Comcast Digital Voice Broadband Phone Service Vs. IDT Phone Service

For some time, I had Comcast Digital Voice, a broadband Internet phone service that offers a wide variety of benefits including free long distance, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting with caller ID, and other features included in the $39.95 monthly price. There are not many regular analog companies that could compare to the completeness of the feature list of Comcast Digital Voice. Unfortunately, Comcast Digital Voice had several profound drawbacks that led me to search for an alternative.

After reviewing several options, I decided to choose IDT, a service I first saw being advertised on the side of a bus riding through Philadelphia. IDT offered regular residential service with free long distance included for $39.95, the same price as Comcast Digital Voice. Of course, since Comcast Digital Voice is administered via the Internet, there are some service fees and related charges that Comcast Digital Voice does not charge that a traditional phone company, like an IDT, would be required to charge.

Moreover, some of the features included in Comcast's Digital Voice, like voice mail and call forwarding, is not included in IDT's price. They charge extra; for example, voice mail is an additional $2.95, and so forth. If you wanted to have the exact same package with IDT that you could obtain from Comcast Digital Voice, you could easily spend an extra $10.

However, just because Comcast Digital Voice is newer, does not automatically make it better. Unfortunately, for both Comcast, and myself I joined Comcast Digital Voice during its initial roll out phase. What followed was a lot of unreliable service. At times, I honestly felt as if I had bought a bad cell phone plan instead of a home phone line. I cannot count how many times calls were either dropped or missed completely. Nor can I count how many times I woke up in the morning to find I had no dial tone and had to reboot the modem to jump-start my broadband feed, a problem I did not encounter before I got Comcast Digital Voice. Then, even when the calls were properly connected, many times I would have to deal with an oddly loud crackling noise during a call. It sounded like a bug zapper in stereo or maybe some young kid's science experiment was taking place in the middle of my conversation.

These various issues got exacerbated when I called Comcast to complain. To be fair, the various representatives were never rude or obnoxious unlike some other phone companies (Verizon), but since Comcast Digital Voice was essentially on its maiden voyage, each representative knew about as much as I did about Comcast Digital Voice as a product. They would often offer to send out a tech to help fix the issue, which I accepted since there would be no charge. To their credit, the Comcast Digital Voice techs would arrive on time, and often provide what would turn out to be a temporary fix. Not long after they had fixed an issue would another pop up in its place. The Comcast Digital Voice techs would come out to deal with it, and then the original issue would return. All in all, it was not a good experience.

On the other hand, I greatly enjoyed my time with IDT. Their service was very reliable, the connections were always clear and the representatives were knowledgeable about their products, which was much appreciated. The only issue I had with IDT is that if there were a physical problem with my phone service IDT would be unable to do anything about it, because IDT had no local office in Philadelphia. Fortunately, that remained only a hypothetical; during my time with IDT, I never had a reason to test the issue.

Although I am a bit of a tech head, I can admit that when the older ways are better. For now, Comcast Digital Voice has a ways to go before I would consider dumping the old traditional service and returning to them. IDT was cost effective and good quality. In my opinion, IDT's product and service far exceeded that Comcast Digital Voice. I'm glad I switched.
.