Actually, Cox telephone is not VoIP, but it is digitized fairly early. As I understand it they use a proprietary digital voice transport using one of the subcarrier bands in the coax cable from the CPE AD/DA MUX up to the fiber headend, then it's transferred to ATM over the HFC SONET ring (same route as the IP traffic, just higher priority) back to their CO switch. The run a pretty much standard digital voice network from there out. At no point does the voice data transfer to IP packets.
They are regulated as a normal telephone carrier, so they provide +90DC power to the CPE, full 911 support, battery backup at every step, etc... They have to meet the same NEBS requirements QWest does, so it's a lot more reliable than any VoIP provider can be.
In the almost 8 years I've had Cox phone, they went out once, for about 4 hours, and that was because some nimrod tech ignored the "telephone active" tag on my line and put a bad splitter on the line adding my neighbor's digital cable.
In contrast I've lost Cox internet on the same line for a total of over 60 days in the same 8 years, mostly because they can't seem to maintain decent signal strength on my line at the CPE entrance.
==Joseph++
Gene Holmerud wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:40:02 -0700, Dan Lund
> <situationalawareness@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Just IP.
>> Cox phone is just normal phone service.
>>
> Hugh? Are you sure Cox phone is not Voice over IP (VoIP), just like
> Vonage, Lingo, Packet 8, etc.? Sure you use a normal phone, but the
> sound is digitized to IP packets before being put on the cable, or on
> receive, the sound is reconstituted (D-A) before being put on the
> 2-wire to your normal phone.
>
> Gene
>
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