Which is better: Comcast Digital Voice or traditional Verizon?
Posted on Mar 08, 2010 under Digital news and reports |Help me choose between Comcast Dig. Voice and traditional Verizon landline service. No fancy features needed, just want Caller ID. I have never dealt with any VoIP services. Please share your experiences with digital phone service, good or bad:
- How is the sound quality compared with traditional Verizon?
- How high is the monthly charge once "the deal" ends?
- Many dropouts? Interruptions? Outages?
- Customer service?
- Any other problems?
Personally, I think I would prefer a traditional Verizon landline. Convince me to try Digital Voice, or convince me to avoid it!
March 8th, 2010 at 7:29 am
With Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) [Cable Phone] will rely on heavy download and upload speeds over your internet service. Your phone will be given priority over other internet use (e.g. surfing the web, download music, downloading anything, etc. Although the phone service will have a higher priority it wont be dedicated therefore when their is a drag or latency in service either from your use or others using the server from your internet service provider, then your phone service will loose quality and may even be dropped. If you dedicate your cable internet to only serve the phone and their is little demand on the server it would be excellent. However, this is not realistic as you would be paying for internet and phone service and not using the internet and their will always be a high demandon the server. When times are good your phone service should sound like a cell phone call. On the other hand a land line phone is some what similar except the server is dedicated to phones only and therefore can handle millions of lines without failure. The T1 and T3 servers owned by the phone company along with software and proprietary equipment make land lines the best quality of service for any phone and the likelihood of dropping a call is slim to none unless the line is broken due to an anomoly (e.g. tree falls on the line). Sumarily, if you use the internet very little and have high speed service the quality is not so different; however, the price comparison would reveal that land lines are cheaper than VOIP especially if you order an unlimited package such as Freedom or Freedom Essential from Verizon. Also, if you exceed a set number of minutes (i.e. a few thousand) VOIP contracts have a clause that says you can be charged anywhere from $175 to $475 always read the fine print of any agreement. I hope this helps you in your decision.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:29 am
Hi Warren,
Ace Tech has given a great answer here; I’ll try to build on it a little bit.
As a business VoIP specialist, I can share a couple of things with you here, the rest are on my website shown below under "CHEAP PHONE SERVICE" Also check out the "SOHO Corner" for some cool ways to use land line (or VoIP) features
Let’s take your items one by one:
-How is the sound quality compared with traditional Verizon?
oVoIP will generally be basically the same for residential use. To me, I prefer a landline, but I have both.
-
- How high is the monthly charge once "the deal" ends?
oThey will both end up being about the same in the long run. The cable company isn’t going to give you any huge deals here. Eventually they will also end up being taxed pretty much the same as well, although VoIP still enjoys some regulatory breaks right now.
-
- Many dropouts? Interruptions? Outages?
oWhen the lights go off, VoIP goes down. This is why I tell all business owners to "leave a line behind" when they migrate to VoIP; this is generally the fax or alarm line.
oNo matter what anyone says in a VoIP sales pitch, there’s nothing like that sweet dial tone from an analog land line after a hurricane or thunderstorm that has knocked out all electricity. Just be sure you have a cheap "non electric" handset to hook up to your land line in this event <;-0
oThe quality of your Internet connection (and what else you’re doing on it) makes a huge difference as to how reliable your VoIP connection will be – see "VoIP Problems" on the website below for more on this issue.
- Customer service?
oDepends on the carrier. You should also be thinking about 911 issues, read more on the internet or my website.
-Any other problems?
oOverall Voip is here to stay. With that said there are unlimited LD plans, features, and voice mail and so forth available with landlines, as with VoIP. Some of the things NOT available with POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service – yes it’s actually an industry term) is integration with your PC, TV and stuff. If you want to see who’s calling while you’re watching TV, you’ll need the VoIP option.
Good Luck!
If you’d like more information to carefully research not only the best voip providers, but also troubleshoot voip problems, including a bandwidth connection test, visit my website. http://www.business-voip-phone-service.com
March 8th, 2010 at 7:29 am
- How is the sound quality compared with traditional Verizon?
The same, if not slightly better.
- How high is the monthly charge once "the deal" ends?
Ask Comcast, they have to tell you.
- Many dropouts? Interruptions? Outages?
Cable companies must meet the same FCC regulations as the telcos - 99.999% network reliability, also known as "the five nines". If your cable service is interrupted, your voice service will be also. How often do you have interruptions in your video service? (Comcast is the biggest cable company in the US, but perhaps not the best.)
- Customer service?
Comcast is infamous for poor customer service, giving the rest of us a bad reputation. I don’t know much about Verizon customer service.
- Any other problems?
If you lose power, you lose phone service after the modem battery runs out, about 8 hours.
Contrary to urban legend, and what you may read here from other answers, digital voice service from cable companies DOES support E911 (Enhanced 911), meaning that if you call 911 the call center will see your name/address displayed. Your 911 call will not be routed through an intermediate service.
Comcast has plenty of bandwidth, so you can watch HD TV, surf the ‘net, stream video from Netflix, and talk on the phone all at the same time without any problem whatsoever. Unlike Vonage or Magic Jack, digital voice is not dependent on your internet speed. Yes, it is VoIP, which stands for Voice Over Internet PROTOCOL. That means it uses that protocol, but the voice packets DO NOT travel on the internet.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:29 am
ahh…
cable company telephone service, or digital voice is NOT VoIP (as compared to actual VoIP service that travels over the internet)
your internet connection and speed does NOT effect the QoS because the cable company OWNS the line that connects your home to there office, and the voice service travels over a different channel that your internet traffic… and your voice traffic over there network is given priority over all other packets traveling on there network…
the call quality matches, if not exceeds the call quality of traditional POTS copper phone service, as the signal is sent digitally over the cable network - so is less susceptable to the static, and other weather related troubles that the POTS copper network suffers from…
the cost before and after the initial period is better than POTS service - as it is an all inclusive service - taxes, fees, and domestic long distance… all of which would increase a standard POTS line charge well over the cost of cable company provided telephone service…
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