Expect More From Your Digital Home Phone « Time Warner Cable Untangled

Aug 31 2010

Expect More From Your Digital Home Phone

I oversee Voice Product Management at Time Warner Cable and since 2005, I’ve been responsible for managing Digital Home Phone. During that time, our home phone customer base has grown from approximately 500,000 to over 4 million users and still growing!

I’m passionate about technology and working in a dynamic field that keeps me on my toes. What I love about working on the phone business for Time Warner Cable is that we are changing how people think about, and use, their home phone by bringing new phone features into the future – and having them available on any screen.

The home phone continues to evolve. In the age of mobile phones, people expect more from their home phone. Land lines have struggled to keep up — cord cutting is currently at ~24.5% in the US. We all work hard and we expect our home phone to work harder for us. And we communicate in different ways today. It’s no longer just about voice. Phone needs to be personalized: more text, email, chat, and social networking, all from the comfort of home.

So, how do we raise the value of the home phone that is currently considered by many as dumb and dusty? Consumers are telling us that they want their home phone to give them more control over their personal time. How, who and when they communicate, when they check messages or how much they spend on their phone bill. We all want to get more for our money today. Home phone must provide different features that fit personal needs and preferences. This is how home phone will live alongside the mobile phone, and customers don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.

Time Warner Cable is investing in the App revolution. Launched this summer, we have a great, new, FREE offering, called VoiceZone™ on PC. This is a single location within the MyServices web portal to self-manage all of your Digital Home Phone voicemail and features.

VoiceZone gives customers control in ways that are simple and easy. Whether you’re watching TV or doing homework with the kids, now Caller ID on TV, Distinctive Ring and Caller ID on PC let you control who interrupts which activities. With Caller ID on PC you see who is calling your home phone on any PC with Internet access. Imagine being at work and seeing that your doctor is calling you at home. You can then return the call right away, or when it’s most convenient.

Other innovative features include Home Voicemail to Email and Selective Call Blocking. The first one offers the ability to get home voicemail sent via email, with the actual recorded message attached as an audio file. With Selective Call Blocking, you can block calls from telemarketers or any unwanted callers.

Call Forwarding is another very useful feature that can now be managed via VoiceZone. When you’re away from home, you can easily forward all inbound calls from your Digital Home Phone to your cell phone.

Time Warner Cable’s Digital Home Phone service works harder to deliver multiple ways to control home communications and to help manage your time with those who matter most. No matter where you are or what device you’re using, you’ll be able to enjoy enhanced control of your Digital Home Phone service.

I look forward to hearing from you, as we’re continuing work on exciting new apps!

Categories: Cool Stuff, Product Launches, What's New

10 Comments »

10 Responses to “Expect More From Your Digital Home Phone”

Jose
Sep 03, 2010
at 11:07 am

Please add something similar to at&t’s privacy manager which blocks calls that show as “anonymous”, “unavailable”, “out of area” or “private”. Also, when will we get caller id on tv in our area of the RGV in Texas? Thank you.
Shawn
Sep 03, 2010
at 1:34 pm

Has this service officially launched yet?
Jeff Simmermon
Sep 03, 2010
at 1:36 pm

Read my comment above.
Eric
Oct 13, 2010
at 10:58 pm

When will we get these services in the RGV.
Ingrid Simunic
Oct 27, 2010
at 6:09 pm

VoiceZone on PC is available everywhere across the Time Warner Cable footprint in the continental United States including the RGV area of Texas.

VoiceZone on PC has the feature to allow the subscriber to Reject Anonymous Calls. Once you have enabled this feature, your phone will not ring when called by an anonymous caller, and the caller will hear an intercept message letting them know that you are not accepting anonymous calls. In addition to Rejecting Anonymous Calls, you may also enable Selective Call Blocking, which allows you to list up to 30 telephone numbers from which you do not want to accept any calls.
Donna Lucas
Nov 01, 2010
at 6:39 pm

Ingrid, I have the same problem as Jose above. “Out of Area” is not considered anonymous, and the calls get through. Selective call blocking won’t work if there is no phone number listed on the Out of Area, and many calls I’ve been getting from Political Organizations don’t show a return phone number that actually works, such as this recent one from “Test Code OH 1-513-999-1099″

Isn’t there a feature that will block automated calls? I remember some phone systems used to have a Telemarketer Block that sounded 3 beeps that made the party disconnect or something.

I have been on the Do Not Call list for many years, and I keep registering. It doesn’t apply to charitable or political organizations.
Jack
Nov 01, 2010
at 10:37 pm

Jack@Donna,

TWC Digital Phone does need better call blocking, BUT we have some friends who’s numbers show up as “Private,” “Out of Area, ” or “Anonymous,” on the Caller ID TV screen. To block ALL of said calls, would (or could) prevent good wanted numbers from coming through.

What Digital Phone really needs is some kind of Telemarketer Call Reject where the system would have the ability to sense a Voice-Mail type generated telemarketer message, and recognizing it as such would prevent the call from going to a customers home or their Voice Mail box.

Some way would have to be devised, where the system would sense, “This is a telemarketer call.” and block that call from the user.

Note that the above would have to be implemented for a truly successful Call Block situation. You can’t just take one pesky number and call block it, because telemarketers change their numbers all the time.

What types of warning systems do other telephone companies use to block telemarketer calls? TWC should study those systems to come up with an effective solution to stop telemarketing calls.

Jack
cap1238
Nov 10, 2010
at 2:46 pm

I don’t understand why there is a limit on the number of calls that can be blocked. And, while many cell phone companies have an application where we can block groups of numbers, say all 800 numbers, etc, land lines have yet to catch up to that. And even with the anonymous call reject, callers still get through showing unavailable. Frustrating. This is why people have eliminated the home phone. Many more features on cell phones.
Ingrid Simunic
Dec 13, 2010
at 5:13 pm

We all get frustrated with automated calls from telemarketers and wish there was a way to block all of those calls. However, there is no flag in the call data stream that indicates the call is from an automated system. We know of no major telephone service provider that can give subscribers the option to block automated calls.

TWC Digital Home Phone does provide the options for Anonymous Call blocking and Selective Call blocking. But, as Jack points out, these blanket actions can have unforeseen consequences. Many individuals have chosen to prevent the inclusion of their name and number in the CallerID information sent with calls. Thus, calls from them will be blocked if placed to subscribers who have Anonymous Call blocking turned on. In this case, a desired call would be rejected by the Anonymous Call Block. Fortunately, callers can include their name and number for a specific call by dialing a code first (for TWC subscribers it is *82) and thereby get through the Anonymous Call Block.

The best defense to date for preventing automated calls is to register your number on the National Do Not Call Registry administered by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and enforced by the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and state law enforcement officials. However, as Donna points out, some calls are not covered by the laws that created the Do Not Call Registry, particularly calls from charitable or political organizations. For the calls that do get through, the subscriber can use the call screening capabilities of VoiceZone to ignore any calls from unrecognized callers. For any voicemails that are left, the subscriber can use the Visual Voicemail List to delete messages from unrecognized callers without having to listen to the messages.
Lisa From LA
Mar 20, 2011
at 7:53 pm

Another great feature to add as an option to the Selective Call Blocking would be to be able to select the outbound message. Frankly, I would prefer a busy signal, endless ringing or the generic “This Number is Disconnected” message.
Alternatively, if TWC would provide a “Disconnected Phone Number” for each area code, we could just forward called from selected phone numbers to that number. This latter solution might be the easiest to implement because the software that manages our voice lines would not require any alteration, nor would the functionality behind the website that manages our interaction with TWC – just a little content change to let us know where to click for the list for our area code.