IP based PRI Service

[Jeff Zylstra]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with IP based PRI service for phones.  Comcast is coming out with IP based PRI lines in our area, and I'm intrigued by the possibilities.  I was wondering if anyone is planning on getting them or has them now, and what your experience with them is.  I'm considering them because it brings me cheaper internet costs.  Right now I have TDS with a full data T-1 and a half voice T-1 with PRI.  I'd like to retain the PRI services because I like the features and all of the data that is available. 

My phone guy is saying that cable IP/PRI does not work reliably like phone based PRI does.  He says that they lose calls in transfer or the data like caller ID is lost when the call is transferred, etc...   He is on a maintenance agreement, so I'm wondering if he doesn't want to mess with setting it up and maintaining it.  Also, one of his friends is the 3rd party reseller who sold us the service initially, so I'm wondering if there isn't some conflict there.

I'm anxious to hear about anyone's experience (good or bad) with this, and if you don't mind sharing cost, call quality, reliability issues, etc...., I would really appreciate knowing.  I was given a very rough estimate of $25-$40 per "line", but I'm interested to see what the true end cost of this is.  I have a feeling that cable based PRI will usher in a new price wars if it actually works.  Either that, or telco companies will lobby to have them regulated or taxed to death to stifle competition.  Should be interesting, however it pans out.