ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area vonage phone system

"While your UPS can take care of your power outage, the cable companies have pole mounted equipment that requires power between you and their central equipment."

Many telephone companies such as Verizon are using remote concentrators which require power. These are installed in curbside cabinets. They have the same problem the cable companies do: If the batteries fail, the equipment doesn't work in a power outage.

"Many telephone companies such as Verizon are using remote concentrators which require power. These are installed in curbside cabinets. They have the same problem the cable companies do: If the batteries fail, the equipment doesn't work in a power outage"

Verizon switches in curb boxes will last for a week, the cable pole mount amps will usually last 3 to 4 hours at best, if they remembered to replace the batteries, they have a lot of pole amps without batteries in them, not all cable companies invest in the equipment needed to deliver the bandwith, or even provide a good service, IMO the number one concern is money comming in every month for overpriced services.

A residential phone bill decreased every year from the first day phone services were marketed, then one year after deregulation, the increases started, and it has been a study up slope in charges, they trainned the public well, to accept less for more.

Before dereg, you could get service in days not weeks.

But in many cases the internet is provided by the cable company.

You're not following me. Voice or telephone from a cable company is not carried by the internet. From the cable modem it goes back to their head end or office using their coax and fiber then out to the local telco central office using the usual telco methods. This is why service is good.

Vonage utilizes the internet to go from the cable company to the Vonage switch, wherever in the country that might be. This is why service quality varies greatly.

With either carrier you are going to have to contend with loss of power causing your service to go down. Cable companies have backup batteries in all their plant power supplies as does the telephone companies. Both have generators to keep the central office and cable head ends up and running. You can always provide a UPS for your modem. I know that with an extended outage you will still go down but you need to keep that in mind when considering the service vs price.

-Hal

Again, I agree with Hal. The cable internet service (Comcast) goes out all the time around here and we usually expect it to be gone for weeks after a big storm. They get the TV cable going much sooner than the broadband.
- sign me still down in Estero, 2 days and counting. I am waiting for a callback from Embarq on my DSL installation.

Or sometimes, as one person put it, make you sound like a morphing walrus!


Don,

E-911 aside, wasn't there some fuss about regular 911 service through VoIP a while back?

Obviously with VoIP numbers available in distant cities there wouldn't be a lot of point in having 911 go to a center in Manhattan just because you have a 212 area code if you actually live in California.

If I recall correctly, the FCC wanted to push through some rule which would mean that all VoIP operators must ask subscribers where they want 911 calls routed, and if they did not receive a response were to terminate all service completely.

At least that's how I remember the story.

We have DSL running here on lines which are 5 miles from the C.O. as the wire runs (admittedly at reduced speeds, typically 0.5 meg).

Don't confuse Vonage with voice services provided by a cable company. Apples and oranges. Vonage uses the internet, a cable modem only uses the cable lines for VoIP. At their head end or office their switch connects you with normal telco provided facilities. Usually cable voice service is quite good.

I know the difference, just when Comcast can keep my cable modem and TV up for a week-straight... (Once again, it's the end of the world as we know it, and i feel fine.)

Ian A.

The cable company in my area has no power back-up for any of the equipment after it leaves their head-end. An outage that takes out any amp or media converter between you and the head-end takes out your service. If you have any type of phone service via the cable system, either cable supplied or internet supplied you are out of service until that power is restored.
Don

Paul,
Our phone company won't give DSL over 15,000 wire feet and only give the higher speed connections, up to 6 meg, to about 9,000 feet.
You do have to set it up to route the call correctly, but you can take your phone service anywhere in the world and there is nothing to make sure that you re-route the call when you travel with your VOIP phone. I would like to see the FCC require that actual GPS location information be transmitted with all VOIP and wireless 911 calls.
Don

They must have a lot of batteries in that Verizon equipment.

A rough back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that if Verizon's curbside equipment takes 96 watts, that is, 2 amps at 48V, it'll take a minimum of twenty (20) 70-amp hour 12-volt batteries to keep it running for a week. A 70-amp hour 12-volt lead acid battery is physically about the size of a car battery.

Some phone companies use an outside enclosure with batteries, hydrogen tanks and hydrogen fuel cells. The batteries are for the few minutes until the fuel cells get going. The ones I saw at a trade show could use a number of H2 tanks to provide the required run time.

Don