Cox (NOLA) phone service (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Sparkle]

Has anyone else dealt with this 'upgrade' to their Cox phone service? I keep getting notices so I finally called. I am somewhat of a dinosaur in that I keep a landline for emergency/911 situations. We no longer answer it (keep the ringer off) and 99.9% of the calls we do get are spam, so its really just an insurance policy at this point.

Now Cox is telling me that unless they upgrade my phone lines and swap out a special modem, my phone service will be disconnected. And even if I do upgrade I will lose phone service during a power outage unless I buy a backup battery from them (of course). They also said they may need to do some rewiring (at my cost) inside the house to make it all work

I am pretty sure we will just let the landline die rather than deal with the hassle of running any new wiring but just wondered if anyone else locally has dealt with this.

 

[Dago]

Just get rid of it and get this for emergencies

 

[Brandon13]

To avoid new wiring (which you may or may not even actually need) and if you care enough to keep a home phone, you can buy a phone set like this


Amazon product ASIN B00FRSYS12
The base set sits close to the modem and is wired to it which then allows the additional handsets, which only require power and no phone jack, to work anywhere else in the house.

Unless for some reason they won't allow you to do this, but I installed cable for years and with Cox in Pensacola, and we did this all the time.

And you could absolutely buy your own battery backup. Again, if it even matters.

 

[buzd]

We dropped landline several years ago, but had it with Cox in a similar situation prior. Changing out the modem is probably legit. It seems unlikely they would have to do any internal wiring to the jacks or phone infrastructure, but if your incoming cable has splitters, that may have to be reworked.

The battery is kind of surprising, because most of the time (not all) that the power goes out, we lose Cox services completely - usually the line has to be powered for it to work.

We've been very happy without a landline. Our alarm system uses a cell signal now, so there's really no reason to have one.

 

[efil4stnias]

because they all going to VOiP. They in cahoots with the alarm companies. When i lost my landline, i lost my alarm - to go to wifi alarm, it was $25 more per month. im like wut?

so i said no to the $40/mo VOiP and paid $35 for Magic Jack.

 

[buzd]

to go to wifi alarm, it was $25 more per month. im like wut?

The cell units for alarm systems are (depending on the system) about $200 and up.

 

[efil4stnias]

The cell units for alarm systems are (depending on the system) about $200 and up.

yep and i relented. now with ADT ( direct - not a 3rd party vendor )

sigh...$48/mo AND no coverage if power goes out lol.

nice. pay more less coverage. huh. sounds like insurance in a hard market

 

[buzd]

yep and i relented. now with ADT ( direct - not a 3rd party vendor )

sigh...$48/mo AND no coverage if power goes out lol.

nice. pay more less coverage. huh. sounds like insurance in a hard market

Damn, you're getting hosed. We are at $25/month (although we paid for equipment up front).

Why don't you have coverage if power goes out? We have the power source plugged into a battery (which only needs to power it until the generator kicks on).

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

We dropped landline several years ago, but had it with Cox in a similar situation prior. Changing out the modem is probably legit. It seems unlikely they would have to do any internal wiring to the jacks or phone infrastructure, but if your incoming cable has splitters, that may have to be reworked.

The battery is kind of surprising, because most of the time (not all) that the power goes out, we lose Cox services completely - usually the line has to be powered for it to work.

We've been very happy without a landline. Our alarm system uses a cell signal now, so there's really no reason to have one.

I just switched to a cellular alarm system through a local company so the only other reason I had been hanging on to the landline is now gone too.

I'm thinking I will just drop it. I'm also patiently waiting for AT&T fiber to hit my block so I can drop Cox altogether.