For Anyone With Comcast Phone & Internet

[Bob]

Hello,

So hard trying to get meaningful answers out of their phone reps.

Presently, we have Verizon for our phone service. Thinking of getting one of the Comcast packages with their phone service.

Now have 3 phones (extensions) hooked up to Verizon now. The phones are all wired together, in parallel, in the basement.

If we go with Comcast, do we have to have new Comcast wiring to each phone jack, or would they just pick up the connection where the 3 phones are presently wired in the basement, without any new wiring.

New Comcast wiring would be rough, as we had a devil of a time stringing thru the walls, etc.

How is this handled, please ?

BTW: how well does Comcast phone work ? Any caveats or gotchas ?

Thanks, Bob

[Country]

I got rid of my land line phone service years ago and I won't be going back soon.

-C-

[Han]

Bob wrote in news:j01h2t$c5c$ [e-mail]:

When we went to FiOS way back when, they just cut the wire from the old incoming copper (used to have DSL at the time) wire to the box in the basement were the landline phones are hooked to, and wired the line from the FiOS distributor box to it. The FiOS tech was all for "KISS" ...

FiOS works just fine for me ...

[RickH]

I have Comcast, there is no change to the analog side of how your house phones are wired. Comcast just installs their phone router and it terminates to your previous main feed which they cut, the other side of their router simply hooks to the cable, the other side of the cut main feed (from the pole) they just tape up. The sound quality is excellent but you have to get used to the 2 or 3 seconds it takes to get a dial tone, unlike the old all-analog lines. I did not have to change anything, even the alarm system auto-dialer still works, as well as the sump pump auto-dialer.

[Ken]

I do not presently have Comcast phone service, but I have had it in the past. In my case they used the existing telephone wiring run to each phone throughout the house and no new wiring to each phone was required. They made the connection to their cable modem they installed by simply running a lead from the modem to an existing phone jack on the wall. Comcast phone uses VOIP if I am not mistaken. At least that is how my phone was handled.

Again I am not plugging Comcast services, but they did work fine for me when I had them.

[bob haller]

FIOS PHONE WAS THE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE.

SUCKY SERVICE HOSTILE REPS, unreliable phone service...... endless its your interior wiring even after road techs noted they reproduced the problem with y home totally disconnected.

After 3 months of agony thery finally found the trouble a bad router in my central office which effected all FIOS phone customers.

there was more, a backup battery faiure at 3 months from install. they tried demanding i pay for a new battery.claimed there was no warranty on batteries...... meanwhile the box beeped alarm 24 / 7. it took 2 weeks to finally get a new battery. there was more but the final straw was them turning off my business line when all I asked them was cancel outgoing call package. They did this twice , the first time a hour, the second time a couple days. I called the presidents office and got yelled at, had that number from the earlier problem.

VERIZON FIOS SERVICE SUCKS

[despen]

Wow, what a charmed life you must be living.

FIOS here in NJ has been 100% excellent. The service itself works great and every rep I've talked to is knowledgeable and polite.

Great job by Verizon.

[Han]

bob haller wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Sorry you had to suffer. None of that here in 07410. Very satisfied, really.

[Mark]

snip....

=A0I did not have to

now that sounds interesting...

what is a sump pump auto dialer?

Mark

[HeyBub]

You get a gizmo that plugs into your internet router. There's another jack on the gizmo, that's where you plug your telephone line. That is, this second jack is indistinguishable (to the telephones in your house) from the previous trunk line from the telephone company.

Be aware that a VoIP phone is more likely to go out of service than a land-line.

[fashun08]

responding to

fashun08 wrote: I changed over to comcast triple play, ( phone, cable, and internet) almost a year now. I have mixed feelings. The internet speed is great as well as cable TV, but the phone service, I am having problems with. And to answer your question.....They use your existing wiring. With that being said, there are a few other things you should know.

1. Be aware if you have a burglar alarm system that communicated through your ph> Hello,

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[Dimitrios Paskoudniakis]

I went from Comcast to Verizon FIOS. Once their line ran into the house, it connected to all the existing lines in the house.

Having said that, and having had both, I would never touch Comcast again. With Comcast I had frequent service outages and inept technicians. I have had no problems with Verizon.

[The Daring Dufas]

It dials either your cellphone, home phone or an alarm system monitoring company if the sump pump fails. There are auto dialers for all sorts of things like heating oil tanks, freeze alarms, power failure alarms for mission critical equipment, refrigeration failure alarms and of course burglar alarms. I used to install the circuit board from a small burglar alarm system in the Generac transfer switches I installed so it would call an alarm monitoring station whenever the generator exercised, failed to exercise or set off a trouble alarm. These days, I would go with an Internet connection for monitoring a customer's equipment at their home or business because most people seem to have a broadband Internet connection these days.

TDD

[Robert Neville]

Most modern housing has a demarc box outside the house. Bringing the line into the basement and splitting it there was common on the east coast and on the east coast. Either way, Comcast will run a line to where your room lines come together. You don't need new wiring to each room.

[aemeijers]

Ya don't even need to do that- just disconnect (and tape and flag) telco drop at demarc, and back-feed inside wiring from any convenient phone outlet. I say tape and flag, because you don't want anybody putting telco line current across the feed from the VOIP box.

Personally, I have an aversion to Single Point Of Failure technology. Most areas, local-loop copper is still by far the most reliable. Fiber or cable for everything means when it goes down, you lose EVERYTHING- phone, TV, and internet. I'd go stir-crazy in a day, I'd have to consider it anyway, if they offered it in this neighborhood, since it would save me 30-40 a month (at least until promo offer ran out), but right now I have dialtone on one wire, DSL on a separate wire, and satt dish on roof. Prepaid cell and amplified rabbit ears provide backup for

2 out of 3, and I have a junk laptop and a McDonald's with wifi a mile away for internet, if needed.

[gfretwell]

The biggest problem is that when Comcast "data" is down, your phone is also down. That may or may not be your TV service. They use the same wire but they don't use the same signals. When Comcast is down you are basically living in the 19th century and that is likely to be down a while if weather is the issue.

Good old POTS was usually your most stable utility.