scott2ya
Iphone junkie
Premium
join:2002-03-07
Missouri
| Some things just got to be regulated
Traditional phone service is regulated to death. But the thing I like about it the most is that your POTS is always battery backed up.
Being in the phone industry, I know that the power can go out, and your phone will continue to work for 6-8 hrs and longer in most cases, because not only is the C.O. battery backed up, but there are generators there too. If on an RT (remote terminal), then there are only the batteries, but when they get low, techs are dispatched with generators in most cases. So in a perfect world you phone service should never go down due to power issues, UNLESS all your phones require power. You should always have at least one plain old telephone, not the cordless ones.
I would never switch soley to internet phone for the same reasons this baby died. Even a cell phone is more reliable than voip telephony. |
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BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Everett, MA
clubs:
 ·Comcast
| Cell phone e-911 is very reliable. Some carriers are not phase 2 compliant at the moment but most are and the accuracy on some of them can locate you to within 15 meters 67 % of the time and 100 meters 97% of the time, at least in our markets it does.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" |
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WhyADuck
Premium
join:2003-03-05
| reply to scott2ya
said by scott2ya  :Traditional phone service is regulated to death. But the thing I like about it the most is that your POTS is always battery backed up. True in theory, but do you realize how many people have a cordless phone (which won't work when the power is out) as their only phone these days? When that major blackout hit parts of the Eastern U.S. and Canada a couple of summers ago, there were many people who lost phone service solely because they didn't have a corded phone in the house.
My point being, if you are going to criticize VoIP because it doesn't come with a battery backup, where was all that criticism when cordless phones were first introduced? I know you're aware of this issue because of what you wrote in the next paragraph, but still I think it's not right to level this criticism solely at VoIP. Remember, all a person needs to do is plug their cable or DSL modem, router, and VoIP adapter (and cordless phone, if they have one) into a good Uninterruptable Power Supply, and they should have at least a few hours' backup.
said by scott2ya :Being in the phone industry, I know that the power can go out, and your phone will continue to work for 6-8 hrs and longer in most cases, because not only is the C.O. battery backed up, but there are generators there too. If on an RT (remote terminal), then there are only the batteries, but when they get low, techs are dispatched with generators in most cases. So in a perfect world you phone service should never go down due to power issues, UNLESS all your phones require power. You should always have at least one plain old telephone, not the cordless ones. Funny you should mention remote terminals. A few years back we had a major power surge and outage, and it took the power company about 16 hours to get everyone back online. The remote terminal serving the area stayed up the whole time. But the next afternoon, the entire neighborhood lost phone service and it stayed out the rest of the day and evening. I found out later that the power surge had damaged the charging circuits, so the RT was still running off the backup battery even after power was restored, and the batteries finally gave up the ghost the next afternoon. The problem was, the phone company had plenty of generators on hand, but what they didn't have was a replacement for whatever components had burned out - they wound up taking the components from another RT (in effect borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, as the old saying goes), leaving that one to run on batteries in the hope that they could get a replacement before the batteries there ran out. |
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scott2ya
Iphone junkie
Premium
join:2002-03-07
Missouri
| Well that is why I said in a perfect world 
The point I am trying to make here, is that with voip, you have to have power to your house, or as you say have an uninteruptible power supply UPS (another 200$$??) to make it as reliable as traditional phone service.
How many VOIP users have a UPS for thier phone.
And yes, I have cordless for most of my house, but I got one plain telephone that needs nothing but the telephone jack for power. I doubt that your average VOIP users think about stuff like this. I am not trying to knock VOIP, I think it is a great technology, but I just don't think it is ready to take over as someones sole home telephone. It would be great for companies to use in call centers and non critical uses.
I wouldn't recommend VOIP for someones sole home telephone. |
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J D McDorce
Premium
join:2001-12-29
Westland, MI
| said by scott2ya :The point I am trying to make here, is that with voip, you have to have power to your house, or as you say have an uninteruptible power supply UPS (another 200$$??) to make it as reliable as traditional phone service. Assuming, of course, that your broadband connection itself stays up. Looking at cable internet as an example, many MSOs have added UPS units to their plant, but 100% coverage has not yet been achieved. I've gone through a couple of power outages locally where I had UPS coverage for my VoIP adapter, cable modem, and cordless phone - only to lose sync on the cable modem due to lack of power supplying the cable plant. |
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Orwell1984
@fdn.com
| reply to scott2ya
My voip phone has a battery backup built in to the cable modem. Also interesting is that we lost pots lines in all 3 hurricanes last year. Internet worked fine though.Part of my reason for switching to voip was for more reliable service.I have all of the emergency numbers on speed dial.I am perfectly happy with my service and hope idiots do not mess with it.If someone doesn't like voip then don't use it. |
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Captain Obvious
| reply to scott2ya
You know, you could provide your OWN battery backup - in for the form of a UPS. A decent size UPS will run a small router and a ATA for quite a while. (my setup will run for nearly 3 hours on battery)
With careful management, you can extend that 3 hours for quite a while by shutting the system down when you don't need it. I have only experienced one outage that lasted longer than my UPS - and that was due to a hurricane (or, more accurately, the retards that BG&E contacted to wire my street, since ours was the only street in our neighborhood to lose power...) |
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nozzer
join:2004-06-25
Waltham, MA | reply to scott2ya
A ups suitable for a router/modem is about $30-40 bucks in Best Try.
noz |
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ke4pym
join:2004-07-24
Charlotte, NC | reply to scott2ya
I've got 3 big APC Smart-UPSes and a monster generator.
You? |
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scott2ya
Iphone junkie
Premium
join:2002-03-07
Missouri
| reply to J D McDorce
said by J D McDorce :
I've gone through a couple of power outages locally where I had UPS coverage for my VoIP adapter, cable modem, and cordless phone - only to lose sync on the cable modem due to lack of power supplying the cable plant.
Exactly! Traditional telephone is battery and or generator backed up. It is federally mandated. If your power goes out, your telephone will still be working. Cable is not federally mandated, and your average voip customer is not going to know this stuff. Tiss why I say some things just got to be regulated. Right now cable and voip is not regulated near as much as traditional telephone. Because of the regulation, even your dsl signal will be there. Now this is all in a perfect world, with no equipment faults and good batteries.
Now I am not saying that all cable companies don't back thier stuff up with batteries and or generators, but I'll bet there are quite a few that arn't. I wouldn't give up my traditional telephone service for those reasons. |
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J D McDorce
Premium
join:2001-12-29
Westland, MI
| Even traditional telephone service isn't perfect. While the blackout of 2003 could be best described as extenuating circumstances, I now have a pretty good idea that the UPS unit in the RT that I am serviced off of will last about 12 hours in the event of a power outage.  |
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