Cable telephony

Cable telephony is a form of digital telephony over cable TV networks. A telephone interface installed at the customer's premises converts analog signals from the customer's in-home wiring to a digital signal, which is then sent over the cable connection to the company's switching center. The signal is then sent on to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Cable telephone provides another revenue stream for cable television system operators and gives the consumer the convenience of a single bill for combined television, internet and telephone services.

Emergency calls

The biggest obstacle to cable telephone service is the need for nearly 100% reliable service for emergency calls. PacketCable, one of the emerging standards being developed for digital cable telephony, seems to be the most promising and able to work with the quality of service demands of traditional analog telephone service.

Advantage

The biggest advantage to digital cable telephone service is similar to the advantage of digital cable television, namely that data can be compressed, resulting in much less bandwidth used than a dedicated analog circuit-switched service. Other advantages include better voice quality and perhaps future integration to a VoIP network providing cheap or unlimited nationwide and international calling. In most cases, digital cable telephone service is separate from broadband Internet access service being offered by many cable companies and does not rely on IP traffic or the Internet.