[lug] Local phone service with Comcast--any experience?

[Nate Duehr]

Ken MacFerrin wrote:

> I've been happy with Comcast broadband and Vonage's Premium plan for my 
> phone service.  Even with a large family I've never had a bill over $30 
> and they have a great feature set.  To solve the 911 location issue you 
> just need to register your address in the web interface after signing 
> up.  You will have a slight bit more down time than a traditional POTS 
> line but they have a nice rollover feature that you can set to have 
> incoming calls automatically route to your cell phone if your net 
> connection is down for any reason.
> -Ken

Anyone done Vonage with the Linksys VoIP-enabled router?

I saw them at MicroCenter the other night and alllllmost bought one, but 
wanted to do some googling first...

Does anyone know if you can later use the Linksys as a SIP device for 
anything other than Vonage if Vonage dies or you decide you want to 
build your own Asterisk box, etc.?  The box was less than helpful, 
covering 20% of the box with Vonage advertising makes for less space for 
useful information like specifications and standards supported.  (GRIN)

I know I can go get Sipura devices a lot cheaper than the Linksys, but 
I'm thinking about retiring the old Pentium I that's doing firewall duty.

For the "end-user" machines that already have host-based firewalls on 
them, etc... something like the Linksys router would be a fine 
replacement for the heat-generating, noisy, dusty ol' Pentium that's in 
the network cabinet in the basement... I think.

Seeing that Linksys has that VoIP router kinda made me think I should 
just get on with both "round 'tuit projects" in the same device.  ;-)

Oh... another question for the group: Anyone ported a Qwest number to 
Vonage?  Everyone I've talked to that has done this has had from a 3 to 
a 6 month wait.  Nice.  It's a flippin SS7 database record... and Qwest 
claims they don't know how to do it and they stall around... getting a 
few more months of money out of you before you dump their asses forever.

(Heh... did I say that out loud?  Grin...)

Also, and here's the really scary one... anyone ported their voice line 
away from a voice/DSL line and not lost the DSL circuit in the process? 
  Qwest supposedly does "naked" DSL now for a slightly higher charge, 
but can they really do something as simple as re-provision the circuit 
to drop voice and leave the DSL active and not screw it up?  (I haven't 
seen any reports from anyone that they can yet...)

Maybe I better invest in some other high-speed data option like Cable 
before doing the VoIP thing.  Or maybe a Cablemodem as an "emergency 
backup" that I could throw my stuff on so I could at least work from 
home during late-night callouts, etc... since I'm sure Qwest will NEVER 
get this right... haha... I'm such a pessimist when it comes to Baby 
Bells.

They are so clueless that the very procedures they've created to 
supposedly make their service more reliable is usually what BREAKS 
nowadays with all the various options available to their customers.  And 
many of their Baby Boomer management actually believes what will save 
them is MORE bureaucracy and procedures... Muahahaha...

"If we just fix THIS step in this procedure...", meanwhile the 
technology world has created six more options to add at that step...

Oh yeah... someone else mentioned the WRT54G... maybe that plus a 
standard Vonage box would be more flexible.  I saw some posts around 
that said Linksys is messing with the hardware and there are now (once 
again) multiple versions of the device... all named WRT54G.  Why *do* 
they do that?!  Sigh...

Wow... that got longer than I intended... and lots of questions in 
there.  Google here I come this evening...

Nate