[chiguy50]

Yes, I know. I keep threatening to do that, but the wall wart is in a place where I would have to do some serious work to get to it.

But you have inspired me to try it, especially as I have something similar set up to reboot my OOMA VOIP setup nightly. Since doing that a few years ago, all the little issues I had with it went away.

What issues did you have with the Ooma? Other than an occasional (and rare) spontaneous FW update, I don't recall having experienced any glitches in the nine years that I have had Ooma VoIP service.

 

[dougdingle]

What issues did you have with the Ooma? Other than an occasional (and rare) spontaneous FW update, I don't recall having experienced any glitches in the nine years that I have had Ooma VoIP service.

I had the original Telo (retired only recently) as well as 2 Lynx (2nd line and Caller ID in another room) and 2 HD handsets, and it would lose its mind on occasion, lose touch with one external device or another, not give me a dialtone on the 2nd line, forget one of the handsets. Since a reboot of the Telo always restored everything, I just automated it.

I recently gave in to a 50% off offer and got a much newer Telo, and that was a complete nightmare for like a week. They claimed if I ordered out of the app directly, it would arrive fully configured with my numbers etc. and it would be "Just remove the old one, put in the new one". Hahahaha. Not even close. The device was factory fresh and knew nothing about my account. It took 4 or 5 phone calls and me finally insisting I talk to tier two support to straighten things out or I would cancel completely. They had to set it up remotely from scratch. I have had zero issues since, but I just left the reboot in place. Superstition? Maybe. 😏

Despite all that, in the decade or so that I've had the system, I saved more than $10K over what I was paying the thieves at PacBell for two lines with just Call Waiting and Caller ID as features.

For the most part I like the system. I needed to keep my landline because that phone number was in the phone books of many hundreds of producers with whom I had worked over decades.

I had Spectrum's VOIP service for a while. It cost 4 times as much as Ooma for the two lines, but made up for it by being impossibly awful - dropped calls, poor audio quality (intermittent loud echo for one), real problems calling a number that was also on some VOIP. Close to unusable, I kept if for a few months as they promised to fix it (they did not) then went with Ooma.

 

[chiguy50]

For the most part I like the system. I needed to keep my landline because that phone number was in the phone books of many hundreds of producers with whom I had worked over decades.

Thanks for the explanation.

I am likewise keeping my VoIP landline active just for posterity's sake. I sometimes contemplate cancelling the service, but, even if I very seldom use it, at just over $7 p.m. it's not a big commitment.

 

[UCLABB]

In my neighborhood, that was 100% Spectrum's fault. TAs are simple devices and not inherently problematic - I've had a TA for more than a decade, and in all that time had a single hardware failure.

To keep TAs and TiVos going, they update the routing tables regularly (tables that TiVo needs as they move channels around for SDV), and used to do so in the middle of the night. After which they rebooted the TAs to load the new tables.

At some point, in a mindlessly stupid decision, they decided to keep updating the tables but to stop rebooting the TAs afterward.

So you wake up (or sit down in the evening) to find half your channels gone, but the lights on the TA indicate that everything is OK.

Before calling your cableco (Spectrum in my case), pull the power from the TA, count to 100 by sevens, then plug it back in. The amber light will be blinking. It will take between 5 and 20 minutes (more or less) to sync back up to 'mom' as the amber light blinks. Once it's solid (you may have to do the 'pull the power' thing twice) all your channels should be back.

I didn't mean to imply that the TA box itself was not reliable. My experience is that the Spectrum infrastructure/software supporting the TAs often have problems. That has been my experience several times.

Sure, the Cisco TAs crap out ever few weeks and need rebooting. I simply plugged it into a smart plug that turns it off and on once a week.

 

[Jack Mccarthy]

I cut the cord years ago in 2017. Maybe someone could find a way to convert cable TIVOs to OTA with some aftermarket tuners?

Picked up a 6 channel Roamio at Goodwill for $5 and it boots up. If not for anything, I can at least reuse the hard drive in either my Premiere or Roamio OTA/cable boxes.

 

[cwoody222]

I cut the cord years ago in 2017. Maybe someone could find a way to convert cable TIVOs to OTA with some aftermarket tuners?

Not gonna happen.