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January 26, 2005
Call Disadvantage
A couple weeks back I signed up for CallVantage, AT&T's relatively new broadband-based phone service. VoIP seemed like a cool way to break free from the much-hated BellSouth while still keeping my existing telephone number and some semblance of landline-based phone service. And the CallVantage monthly plans seemed very reasonably priced, especially compared to regular phone service plans with all of their hidden FCC fees and universal access charges. It all seemed so promising...
But this post is not an endorsement of CallVantage. In fact, this little technology tale that I am about to tell is almost an "anti-referral", which is sort of like the viral marketing equivalent of a nonvite or an unvitation. It is also a demonstration of how exciting new technology can sometimes cause more problems than it solves....which brings to mind one of my favorite quotes of all time, a comment that Rain of the Jaguarundi once made in reference to the "donating" of really old and outdated computers: "That's like giving someone a crutch and then breaking their leg." So true, so true.
Things with CallVantage got off to a bad start when I discovered that the installation directions were woefully inadequate and not really aimed at people who already had a wireless router connected to their cable/DSL modem (surely a sizeable percentage of semi-early VoIP adopters?). But I tolerated this and eventually got things configured correctly with the help of a telephone support person. The operative word there being "eventually"....every time that I called in about one issue or another, it always took at least 15 minutes to reach a human voice.
Once my phone service was in effect, I became a little disgruntled when I discovered that the CallVantage website was giving me all kinds of login trouble in Firefox and that the online voicemail audio files (an awesome feature idea that actually sold me on the service) would supposedly only play in Windows Media Player via Internet Explorer. The downloadable voicemail files are .wav files but they're 8kHz 64kbps u-law mono .wav files that a couple of my most-used digital audio players didn't seem to like. I later discovered that these small .wav files do play in iTunes, so I could've definitely lived with that....but then came the real dealbreaker: CallVantage's complete incompatibility with Tivo! Or at least its incompatibility with my particular Series 1 phone-line-based Tivo...
I must have run through the above screen 40 or 50 times over the last 24 hours while trying every distinct permutation of calling prefixes, dialing options, different ways of connecting my Tivo to the phone adapter/router, etc. I thought I'd hit paydirt when I finally discovered that CallVantage's service actually comes with fax/modem support turned off by default in order to save bandwidth (if bandwidth is that big of an issue than maybe we're not 100% ready for this yet?). But even turning on fax/modem support didn't help. Finally after all sorts of web-surfing and Googling I learned that Tivo does not officially support VoIP and that while some people have been able to get their Series 1 Tivos to successfully dial in for programming info, I am apparently not going to be one of those people. And AT&T refuses to help me become one of those people. Even though the original CallVantage salesman that I talked to told me that my Tivo would work fine with the AT&T VoIP service. Sigh...
My head is fried from thinking about all of this but it strikes me as kind of funny that this particular voice-over-internet-protocol phone service can transmit human voices just fine but not the machine-generated data signals that only wish they could be transmitted via IP packets instead of antiquated analog phone line technology. Seems like there's one too many square-peg/round-hole adapters clogging up the communications channel. I know I could probably do some research and figure out how to upgrade my Tivo with a network interface card and a software update but it all seems like way too much hacking to simply get the Tivo back to the same working condition that it was originally at before I tried all of this CallVantage crap. So as much as I hate to do it, I'm just going to go back to the devil I know and hold off on the whole Internet telephony thing for awhile...or at least until I decide to purchase a better/larger/faster Tivo that also happens to use a broadband connection.
"Convergence", ha. We must be a few years away. Divergence is in full effect, boyee!
Posted by Tim at January 26, 2005 01:15 AM
Comments
umm, i think Roadrunner offers VoIP
Posted by: justin at January 27, 2005 12:49 PM
Umm, do they? They've never tried to sell it to me and I don't see it on their bills or their website. Plus, I'm guessing that their VoIP probably wouldn't be any better....especially if it's through Vonage, which I understand to be less likely to work with Tivo than CallVantage.
Posted by: Tim at January 27, 2005 02:46 PM
I see Time Warner's "digital phone service" which I guess is what you're talking about...but "as low as $39.95 a month plus tax"? No thanks...
Posted by: Tim at January 27, 2005 02:54 PM
and i am just about to get Vonage, with their 24.99 unlimted call service. i know 3 folk with it, one being over the age of 65 whose son hooked it up for her. they all love it. although it did take some frustration in the beginning.
i hate verizon. 68.00/month for basic house phone service! gouge me why dont u????
Posted by: cia at January 29, 2005 07:01 PM
and also, one of said previous folk has DVR, and his vonage works OK. but i think it took some fanagling to get right
Posted by: cia at January 29, 2005 07:02 PM
Although TIVO and the VOIP services for some reason won't tell you this... you CAN connect to TIVO without a phone line. You need to have TIVO Series 2 (because it has a USB port) and USB adapter (to go from an ethernet cable to USB).
I have AT&T Callvantage and Tivo Series 2 starting with the serial #'s 540. I tried a million different things to get it to dial in and nothing worked. Then, following other's advice in other forums, I bought the Linksys USB200M USB adapter... and was able to connect to TIVO without ever making a phone call. Here's how it has to be done:
1) If you haven't tried setting up TIVO and dialing in at all... you must plug the USB adapter into the TIVO and into your computer or router FIRST.
If you HAVE tried to do ANY set-up at all... TIVO remembers this and it won't work until you reset it. Here's how: You must go back to the begining of "set up", put it into "demo" mode (that's the mode for playing a demo video on a loop in a store). Play the demo video and then after a while, unplug it. That seems to reset everything. Then, BEFORE plugging it back in, put in a WIRED USB adapter (wireless doesn't seem to work the 1st time).
2) Turn it on with the USB plugged in, and when you get to the part where it asks for a dialing prefix put in ,#401 as your dialing prefix. That's COMMA POUND SIGN 401. This tells Tivo not to use a phone line but rather the USB connection.
Posted by: Dan at June 21, 2005 11:37 PM