[Electronics-Talk] Modern land line services

Mon Jun 20 03:27:21 UTC 2022

Hi.

We've experienced multiple copper wire landline service outages. I do 
believe it to be the most reliable, but I don't think that reliability 
is worth the extra $40 or so that it would cost for that versus a voice 
over internet protocol system. We have it here because if we cancel it 
Frontier disables the second line making our bonded twisted pair dual 
line ADSL2+ connection which is supposed to be 24mbit down and 2mbit up 
but is actually 26mbit down and 1.7mbit up become 12mbit down and 
0.8mbit up. They do this without telling you they will do it, and they 
will not let you turn it back on even if you sign up for phone service 
again. They did it to me and then promptly did the same thing to a 
friend in Michigan whom I begged not to try it and he didn't listen. 
Sucks to be him. I got it back because we wouldn't quit calling and 
asking for it. Took about 3 months but we had the Attorney general 
involved and a lady called and assured us she would have them come out 
and fix it. They finally did. At which point our entire phone system was 
completely destroyed by a horrible Electric Storm that took out 
everyone's modems in the area and many electric boxes, killed my 
computer that was plugged into the modem, etc etc. Since then I have 
never got the full 2.2mbit uplink that it used to be it is now only 
1.7mbit and that's after repeated calls for them to come out and look 
into making it more reliable. With dsl it's the uplink that becomes a 
pain in the butt not the downlink.

About losing power, that only means anything if you have a phone service 
that uses batteries. Ours does but sometimes we lose the landline 
completely when power goes out. No dial tones even on the cordless phone 
and yes the cordless phone base has power. We have multiple generators.

Some cordless phones, especially a couple of options from Panasonic, can 
draw power out of what ever handset is on the base to run the whole 
system. It's nice because if the outage is extended, just swap the 
handset for another one to keep the cordless phone system online albeit 
with one less phone, and it only makes sense to do that if you have more 
than one cordless handset with it. Otherwise, you need a generator or 
some kind of uninterruptable power supply to keep the base powered. Once 
you have that, it becomes just about as likely that you won't lose 
voiceover internet protocol connectivity, because generator/UPS keeps 
the modem running. This is what we do and we fairly regularly weather 
power outages without even the slightest dip in our dsl internet 
connection, which means our cell phones still work with WiFi calling, a 
good thing as we don't actually have usable cell signal in the area.

That said we've had no dsl connectivity and neither has many other 
frontier users in a several state wide area for the past week. I'm 
connected using hotspot on my phone, but it's like pulling teeth to get 
the phone to connect with a good enough signal to get the hotspot to 
stay on. I discovered it sort of works leaning against the wall about a 
foot up from the bottom of my bed. Moving it a couple of inches makes it 
lose everything and it might take more than an hour to convince it to 
work again.

To be able to use just the landline power you need a wall phone that 
does not have a separate power supply than what it gets from the single 
telephone cord itself.

Cheers:
Aaron Spears, AKA Valiant8086 General Partner at Valiant Galaxy Associates "we make (VERY GOOD AUDIOGAMES) for the blind comunity" http://valiantGalaxy.com

On 6/19/2022 4:19 PM, Gerald Levy via Electronics-Talk wrote:
>
> Spectrum phone service, like all phone service provided by cable 
> companies, is VOIP, regardless of whether it is connected to a modem 
> or some other device. This means that if there is a power outage, you 
> will lose your phone service.  A friend of mine who has Spectrum phone 
> service lost her phone service for ten days two months ago due to an 
> outage that their brain dead techicians took forever to repair and had 
> to rely on her cell phone. The only truly reliable phone service is 
> provided by good old-fashion copper wire networks.  Thank goodness, 
> Verizon, another company plagued by stupidity and mismanagement, has 
> been prohibited from discontinuing my copper wire landline service 
> because my landlord, who has a sweetheart deal with Spectrum that 
> dates back 50 years, will not let Verizon wire my apartment building 
> for FIOS.  In 70 years,I have only experienced one outage with my 
> copper wire land line service. But I am stuck with Spectrumm for my 
> cable TV and Internet service because they have an absolute monopoly 
> in my area, and I have to pay $200 a month, or else go without cable 
> TV and Internet service, plus another $35 a month for my Verizon 
> copper wire service. If I wanted to switch to Spectrum VOIP phone 
> service and lower my monthly bill by bundling all three services, I 
> would not be able to use my existing phone jacks throughout my 
> apartment because Spectrum would be barred from accessing the main 
> phone junction box, which is the property of Verizon,  to shut off the 
> low voltage current that would still flow through the old phone lines 
> to the jacks. Because I am hearing impaired, using cordless phones 
> throughout my large apartment instead of wired phones which provide 
> superior amplification would not be a practical option.
>
>
> Gerald
>
>
>
> On 6/19/2022 3:36 PM, Peter via Electronics-Talk wrote:
>> Hello Tony and everyone,
>>
>>     I think these folks are looking for traditional land line service
>> that does not require the use of a modem. We have our phone service 
>> through
>> Spectrom and it works well. If you buy multiple phones and place them in
>> each area where you want them this is just as good as old-time phone 
>> service
>> from Maa Bell. Welcome to the new millennium.
>>
>> Peter Donahue
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Electronics-Talk<electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org>  On 
>> Behalf Of
>> Tony Sohl via Electronics-Talk
>> Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2022 2:20 PM
>> To:electronics-talk at nfbnet.org
>> Cc: Tony Sohl<tonysohl at samobile.net>
>> Subject: [Electronics-Talk] Modern land line services
>>
>> Hi Cox cable has a land line service and the phone connects 
>> directorly into
>> the modem.
>>
>> We have cox phone and if you get the phone to sometimes the cable 
>> service
>> can put you into a bundle.
>>
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