Resolved Problems with land-line phone integrated with modem

Today was the second time we've run into this problem in a few months and I'd like the group's opinions.

A couple of years back, our local land-line phone service (Verizon) abandoned hard-wired land-lines to go cellular. Since the outfit that took over (Frontier) had no track record, we chose to go with an integrated system offered by Comcast (now Xfinity).

They were already the officially approved monopoly supplier of cable TV in town, so it made a certain amount of sense to sign on for everything. We were recently "given" a new high-speed "gateway" to replace our previous modem. It was indeed significantly faster.

Things turned sticky and brown a few months back when we suddenly lost our "landline" phone service, which goes through this "gateway ". It was fixed in a few hours. Today was a different experience.

When we arose this morning, I noticed that the indicator lights of the "gateway" were all flashing. A quick check showed that we still had internet, but our phones were down. After three hours in a chat session with a Comcast/Xfinity support person, he/she gave up and has arranged for a field service person to bring a replacement "gateway" tomorrow.

Bottom line - how many of you are happy with letting your land-line phone communications go through a modem? We have a mobile, but very few people have been given the number for the sake of privacy. We're thinking of trying to find a phone company that still has hard-wired, analog phones, powered by their system. Frontier is the only other phone company in our area, who took over the Verizon system when VZ decided to concentrate on cellular communications. I'll be finding out tomorrow whether the hard-wired network still exists. I guess our other alternative is to go entirely cellular for telephone, with a phone for each of us, maybe on different networks. We still think of cellular as "phones ", not miniature computers, so smart-phones aren't in our immediate future.

We can't dump Comcast for our cable TV because it's the only service that carries Canadian channels. DW would kill me if she couldn't watch Coronation Street and Murdoch Mysteries!

 

Down here in South Florida, when the power goes out for extended periods of time, (hurricanes for example), the only thing that is still working is the old, but reliable: analog telephone service and natural gas.

 

I prefer my hard wired landline over Time Warner's phone service. I also prefer the DSL package from my telco. My niece had the all-in-one package from TW and her phone was constantly down, especially after our numerous storms. My landline service has never gone out in the 25 years I've had it. My cost for the landline/DSL package is much cheaper than TW's phone service after the initial period. I am pretty much stuck with TW's cable TV due to my location. Very limited space to put up a dish with clear views.

 

The landlines Central Offices all have emergency generators as to why they keep running. That is why all new stuff for years has been buried underground in case of storms. I read an article years ago about how many miles of Telephone cable was still up in the air. It was in the millions if I remember right.

I also prefer my land line and DSL.

 

A disabled friend of ours kept having problems with her Time Warner Cable phone service, so I suggested she switch over to AT&T (formerly known as Bell South). She also qualified for a state-mandated discount since she was disabled, so that made the jump to AT&T a no-brainer. The state will not honor a discount with TWC phone service. Why? I don't know, unless the state feels that a hardwired landline is more reliable - which it is from what I have gathered. My phone service (AT&T) has always been there for us when we needed it.

AT&T is changing things around here. They are offering something called U-verse. I think it involves stringing up fiber optic cable to enable the phone company to offer paid TV service to compete with the cable TV companies.

 

U-verse from AT&T will be like getting everything like the cable company does now. Phone, Internet and TV. Got a couple of friends that have it.

 

Does that involve switching the copper lines out for fiber optic cable? If so, will all copper lines be replaced (including copper phone wires in the home)?

 

Not really all of them. The will do Fiber so far than it will go on Copper.

 

MrBill, we're offered Fibre/Optic cable to the house where a box is installed and then rather than run Fibre/optic cable run through the house, the inside connection will be wireless.
Free cable to house and $295.00 for the "special box" and connection to your wireless modem.
Only two companies doing this at the moment in NZ, so this means changing Telco to get connected.
I, like a great number of Kiwis will just make do with DSL on copper as it's much faster than Dialup.
All new houses built in NZ during the last 10 years, have had the option to wire up fibre/optic inside the house during construction. Neil.

 

I don't see a difference between copper wire and fiber optics if it's the phone company that powers the system and your land-line service survives power outages (provided, of course that the phone company's service center isn't blown off-line).

The problem we encountered is that the same "gateway" that transmits our internet service also carries our land-line phone, all going through a co-ax cable to the ISP. We were without our land-line service for about 36 hours. Since very few people know our cellular numbers (deliberate choice on our part for privacy) all our callers could do was to leave a message on our ISP's voice mail.

We were able to retrieve the voice mails, since the internet part of the gateway was still working, and call the people back on our cell phone. We're now evaluating going entirely to cell phones and discontinuing our land-line phone.

 

Down here in South Florida, we've been without power for up to two weeks before (hurricanes) and the POTS (plain old telephone service) continued to work throughout the ordeal. Cell phones were useless.

 

Thanks for the comments, folks. Very enlightening. I'm going to talk to the company that took over Verizon's system (Frontier Communications) and see if their phones are still hard "wired" (whether copper or f/o) and powered by their power source. I might also switch to them as my ISP.

We'll have to stay with Comcast for cable TV, as they are the monopoly licensee. All others have to go satellite, and AFAIK, none of them carry Canadian channels, a critical issue for my wife.

I'll come back to this thread in a couple of days and mark it resolved.

 

Tip: It's just as easy to mark it unresolved as it is to mark it resolved.

 

Some are, some aren't.