September 28, 2004

12:56 PM

Time Warner Digital Phone service, anyone have any good or bad things to say about it?
posted by Mick to (5 comments total)

i can say that last year as a provider overall, they had the highest ratings in all categories
(and no matter how good, everyone in the US bitches about their cable company)
posted by ethylene at 1:52 PM on September 28, 2004

I have heard second hand that quality is not the greatest (it can get kind of staticy at times) and each phone has to have a power outlet (no power being pulled from the carrier). That and in the even of an emergency a lot of the cable providers do not have battery backup. I do believe it's just a matter of time before redundancy and backup ability reaches POTS standards.

And there's rumors that you can get phone spammed, which is a euphemism for the terrible word "telemarketers". The idea is that since it's VoIP they can do whatever they want. Legislators, lately, seem to love passing bills restricting telemarketers and their ilk, so if this becomes a problem expect to be solved.
posted by geoff. at 5:23 PM on September 28, 2004

Oh and let me add that I've looked into it, and without the emergency backup that POTS provides, it really does you no good if you have a cell phone.
posted by geoff. at 5:25 PM on September 28, 2004

Thanks all. After having to call 4 times in 12 days to bitch about our cable service I decided that they are not reliable enough for all my outside communications (I will not survive a cable and Internet outage at the same time).
posted by Mick at 1:29 PM on October 17, 2004

Update to Update:

Time warner never bothered to tell my local bell that I canceled my requested install and so bell cut my service off last night at 10PM.

After much lying, TW finally admitted their error and gave me a one month credit on my cable service.

CinciBell, due to public utility laws, must wait 7 days to reactivate my phone and DSL account, but they were nice enough to set up an alternative account free of charge for the next week.
posted by Mick at 7:18 AM on October 28, 2004