So my mom finally decided to take the leap to IP-based phone service. Naturally I’ve been nagging her to dump the land line for years now. She had always been an AOL dial-up user and paid the premium Bell charges for POTS. So it made sense for her to switch to broadband and get a VoIP phone line. My suggestion was that she give Packet8 a look. But she preferred the bundling approach of Time Warner, from whom she now subscribes to Internet access, TV programming, and telephone service.

She has had a lot of trouble with the Time Warner VoIP service. Interestingly, the number port was painless and quick, but that’s about the only aspect of the process that was easy. On day one, the installer was there for half a day. When he left, the line was working but only intermittently. Incoming calls were hit or miss–sometimes, the phone just wouldn’t ring. Later, it got to the point where the ATA would ring when incoming calls occurred–but it would only ring ONCE.  (“I could’ve sworn I heard the phone ringing!”)

So Time Warner sent their tech out for a follow-up visit. He said the first tech “screwed up the wiring”. Gee, never heard that from a phone company or cable tech before.  But apparently the service is working OK now. I’ll keep you posted on Mom’s VoIP journey.