Fios is worse than copper?

Right. That's what their webpage says and I guess I took Frank to be saying that, when he said "they have" he meant they have it if I buy it.

$40 plus the cost of 12 alkaline D-cells and the batteries go dead whether you use them or not. I don't know how long it takes if you dont' use them, and if you do turn the thing on, they say 24 hours of talking iiuc but don't say how much just being on uses them.

I have occasstional outages, most for just a minute or two. Fios will tell me the number of anyone who called me -- or will it say Out of Range, like it often does with *69, even when it's in the same area code and it's a normal person, not a thief or spoofer.

But assuming it gets the right number, won't the screen go blank during a power failure so I still won't be abel to call them. Maybe they'll call me but not if they think I hung up on them, and if so, they'll do it before I can get to the basement and turn on the batteries. They'll try once or twice and stop trying. Now that the battery is on, maybe I can get their numer off of the display, but by that time 5 minutes will have gone by.

I've only had one 3-day outage, in the fall or winter no less, and by the third day I had started calling people looking for a place to stay, but they all had their power out too. When I was getting very cold, the power came on. I guess the batteries would work through that if they weren't almost dead, and I'd probabl remember to turn them off when the power went back on, except I'd wait to see if went off again, and then forget.

And I've had a few that last an hour or two.

How come there aren't more complaints about Fios?

I have a cell phone, but I don't give many people the number,

What does it seem like to a caller when my power is out, that no one answers, a busy signal, or a recording that my power is out. Only the third would prompt someone to call me on the cell.

If they're going to say I should just use my cell all the time, then why do I need FIOS phone at all?

Reply to
micky
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Aha.

That would keep the connection from being broken! If the FIOS box is on the outside of the house, do I have to run a wire from the UPS? If I used some 4-conductor wire, could I run it the same wire as the phone signal? And split it before it got to the fios box.

It was the interruptions that bothered me most. And not knowing how to call them back if the display on the phone disappeared when the power was out.

For sure. A v. good friend and mentor only has cordless phones. I've told him he needs a wired one and he said he'd borrow one from friends across the street if he ever needed one. Of course that's when they'll need theirs too, and he used to have his old mother in law living with him. Now his wife is sick although I don't think she has crises.

The phone by my desk is wired (and it's the base for the cordless). Plus I have other old ones in the closet.

I'll bet you're right.

BEsides the box at my house, they must use electricity elsewhere too, unless they're battery** or solar powered! **Like the copper system has been powered for what, 100 years.

Reply to
micky

Using alkaline is dumb. They will be forgotten and dead when you need them. You can get an APC UPS for that price including the battery.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Why do people obsess over such trivial things as telephone failure?

If someone is that worried, they should get a cell phone and a landline...and maybe a satphone...just in case. Or become a licensed HAM and tap out sos in morse code? Maybe they could get a flare pistol and a case of signal flares as backup?

Reply to
Mae Day

It would be rather odd to have Comcast, a cable company, for VOIP and not have it for internet. I'm sure there is a small percentage that doesn't want internet at all. But it would be a pretty rare thing for someone to have VOIP from Comcast and internet from somebody else.

Reply to
trader_4

Fios will

Anyone that I cared about talking to would call me again if they could not get through. It's also extremely unlikely that they are going to somehow think a call that does not go through would be you picking up and hanging up on them. What did you do in the days before caller ID? I would think that voicemail at the VOIP service is probably on a central location, which would take a message when the power is out or your box is disconnected, etc, but you'd have to find out how it works on Fios. Maybe someone here can tell you or try it.

Why would that be? People who can't reach me at my home number call me next on my cell all the time. Or vice-versa.

Sounds like Fios is not for you. BTW, what happens if your cell phone battery is dead? Turned off? In a dead spot?

Reply to
trader_4

In general you can keep your phone number when moving to Ooma, but I had a number that wasn't a great one, not so easy to remember for people, etc. I also had ported my old Verizon number to Nettalk about 6 months earlier. Nettalk is a disaster, stay away. I think they wanted like $40 to port my number out. And then I think Ooma also charged a fee to port the number in. So, I decided to go with a new number, I had some great ones to choose from. Ooma has been great, I'd say the call quality is close to what you get from the typical VOIP that cable companies provide. It costs $5 a month. They call it "free", the $5 is for taxes, fed fees, etc.

Reply to
trader_4

I've been considering something like this, and the endorsement by two of you (or more?) is encouraging.

And, if I understood what he said, the new 4" tube they are laying will be used by Comcast. I thought he said contact. I'll ask someone else tomorrow. (They hire contractors so none of the trucks had a name I recognized.) So depending on what they are doing, that might make it more likely. Part of Baltimore has 6gig-cable, or whatever is the new thing. I can hardly believe they are installing that in my n'hood first, or even second, when there are so many n'hoods with more money and they charge $300/month for it.

When my mother moved and needed a new number (before porting) she told the woman on the phone that she wanted a number with low numbers so it would be easy to dial (remember dials?) and the woman kept giving her zeroes. My mother had trouble explaining why zeroes were no good. And this was when everyone on the phone when you called from Indiana was an American living in America.

Reply to
micky

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