Is this something that a separate VOIP box could not provide?

I use an Obihai OBi202 for my own VOIP, with separate router (Apple) and separate cable modem (running in bridge mode).

Not sure if it's possible to do a separate VOIP box with Comcast, but I think my real endgame here should be figuring out a way to do away with the land line entirely. Primarily we need the land line to support the alarm system, but there's a such thing as alarms that work with cellular technology now, so we could theoretically switch to that.

You should also be able to get an GSM gateway(?) where you connect the phone cable from your existing alarm system to the land line port of the box and it will use the GSM network to route the alarm calls. That's what I did with the alarm system in my previous house.

Yeah... maybe it is time to say good-bye to the Comcast VoIP line...

Glad to see you found the problem.

If this is just for outbound calls from the alarm system, a separate VOIP box would be very inexpensive. I use VOIP.MS which is prepaid. Even using their premium tier outbound service the cost is one cent per minute. The only monthly cost is for inbound phone numbers ($1 per month), which you may not even need.

A $25 prepaid account would last a long, long time in such a configuration. Obihai makes several boxes. I prefer the OBi202 as it is fully featured. Configuration is a bit technical but once set up it just sits there and works.

Only time I have 'phone trouble' is when my main Internet service goes down. When the Internet comes back, the Obi recovers without me touching it.

Ditto for voip.ms here, too. A very simple, easy to use service, dirt cheap, decent quality, and tons of end-user controls (if you want to fiddle, otherwise ignore them).

Pretty much every calling feature under the moon is included gratis, including voice mail.

If I went with another VOIP provider, I'd lose my Triple Play Discount on my current Comcast service, making something that's already too expensive become even more so. And I'd be doing it just for the privilege of paying yet another company to have VOIP piggybacked onto the Comcast system which already does VOIP for me (admittedly with a narrower range of modem choices).

If I were dropping VOIP altogether, that might be a reason to cancel VOIP service and take the discount hit, but as long as I'm still limited to a burglar alarm that only works when the (notoriously unreliable) internet works, then what's the point.

When I got my alarm a while ago (maybe 5 or 6 years now?), they gave me a cellular one even though I still have a land line.

The point: is $1 + no-triple-play significantly cheaper than triple-play?

(the $1/month is only if you need a phone number; for outbound (alarm) calls only, a phone number isn't necessary).

Well, shit, I thought I had my problems solved, but I just can't catch a break.

I'd managed to order a VOIP cable modem from a company online which specializes in selling cable modems. They sent me the wrong modem, I'd ordered an SBC and they sent me a Cisco instead. No problem, I thought, since the Cisco was an even better modem than the SBC was going to be.

Turns out, the one they sent me was stolen. When I tried to activate it on Comcast, they told me that it was a rental-only model, not available for sale as a retail item, and that its serial number and mac address was actually still in their inventory as being one of their rental units. Comcast, understandably, won't activate it for me. Comcast were also quite understanding when I said that I would like to hang on to it to try to send it back and get my money back from the people who sold it to me.

I'm awaiting an email back from the sellers to see if they'll be honorable about it.

Now I have to shop for a goddamn modem AGAIN.

The problem is that there are not many out there which have the VOIP ports if you're specifically avoiding Arris units.

Current ending to this story is:

- I have the system fully working again. For now. Crossing my fingers it stays that way.

- I spent some time talking to a nice lady at the local Cisco office and going over my options. She was convinced that there's no reason for anyone at Comcast to be deliberately bricking my modems. But in terms of which modems I can get, there's pretty much no options other than the ones I've already been trying.

- As a last-ditch hail-mary pass, I ordered (and finally actually got) a used SBC D3GNV modem from a different internet seller. This is the model I'd originally wanted to get from the other internet seller, the one where the other seller sent me the wrong one, the Cisco that turned out to be a stolen Comcast rental modem still in Comcast's inventory.

- Like the Cisco before it, this used SMC D3GNV one is an XFinity-branded rental modem that they don't normally sell retail.

- However, I got lucky: this one wasn't a stolen modem still in Comcast's inventory. Supposedly this one was legally sold out of Comcast's inventory and was removed from Comcast's database the correct way. Thus it was OK for Comcast to activate it, and I had no problems like I'd had with the Cisco.

- It activated fine and it's working fine (so far). So everything is back to normal for now.

- Its firmware, when looking at it through the web browser, looks nearly identical to the last Arris modem that I'd tried which had died after a few months. This worries me. However this firmware is working better than the last one: At least this one saves its settings when it's rebooted. Crossing my fingers that this means the firmware is actually different under the hood, and that this one won't die after a few months.

- The thing is, this is literally the last modem I can try. I've run myself out of options. I had tried every other kind of VOIP-capable modem that was on the Comcast compatibility list. All the Arris units die after a few months, the Cisco unit isn't allowed to be activated as a customer-owned retail modem, and every other possible modem (a couple of Technicolor brand units are all that's left) are in the same boat as the Cisco unit (according to the gal at the comcast office). The gal at the Comcast office seemed to indicate that the Cisco unit might one day get sold at retail, but not yet.

So this SMC modem better last forever!

If this one doesn't last me forever, then I have to go another route for the burglar alarm. One weird option I have available to me is to double down on Comcast: They offer a package where, if I were to buy my burglar alarm through them, then it would use the internet to call the cops and have a cellular backup if the internet is down. I could get rid of the landline entirely, and just use their alarm system, and still get their "triple play discount" (where one of the three things is now the alarm instead of the landline). The math works out so that I would end up paying slightly less overall (like only a couple bucks less total) for a TV+Internet+Burglar package via Comcast than I am currently paying for TV+Internet+Landline via Comcast plus Burglar via ADT.

Though it's tempting to make that switch from a cost perspective, I really have problems with Comcast's customer service, and a burglar alarm isn't a place I want to be cutting corners on customer service. Also, Comcast's system would not be able to make use of my existing keypads and sensors, and would have a weird thing where I have to use a smartphone app to manage the alarm. Ew. So Comcast's system is not looking attractive to me at the moment.

At the same time though, ADT keeps raising their fees a few bucks every year. That bugs me. So maybe I'll call their customer retention department and see if I can get them to quit it.

Oh, and a final note: I was on the customer service line with Comcast and even though I changed the password on the modem's firmware, Comcast still has a wide open back door into the modem that they can get into and fiddle with its settings. From the internet. The guy could see all my menus and settings in the modem's firmware. Ew. So my paranoia about someone bricking the modem isn't unfounded.

docsis means basically, yes, they get to do that

You know, I'd put my money on Comcast doing it thru incompetence, before deliberate action.

I'm pretty sure the incompetence here is the fact that the back-end people aren't aware there's an intermittent modem-bricking Arris firmware bug, even while the field techs know about the bug. The field tech who came to my house was like "yeah, this is known issue, see, look here, this is a telltale sign, I could even tell from the line on the street that this was your problem..." etc. Yet, when I talked to the lady in the Comcast office, she said, "We have never heard of a problem with these Arris modems, we ship this particular model to customers all the time and never have problems, they work for years and years with no trouble..." etc.

So it's a problem where the company is too large for its own britches and there's not enough inter-department communication. There is a field problem, but the techs don't have a channel to properly report the bug up the chain to get it fixed.