we had a rogers rep around our door last night pushing the virtues of the new rogers home phone service. sounds good in some ways, because hey - a little friendly competition for ma bell would be a good thing. but i'm not digging the 2 year contract crap, and the need for a "phone box" (not sure what they are calling it) on my line that requires hydro to work. great when the power goes out. sure it's got a battery in it, but after 6 hours when that dies you're screwed. and if anyone is lucky enough to only have power outages less than 6 hours in this country i'd be amazed.
so the question is - anyone going for it?
me
fence
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Well.. I am considering switching to the same type of service around here in Montreal offered thru Videotron. Same idea, a little VoIP box hooks to your router/cable modem and offers the service. I didn't not mind the idea that I would be without a phone if the power goes out since I have 1) my cellphone and 2) a payphone right around the corner.
I think it's a good alternative, but the only issue for me is the price. After adding cable internet and the VoIP service, it would cost me 10 dollars more than the actual Bell service, and I can tell you I've had enough with Bell... but right now.. I am undecided...
i think we're talking about a different service. this one doesn't need the router/cable modem nor a high speed connection. it comes in over the tv cable from my understanding, and is then put through the little bos and connected to your regular phone jacks and wiring in the house. it's not supposed to VoIP, according to rogers.com
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"The trouble with life is there's no background music."
2ghz core2duo MacBook BLACK w/ 3gig ram, g4 ibook 1.2ghz w/1.25 gig ram, g3 ibook 600mhz, g3 clamshell ibook, imac dv 400mhz, ipod mini 2nd gen & iTouch 8 gig (my wife's really), 2gig ipod nano (my daughter's really), 512meg iPod shuffle (my other daughter's really) and a really well used iPhone 3G
i think we're talking about a different service. this one doesn't need the router/cable modem nor a high speed connection. it comes in over the tv cable from my understanding, and is then put through the little bos and connected to your regular phone jacks and wiring in the house. it's not supposed to VoIP, according to rogers.com
It would be interesting to know how they transmit the voice over the tv cable. as far as I know tha's still VoIP, just not over the public internet.
There a lot of pretty good VoIP services using private networks - Rogers, on their webpage equate VoIP with public internet services which is not correct.
In my mind, the issue is reliability, quality and price.
My cable for instance goes out a lot more than my phone line. I lose cable service at least three or four times a year, my phone line only went out once in the last 45 years. reliability is also the reason I went with DSL rather than cable for the high speed internet connection so I won't miss that super deal on ebay
And assuming reliability is not an issue and the quality of the voice connection equals what you get with Bell, I would expect to see at least a 10% or better saving before I would consider switching.
Bell's bundle with the $5.00 essentially unlimited (for my use at least) long distance to Canada and the US makes their service a lot cheaper than any competitive prices I have seen.
We have Vonage here and from a price savings perspective, it is worth any minor web or cable related annoyances. I think Rogers, Shaw and Cogeco have missed the boat here. They should have saved the infrastructure costs and gone the same route as AT&T, Vonage and Yak.
As it stands now, they are offering a slightly less reliable product for around the same price.
We have every feature known to telephony and no limit on NA Long distance. We have a 416 area code, even though we are 905, which saves most of our freinds and Family a toll.
$40 a month. With Bell or Rogers, in this house it would cost more than $100.
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great when the power goes out. sure it's got a battery in it, but after 6 hours when that dies you're screwed.
the phone box that has the battery back up is good for 6 hours - this would be long enough for the rogers techs to get out to the local hubs and start up generators that would power the cable line including your phone connection so you shouldnt have any phone line loss.
the reason they settled on the 6 hour battery back up as being sufficent was because the hydro companies said that 99% of power outages are restored within 4 hours.
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We have Vonage here and from a price savings perspective, it is worth any minor web or cable related annoyances. I think Rogers, Shaw and Cogeco have missed the boat here. They should have saved the infrastructure costs and gone the same route as AT&T, Vonage and Yak.
As it stands now, they are offering a slightly less reliable product for around the same price.
We have every feature known to telephony and no limit on NA Long distance. We have a 416 area code, even though we are 905, which saves most of our freinds and Family a toll.
$40 a month. With Bell or Rogers, in this house it would cost more than $100.
I looked at Vonage a few weeks ago but it seemed more expensive than what I have now with Bell.
This certainly depends on your calling pattern, but perhaps their website is a bit confusing as well. The way I read it is that you require a high speed internet connection. the cheapest I can think of is naked DSL at around $10 per month which you would have to add to the Vonage bill or is that DSL connection included in their package?
What I never realized before (until your post) is that one can pick a different area code than the one where you're located. That sounds intriguing, so if I live in Toronto, I could pick 514, Montreal. Would that mean all my calls to and from Montreal are now local but my calls to and from Toronto are long distance?
I looked at Vonage a few weeks ago but it seemed more expensive than what I have now with Bell.
This certainly depends on your calling pattern, but perhaps their website is a bit confusing as well. The way I read it is that you require a high speed internet connection. the cheapest I can think of is naked DSL at around $10 per month which you would have to add to the Vonage bill or is that DSL connection included in their package?
What I never realized before (until your post) is that one can pick a different area code than the one where you're located. That sounds intriguing, so if I live in Toronto, I could pick 514, Montreal. Would that mean all my calls to and from Montreal are now local but my calls to and from Toronto are long distance?
Yes, but you can also add a virtual number for Montreal for $7.99 a month and have 2 numbers. Or one in Calgary, Mtl, Van and Toronto. See Virtual Numbers Here
We already had high speed, so the net for us was to cancel Bell and our LD plan. Bell with 2 services was $42 a month and our LD was running $30 a month minimum.
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