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aic's profile

New problem solver

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39 Messages

Wednesday, March 4th, 2015 7:00 AM

milliwatt test for Comcast lines

Greetings all,

 

I recently transferred my office telephone lines from AT&T to Business Comcast, I use a Cisco router and a Harrier.

 

I still have some business pending with AT&T and this week I called a couple of their service numbers, they were telling me I had noise in my line and that they could not hear me correctly, although I heard them fine. I am not sure if they can identify a Comcast line and simply lie about the quality of the sound or they were being honest in their assessment of the line.

 

When I set up AT&T I did a milliwatt test, where you call a telephone number that plays a tone so the PBS channel gains can be adjusted according to the line loss. Likely my gains, originally adjusted for AT&T POTS lines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_old_telephone_service, are at least in need of a test. is there such a number at Comcast? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliwatt_test

 

If I could receive that number via a private message perhaps, I could do my tests, correct my gains, and be certain my lines show a professional image when I talk to my prospective and current customers.

 

thank you very much and have a great day everyone.

 

Advocate

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1.4K Messages

10 years ago

Hello aic and welcome,

 

Comcast is principally a digital voice provider and it is highly unlikely that standard Milliwatt Test is an applicable entity to use for Quality of Sound, as such. Perhaps you need to do some additional reseach starting here  about Comcast Digital Phone Service. This is a very interesting subject but as telecommunications edges it path to new horizons such as Digital Phone, that is progressing ultimately toward the more cost effective Unified Messaging that is becoming much more prevalent in all businesses. 

 

Hope this helps you out.

New problem solver

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39 Messages

10 years ago

thank you for your attention to this matter. the link you provided reafirmed that:

"Comcast Business Voice Service is an Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled communications service offering real time, multidirectional voice functionality."

 

I also found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliwatt_test

"In digital central office installations, the Milliwatt test facility was implemented using a synthesized version of the 1004 Hz signal, see digital milliwatt. +1-(503)-697-1000 is an example of such a Milliwatt from a digital central office." I will try that number and report here for completeness. I also found this link: http://www.tech-faq.com/milliwatt-test-line.html

 

There is not much information about how to go about performing this digital milliwat test, counting the procedure would be different than in the analog test.

 

I still think Comcast should have a number where Comcast tech/customers can call and adjust these levels in their PBS. Please note to avoid misunderstandings that I in no way have I said to adjust levels at the Harrier provided gateway.

 

thank you and have great day.

Gold Problem solver

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610 Messages

10 years ago

According to that wikipedia article, I think that this line test you mention is only for copper phone-line based installations. Comcast voice is in no way related to POTS or DSL; it runs over the same coaxial lines as internet/TV service, and as far as I know, is measured using the same instruments & levels as those services. (That is, it is contingent on the same downstream/upstream power levels & SNR readings as internet/TV service.)