For over a year now, Columbia residents have had a new choice in home phone service, Digital Phone from Time Warner Cable. Digital Phone offers free unlimited long distance and local calling and also includes many free features including caller ID, call waiting, and caller ID block.

Monthly cost for this service starts at $39.95 for customers who already subscribe to Time Warner Cable and Road Runner. The cost is $44.95 for those who subscribe to one of these services and $49.95 for those who have neither.

Bud Tibshrany, Time Warner Cable’s Vice President of Public Affairs said, “We are pleased to offer our customers an alternative to traditional telephone service at an attractive price – Digital Phone service.” Tibshrany added, “As a result of Time Warner Cable’s multi–million dollar investment in state– of–the–art fiber optic infrastructure, Digital Phone, Digital Cable, HDTV, Roadrunner high– speed Internet access, Video On Demand (VOD), and Digital Video Recorder (DVR) services are now available to our customers.”

Digital Phone is not circuit based like traditional phone service but rather moves in digital packets of sound, called voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

This digital phone service travels over a cable modem in a private and secure proprietary network. Because Digital Phone travels over a modem, this service does not work if the power goes out, much like Internet will not work without electric power. So for some customers, digital phone is not the best choice. But for customers who have cell phones or just want to save money on their telephone bill, digital phone is a viable option.