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VoIP And Cell Phones Eroding Traditional Telecoms
Lullabye_Muse writes "Yahoo! reports that telecoms in Europe and U.S. are losing in response to people switching their home phones for cellphones and dial up to cable modems. More info on specific VoIP discussed in latter part of article. The trend seems to becoming widespread, I guess 10 years and all the old wires are gonna start to be taken down."
I still have a land line... it's just through the cable instead of POTS.
We've been using roadrunner's digital phone service since day 1. $30ish for anywhere, anytime, no LD. Call waiting, etc.
We've had no problems with service until the last week. The cable/VoIP modem start cycling and trying to readjust over and over.
The guy came out and changed the modems. He said that it is very, very common.
So if you start losing VoIP service and your modem starts cycling... be quick to report it so they can change out your device.
I can blast huge torrents over suprnova and talk on the phone at the same time without any problems. I've been very impressed with the bandwidth... In fact, my impression is that my bandwidth greatly improved when they switched me over to VoIP. I imagine they uncap the bandwidth when you get digital phone service so insure both services work well together.
AC
I too was initially worried about emergency services and so forth, however all this stuff functions as normal with a regular land line. I can call 911, or 411 or whatever just like anybody else can. In the event of a power-outage you can have your service forward to a cell-phone, voice-mail, or even another regular land phone. So I'm really not that worried about it. In the event that the power goes out and the cell phone is dead, and I accidentally cut off my leg, thus disabling me from crawling to my neighbors house to use their land phone to call 911, I suppose I'll just have to suffer
Seriously though, here's my experience so far:
The Good
Cheap.
Works with regular phones, and it actually works pretty good.
Says #$&@ you to the local @*&!@ telco monopoly.
The Bad
Can't use your regular house phone jacks (although if you need a phone in every room you can get one of those multi-set cordless base phones).
The service isn't perfect. (A couple of times someone has called, and before I could pick it up, the system hung up on them). But let's be realistic, this is pretty new technology.
All in all, I'm happy I decided to try out the VoIP phone. It saves me $10-15 / month, and lets me call way more long distance to boot. And I'm a no frills user. No calling features, no call display, I don't really call long distance. For someone who has a big calling feature pack and calls long distance, I could see a VoIP phone saving them a TON of cash.
Is it just me or do virtually ALL newer cordless phones suck? The best one I've ever had was a 900 MHz phone I bought about 7 years ago for $30. Except for needing a new battery a couple of times, it has never had any problems and still sounds great. I couldn't say the same for any newer models that cost a lot more.
We just switched over to VOIP with Time Warner, who also sends us cable TV and Road Runner. They get a big check from us every month. It seems to work about the same except that all those features on the phone (Caller ID etc.) now work. Oddly enough, my old local company sent me a letter yesterday offering about the same deal. Why didn't they send me the offer while I was still a customer?
It reminded me of something that happened a few years ago at work.
We used to subscribe to a Derwent patent publication that listed new patents in the pharmaceutical industry. It costs about $30K a year. I called and asked if they could give us a little break on the price. "No Way," they said. So we cancelled the subscription. A few weeks later, they call up and said that there was a mistake and they could give it to us for only $800/yr. I said "No Way." Pricing in this information busness is funny stuff.
Don't be so sure. A lot of telcos have moved to using Remote Terminals (RT's) in neighborhoods. Basically, everyone's voice pairs terminate in the RT, and then there's a few pairs of fiber from the RT to the central office.
The idea is to save money; you have to run MUCH LESS copper, since EACH SUBSCRIBER PAIR doesn't have to go to the CO; it also enables DSL services for individuals who would otherwise be too far from the CO.
The problem: Unlike the CO, RT's don't have a backup generator. They only have batteries. So if there's a long-lasting power failure at the RT, you only get a few hours of battery backup before the RT runs out of juice, and all the local voice pairs coming out of it go dead. Sure, there's still light on the fiber coming from the CO, but what good does that do you?
Now, in a crisis, telcos actually have portable generators on trailers that they can haul out to RT's serving critical facilities, like hospitals. But unless your residence shares an RT with a hospital, don't count on getting more than few hours of continued service after the lights go out.
There's generally thousands of these RT's in areas where they're used; they don't have enough generators for all of them.
-Z
well, they are right, there is no such thing as a 911-only phone. if you want a phone number, you need to pay for service.
however, any phone in the united states is required to permit 911 dialing at all times under all circumstances. if you truly only want the phone to work to dial 911, disconnect servce and leave the phones plugged in. in an emergency, pick it up and dial 911 - the call must go through or the phone company is in a lot of trouble.
you won't have a number, but you'll have what you want.
It depends how many lines the phone company has available in the central office. If there are many to spare, they will just do a "soft-disconnect" and leave the line live. Most of the time, somebody hooks it up again anyways, and they only have to do a software change to activate it again. Saves a lot of money.