Who has those all in one services for HiTel or Oceanic?

[adrian]

My Mom just informed me that she's thinking of switching from Hawaiian Telcom services to Oceanic's services. Currently, we have HiTel phone and DSL, but OC's cable.

From what I remembered, she told me that we can pay $150 or so if we go with Oceanic digital phone, cable, and internet. I don't know what we're currently paying for cable+phone+DSL. Soon, HiTel will be rolling out their own TV package, matching what OC is giving since they just rolled out their digital phone.

My main concern, is when we have to turn off the modem. That'll mean that the internet and phone will go out. Not to mention, if there's no electricity, then no one can call us (a few elderly relatives memorized our number, so they'll just get confused if we give them five cell phone numbers).

If anyone has OC's all in one package, how is it? Any problems? So, basically, its about saving money. If I was a permanent employee of Hawaiian Telcom, then I would have used my discounts, but I'm just a contractor.

[craigwatanabe]

yes if the modem were turned off or there was a power failure you'd lose your phone service. But the solution to that is to keep a portable power inverter handy.

Home Depot sells a Husky brand portable power supply that contains a 12-volt battery that can crank a car up to 750-amps and power an onboard inverter to supply one hour of 450-watts of clean AC power. It runs I believe $89 but in the case of a power outage you can run that modem off of it providing the outage is localized to your area only and not island wide. It's the next best thing to a generator.

But when it comes to power outages and phone service, do you have a corded phone that simply plugs into the phone outlet? If not I suggest you buy one because those cordless phones rely on the AC power in your house to receive and send calls. Corded phones rely on the phone company's lines for power.

[Miulang]

But when it comes to power outages and phone service, do you have a corded phone that simply plugs into the phone outlet? If not I suggest you buy one because those cordless phones rely on the AC power in your house to receive and send calls. Corded phones rely on the phone company's lines for power.
And landline phones have more reliability than even your electrical service sometimes! We've had more instances of the lights going out than we have of losing our landline service, which is why I am loathe to totally abandon landline phones. The only time we usually have phone problems is when there's a cable cut.

Even if your lights go out, most of the time (unless you have a cordless phone and forgot to put some backup batteries in it) your landline phone WILL work. If you've got one of those $4.99 cheapo "princess" type phones with no bells and whistles, you don't even need the battery backup.

Miulang

[adrian]

But when it comes to power outages and phone service, do you have a corded phone that simply plugs into the phone outlet? If not I suggest you buy one because those cordless phones rely on the AC power in your house to receive and send calls. Corded phones rely on the phone company's lines for power.
Yes, plus we have cell phones.

And if this will be like DSL, will I have to route the phone lines from the modem to all phones, or will I still be able to use the phone jack?

I believe we have three phones, one upstairs, and two downstairs, with one being a fax machine.

And having a power converter just to have the active home phone is a bit extreme. I might port the home number to a cell phone.

[lavagal]

I did a story about this and the guy I interviewed at Oceanic Cable has the OC service, his landline and a cellular phone. I think we're all addicted to redundancies in life!

[Miulang]

I did a story about this and the guy I interviewed at Oceanic Cable has the OC service, his landline and a cellular phone. I think we're all addicted to redundancies in life!
Or looking at it another way: "I gotta have all these different tools because I use each one for something different!" :D

Miulang

[Konaguy]

Bear in mind even if your CPE has backup power Oceanic
does not have backup power on their nodes
(Only their main headend on Oahu has backup power)and
most of their headends. Thus you are SOL if the power cuts
out for any reason. In short it is not carrier grade service like
your phone company.Ask Oceanic they'll tell you the same thing.

[pzarquon]

All-in-one solutions have their appeal for price and convenience, but they also make me nervous in the "all eggs in one basket" sense. One company's problems could shut you down in several ways, whereas it's less likely that several companies would have glitches at the same instant (cataclysmic events excepted).

Interesting to see both ISPs and cable companies pushing VOIP solutions. I think if I were to ever go that route, I'd just stick with whatever internet service provider I prefer, but implement a separate VOIP solution like Skype or Gizmo -- since there is also hardware available for them that, like the commercial services, can make them effectively indistinguishable from having a "regular" phone plugged into the wall.

I use a phone at home so rarely, anyway, I'd rather pay three or four cents a minute (http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=554) to use Skype or Gizmo to call "regular" phones than a flat rate of $20-$30 a month (whatever it is) to do the same with Oceanic or Hawaiian Telcom.