large files and use your phone at the same time. They also wire phone lines, activate all of your existing phone lines and fix them when they break. I wonder what vonage would say if you told them only 4 of your 5 phones are working. $55 is more than I would pay, but it is still cheaper than POTS considering my long distance usage. It has been nearly 3 years since I've had a POTS line though. | |
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petergamer
@Dial1.Cin | A small point. In communities where 911 is in use, it works from any phone jack, even one with deactivated service. As long as you still have the wires in your house, and a regular phone lying around, you have 911 service.
Peter | |
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cltguy
join:2002-01-12
Pineville, NC | This is interesting Time warner has had it in it's RDU market for a while.. and has it here in the charlotte market.. and for $39.95. | |
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JRBlood
Premium
join:1999-12-28
Syracuse, NY
clubs:
1 edit | Been available in Central NY too. Central NY (Syracuse and surrounding areas), has had this service available for a couple of months now (It was in beta for even longer). They're advertising it for $39.95 as well.
More info here: »twcny.com/digitalPhone/ | |
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gsotwc
@rr.com
| From Someone who knows 1) If you dont pay $10 or more for long distance on your landline every month this won't be a value. The attractive part of the service is really the unlimited local and long distance.
2) The phone companies expend alot of money and effort to have what is known as 'six nines' reliability (services working 99.9999%) of the time. There is no way that your cable company is going to be able to match that, but so long as you expect it to be approximately reliable as your Internet service you can get a good product. One of the problems is no independent power supply, and yes Greensboro is moving to modems with built-in UPS, but still.
3) The advantage of service that TWC will be able to offer you over vonage or other 'pure' VOIP solutions is two-fold.
a) Separate bandwidth. Your vonage box rides on top of the 3Mb bandwidth cap or whatever you cable provider provides. If the cable company provides the VOIP service its going to have its own dedicated chunk of bandwidth. Which means you can do heavy gaming and it wont make your phone calls get 'clippy'
b) Infrastructure. Its something others have hit on already. TWC owns the infrastructure that the service rides on all the way to the end. If there is network congestion, its a TWC problem, its its signal noise, its a TWC problem, if its a modem problem, its a TWC problem, if its a phone service problem, its a TWC problem. The only thing that might be your problem is the phones in your house. With vonage or any other service they are only going to take ownership of the service problems, and even then you'll hafta prove its a service problem and none of the others. On the flip side your ISP is gonna say , "hey you can browse the web"
4) Do think about 'minor services' like call tracing, 3-way calling, etc that the phone companies offer. TWC is new to this, they are going to only offer the services they say up front they are offering.
5) Its a brand spanking new service. There are going to be some growing pains. Early adopters should always be aware.
Now weather or not its worth the price their offering it at *shrug* thats really a consumer decision. Vote with your dollars. If its not, and people dont subscribe they will change the price. | |
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TW Digital Phone Sub
@twcable.com
| The difference Here's the main difference between Vonage and TW's digital phone (I was a vonage customer who switched over to digital phone):
1. Vonage only offers voice service. Customers must
use separate companies for Internet and video –
resulting in multiple bills. Does not provide
whole-home wiring, only works with a single
phone off a telephone adapter.
2. No technician sets up the service. Requires self-
installation which can be timely and complex.
3. Vonage has a $29.99 activation fee and a $9.99 shipping fee for the adapter. Customers must
pay for high-speed data service in addition to
the cost of phone service.
4. Calls are routed through the public Internet and
are subject to congestion and delays, putting the
quality of the customer's call at risk. With TW Digital Phone, calls are managed through Time Warner Cable's
network allowing for greater performance and
quality of service. Calls never touch the Public Internet.
5. Vonage delivers limited 911 service that does NOT automatically capture information and requires the customer to provide name and location information. 911 service must be pre-activated before use. Does not operate with monitored home alarms. | |
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Vonage Customer
@rr.com
|  Perceived or real advantage?
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Time Warner Digital Phone
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Who would buy this...