Anyone know anything about digital phone service?

I know NOTHING. Does it use a phone cable or a coaxial? Can it go down like the internet? Do I run the phone through my computer somehow? or is it just like a regular phone? What the hell is the deal with this? Sorry I'm so dumb

my comments in bold

I know NOTHING.

that's okay, I know enough for the both of us!

Does it use a phone cable or a coaxial?

It depends on the cable network. Your internal wiring still uses CAT3 or CAT5 cable to carry the phone signals to the Network Interface Box on the side of your house, that doesn't change irrespective of your service provider, cable or telco. However, your digitized signals may travel to the cable headend over coax, fiber, of a hybrid of both (i.e. coax some of the way, fiber some of the way).

The most significant difference is how the signals are formatted, multiplexed, and carried from the network interface box to the headend. CATV uses Frequency Division Multiplexing (FM) to blend a whole mess of signals together. In this system every channel used for every type of traffic travels in its own frequency (at least part of the way). At some point, unless you live adjacent to the CATV headend building, your signals will most likely be converted to SONET OC12 digital optical signals for transmission over fiber optic cable. At which case you signals receive a single wavelength to carry your information rather than a frequency.

Can it go down like the internet?

any phone system can "go down" but, in truth a digital phone system is identical to to 99.9% of the existing wired infrastructure. The significant difference is where the digitization of the analog signal takes place, in a digital cable system at the Network Interface Box on the side of your house rather than at a digital loop carrier terminal or in the central office of a telephone company. In a digital-CATV-based phone service the voice signals travel in the upper signal bands of the 400-1000MHz signal allocation. They travel to the headend (where all the cable tv equipment lives) and is split off into a standard digital switch used in any telephone company central office. Those signals enter the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) at that switch, unless the dialed calls are to other customers on the same network. In which case the digitized voice travels along the cable infrastructure rather than the PSTN backbone. The CATV company maintains agreements with toll carriers allowing long distance connections without having to send your call through the PSTN to reach the long distance provider switches. Essentially, the digital telephone network is a separate but parallel network to the legacy telephone company network.

Do I run the phone through my computer somehow?

Nope. It connects to your home wiring at the Network Interface Box on the outside of your house. The internal wiring remains untouched. That's why you can use a regular old telephone with an RJ11 jack on it.

or is it just like a regular phone?

Yes

What the hell is the deal with this?

It's phone service using your cable network (hybrid fiber/coax) as a backbone rather than the existing copper wires/fiber optics of the telephone company

Sorry I'm so dumb

You're not dumb. Almost no one knows this stuff

I was going to call the digital phone people tomorrow and I wanted to know *something* about this. My cell phone works like hell in my new apartment and I've got to do something if I don't want to walk two blocks up the hill everytime I want to talk to anyone.

because all of the resident's cable connections use the same Network Interface Box.

Works great. They sent me a router that I plugged in between my cable modem and my existing network router. The router they provided has jacks for two phones and two computers, but I only use one of the phone jacks. Setup was simple (I don't recall the details). You need a broadband internet connection to make it work-- no dial-up, obviously (not enough bandwidth). I'm completely satisfied. I haven't noticed any voice quality or network latency issues-- it's just like a regular landline, in my experience. It just costs less. A lot less if you make lots of domestic long distance calls, which are free. You can also get additional numbers with the area code of your choice, which means that if you frequently RECEIVE long distance calls from someone, say a relative, you can get a number in THEIR local calling zone, so they can call you and only pay local call rates. Pretty slick. Comes with lots of bells and whistles that cost extra from the phone company, including a good voice mail system you can access from any browser, as well as over the phone lines.

on edit-- reading BigMcLargeHuge's reply, I think I might have misunderstood your question (?).

that's different. In this case your special modem is performing the analog to digital to packet conversions before sending your packetized signals off to the Gateway. Your signals travel over the broadband infrastructure the same way that data signals do, because in essence, VoIP packets are treated like data.

VoIP uses User Datagram Protocol at Layer 4 (the transmission layer) to allow for smooth streaming of voice packets and to reduce end-to-end delay because lost/garbled packets are not retransmitted.

VoIP packets traverse a managed IP network backbone rather than a traditional telco backbone.

I just basically want to know what I have to do or buy to set this thing up. Looks like just an ordinary everyday phone and plug it into the modem or the phone jack on the wall?