Comcast Digital Voice infrastructure?

[Brian J. Conway]

On Sat, 8 Sep 2007 12:13:27 -0400 (EDT)
Scott Ehrlich <scott-DPNOqEs/LNQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> My parents currently have RCN for voice, cable, and Internet, and are
> now re-evaluating who has what and associated costs.  They were at a
> Comcast service center and called me from their cell phone to have the
> Comcast customer service person explain to me how their digital service
> works.  I pushed, verifying their offering was not VOIP, and they
> confirmed.  I then asked how the infrastructure was designed once the
> signal left the customer.  The best I got was it goes over coax,
> Internet services is not needed, the service uses Comcast' own private
> network, and the customer is given an 8 hour battery in case power goes
> out.
> 
> What more can the list offer for how Comcast' service works?  How about 
> RCN's?   What do people see if price differences?  How about in
> comparison to FIOS?
> 
> For Comcast Digital Voice, can I go out and get a larger-capacity UPS
> and slap it on Comcast' connection and extend the life beyond 8 hours?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Scott

You were (partially) misinformed.  CDV is indeed VoIP, but the VoIP piece operates on a different frequency than that used by the HSI connection of the modem, thereby segmenting the bandwidth and ensuring quality.  I believe the network used by CDV is segmented further up the chain as well, but I don't know all the details.  My parents use CDV in a couple locations and it has worked flawlessly, but do keep in mind you won't have all the same guarantees of uptime as a copper landline.

Perhaps the rep was confused with the old Comcast Digital Phone service (inherited from AT&T Broadband and some others), which was a coax-based, switched phone system.  That's been mostly retired across the board at this point.

Yes, you can plug the modem into the UPS of your choice for extended uptime.

Brian J. Conway

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