What phone company do you guys use?

xDerekRx · Post by **xDerekRx** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:34 pm

Im just wondering what phone company has provided working Netlink gameplay. Warp has stated Vonage doesnt work.

I was going to get Time Warner who does my cable modem but they have "digital phone" and im wondering if thats bad.

Warp2063 · Post by **Warp2063** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 8:36 pm

xDerekRx wrote:Im just wondering what phone company has provided working Netlink gameplay. Warp has stated Vonage doesnt work.

I was going to get Time Warner who does my cable modem but they have "digital phone" and im wondering if thats bad.

Yes, digital phone is bad. Vonage and Time Warner's systems are both "digital phone" services. Basically, instead of an analog signal being transmitted directly from your phone (or in this case, the Saturn's modem) to the phone company and then retransmitted to the other person, several extra steps are added. The analog signal from your modem is converted to a digital representation of an analog signal (the process of converting from analog to digital will always cause some loss of quality; whether or not this is enough of a factor to matter is unknown, at least to me). This is extremely fast; faster than you would be able to tell, but it might make a difference to the receiving modem. Then, it's transmitted over your internet connection. Here is where the problem almost definitely is. Transmitting uploading the data takes time. To us, it doesn't seem like much... unless you're using your internet connection to download files (or other things that take your internet bandwidth) you probably won't hear any delay when talking to another person using digital phone... but to a machine, that delay is VERY long. Once the signal finally gets to the phone companies, it will have to be downloaded and reconverted to analog, both of which will take additional time.

This is why the Saturn doesn't work well over Vonage or other digital phone services. The Saturn's games expected to be connected with an almost instantaneous connection to another modem; they were programmed to expect some delays, but the delays that come from digital phone services are almost always more than the games were programmed to tolerate and deal with. When you do hear of people successfully connecting to each other via digital phone services, you often hear of the games running slower than normal - this is because the game is being forced to slow down while it waits for a response from the other modem. And if the game can't tolerate the slowdowns... you lose the connection.

Another thing I don't like about digital phone services - in an emergency situation where the power is out, your cable modem and box to convert the analog phone signal into a digital one are not powered. Therefore, there is no way to use them to call 911 when the power is out. Analog phone companies provide enough power through the telephone lines to operate the phone (provided it's not a cordless model or one that you have to plug into a power outlet), so as long as the phone lines are not down (which they rarely are in comparison to the power lines), you can still make phone calls. This came in handy during some of the ice storms.

xDerekRx · Post by **xDerekRx** » Sat Feb 28, 2009 12:08 am

Hi Warp. So im simply looking for ANALOG land line phone service? I wonder if AT&T or Verizon are Analog.

Manji · Post by **Manji** » Sat Feb 28, 2009 5:18 am

i have AT&T and i wonder the same thing. i guess i can just call them to find out, but i need to get unlimited long distance before i even try to play netlink games.

Warp2063 · Post by **Warp2063** » Sat Feb 28, 2009 8:51 am

If your phone is plugged directly into a normal phone jack in the wall and not into a converter box or your DSL/Cable modem, then it's probably analog.

We use Frontier.

maria198650 · Post by **maria198650** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 2:22 am

I use AT&T, pretty ok with it. Suggest me what more i can use.

Isaac [GER] · Post by **Isaac [GER]** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:56 am

Im using the german "Telekom". Ill be switching back to an analog phone line soon. But it´ll sure take a while...

DELETED · Post by **DELETED** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:27 am

DELETED

DELETED · Post by **DELETED** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:17 am

DELETED

Auto-Fox · Post by **Auto-Fox** » Mon Jan 04, 2010 4:56 pm

Well this sucks for me... my parents have Vonage.
We HAVE been able to use our analog phone during power-outages, however...

EliteKiller234 · Post by **EliteKiller234** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 9:46 am

xDerekRx wrote:Im just wondering what phone company has provided working Netlink gameplay.

I use DialupForFree on my dreamcast to play PSO. I also use it on Sega Saturn NetLink Web Browser V3/V2. The problem is, I can't tell you how good it is for NetLink games, because I still haven't been able to find a match on these fourms yet.

Auto-Fox · Post by **Auto-Fox** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 9:50 am

Hmm... how does that work? Is there a high installation cost? Any sort of gimmick?

EliteKiller234 · Post by **EliteKiller234** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 11:32 am

Auto-Fox wrote:Hmm... how does that work? Is there a high installation cost? Any sort of gimmick?

Nope, no gimmicks. No installation cost either, just plug it in and go.

Warp2063 · Post by **Warp2063** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:36 pm

Sounds like MagicJack, but I know you pay a yearly fee for that.

I suspect that you'll have the same problems that you would with Vonage. :/ If you're willing to dial, I'm willing to test it out with you, though.

JerryTerrifying · Post by **JerryTerrifying** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:33 pm

EliteKiller234 wrote:
xDerekRx wrote:Im just wondering what phone company has provided working Netlink gameplay.
I use DialupForFree on my dreamcast to play PSO. I also use it on Sega Saturn NetLink Web Browser V3/V2. The problem is, I can't tell you how good it is for NetLink games, because I still haven't been able to find a match on these fourms yet.

You don't need an internet account for the netlink.

The Sega Saturn NetLink League