Cable telephone service. What is your experience?

[DaveThePhoneDoctorLV]

I seemt to notice a variet of issues that I have never had to deal with with traditional telco service vs cable based telco service from Cox. Not that they are all bad just different.

How about your experiences?

 

[SYQUEST]

I have had some interesting experiences with them in Irvine and Newport Beach, CA., also. On the phone side, the Arris ATA boxes they use, have a problem providing proper ringing voltage. Have a client that has three lines on a 1A2 KTS, and about a year after they had changed service providers, they had ring problems. It took about 2.5 years to get them to fix it. It started on one line at first, then the others started to fail. On the worst one I could barely get 50VAC during the ring cycle with the loop unterminated! The client finally raised enough ruckus to Cox corporate and they got an older tech that understood the problem and Cox located some ATAs that provided "real" ringing voltage. Problem solved! Another problem is Cox won't hunt residential lines!!! The telcos have provided line hunting for years on multi-line residence, but not COX!!

My client in Irvine has a problem with them changing the CID blocking at times on their back lines. No explanation why it changes.

....JIM....

 

[DaveThePhoneDoctorLV]

I have problems with alarms and credit card machines and faxes.

 

[Mountainbear]

I have installed Cable phone for about 3 years. The voice ports were quite reliable although sometimes we needed to install a ERC (extra ring current). In my opinion the new arris MTA that plugs into the wall for power is crap, we have run into several situations where we could not get the ringing voltage needed, old bells and some phones will not ring. Also If the power goes out you have about 8 hours max of service.

 

[SYQUEST]

That is exactly my point! If you go to the Arris website, they even have a tech note document on the E-MTA/ATA concerning proper ringing current, but Cox seems to be very dumb about it! They act as if nobody uses "real" ringers (ringers with gongs, not the electronic crap) in phones anymore, a la 2500 sets, or even 1A2 KTS. In fact one Cox tech told me, they were planning to convert the entire system to a VOIP type MTA that sits on the desk, but I don't recall the brand. It may be Motorola. So who knows what kind of ringing supply those will have.

The large Arris Cornerstone E-MTA MAX24 shoe box seems to be much better. It is powered from the cable system. My Irvine client has one of those in the phone room, and have not had any problems with ringing current, but their phone system is a quantity of Vtech 945s and a 984, four line phones.

....JIM....

 

[DaveThePhoneDoctorLV]

You know another real bis thing I notice is that when local calls are dialed it takes a long time for me to hear a ring. With Embarq you get instat ringing on local or long distance not so with Cox. I mean sometimes there is almost a 3 second delay or longer.

That was fine 20 years ago before Electronic Switching was in all the co's but these days I am use to instannt ring even with international calls that this is a real bother.

How about you?

 

[Dexman]

I think that the REN for the 945 & 984 at&t/VTech NoKSUs is 0.1 so they do not need as much power to ring as a 2500.

Another common issue has to do with Positive Disconnect. How often is that feature enabled on the first try? If it isn't....receptionists will find themselves answering phantom calls and voicemails will load up with junk.

Cable technicians are great when it comes to video because an improperly designed system can adversely affect other users.

The issue seems to be that they are not as knowledgeable with basic Telephony.

If it ain't broke, I haven't fixed it yet.

 

[Dexman]

Let me re-word my last sentence. Many cable technicians might not be as knowledgeable with basic Telephony.

If it ain't broke, I haven't fixed it yet.

 

[DaveThePhoneDoctorLV]

All the cable techs that work in my area are subs and I find that most really just want to get the job done as fast as possible cause they get paid by the number of jobs completed.

For example they are installing a new Cox web based service called Voice Manager and the customer has to set up everything, hunt groups, toll services voice mail and the techs won't help them and so the customer is left with a product that a sales rep sold them and then the customer has no idea how to finish up the install.

 

[SYQUEST]

Most cable installations I have seen are disasters! They are almost as bad as alarm installers, and they are pretty bad! The subcontractors give the good cable TV techs a bad name! I have seen and heard some horror stories of installations. The forums on Broadband Report.com are filled with some of this type of stuff.

Lots of code violations! Very few take pride in their work! Just do it any old way! "I got to get to the next install in 5 minutes!"

They may not be knowledgeable, but that is no excuse for sloppy and poor workmanship on any installation.

Just reporting what I see and hear...

....JIM....

 

[DaveThePhoneDoctorLV]

It does leave the door open for customers to realize when they have a good tech or installer, vendor etc. to keep them even if they have to pay more for better service.

I tell my customers I am not the cheapest guy in town but I am the best. My warranty for all my work is 2 years parts and labor cause I install everything right from the start. Very few warranty repairs which is why I give a longer warranty and why I justify my higher prices.

If they want cheap fast work I have a few hungry guys who will do it cheaper.

 

[cknipe]

I have a customer that uses 4 analog lines in his 3com nbx telephone system. this system performed great with his At&t lines. Then he found an amazing deal from the cable company that gave him the same lines for about half the cost.

The problem is that the frequencies and modulation tones on these types of lines if just emulated and most telephone systems will not interpret that the phone has hung up correctly.

Anyways, bottom line that you need to think about here is how much is 1 missed sale worth to you? if you only selling $20 kinck knacks, you're probably ok to go cheap.

But if you're the type of guy that your typical sale is closer to $3000-10,000....I would think this is a no brainer. That one missed/dropped call could be worth more than all the money you saved by switching over to the cheaper guys

 

[SYQUEST]

And in lite of that lost sale, when you are in business the expense of phone service is a deductible expense!

Loosing that call can cost you, so what have you saved??
Not much...

....JIM....

 

[RKDavis]

I thought I relay my experiences with "Digital Phone" service. As far as outbound service is concerned, I have not had any problems. Incoming service seems to have various issues. The calling party may experience delayed ring back tone. I seen as long as 10 to 15 seconds. Oneway converstaions occur on incoming calls. The end users on the MICS or CICS do not hear anything, just dead air. The outside callers think the call has completed. I tried dialing in from another source and get a busy single while keeping the original call connected. Then I get what I call "Parriot Talk" , inbound call seems to have been answered but every thing the caller says is repeated back to them. These problems occur at random times and with no particluar pattern.

RKDavis Wilmington,NC