The Comcast sales pitch is what you would expect from corporate...short on
details, and full of hidden cost. I read in the WSJ that we're falling
behind economically because we don't have Cheap Broad Internet, like Asia.
I'm living on Dial-up at this time so I'm pretty fried. I've decided that
if I'm going to spend some money, I might as well throw it to some good,
like EFN. I'm still mulling it over...
TUX is coming to the Fair, so be ready for that, think I'll just show up in
the daytime for the three days, leave the costume at the Doors of Expression
Booth overnight. After this Halloween party I'm going to donate him to the
Country Fair. So if you want to get in some Yuks, this summer via some
YouTube gags, let me know.
On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Ben Barrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It is not $99? What does their 3-way "$99" package come to with taxes &
> fees, anyway?
> And what is the [current] cost of their business service?
> I hope these questions are appropriate for the thread & the list...
>
> ~ben
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 3:58 PM, BB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Thank for getting back to me, I finally got the REAL price for Comcast
>> service, forget it! I'm looking into other options, probably DSL, who
>> knows I may crawl under the Dial-up rock :-o
>>
>> On 5/20/08, Ben Barrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > My VoIP keeps working when the local power goes out, so long as my UPS
>> holds
>> > up my networking equipment.
>> > I am registered with E911 as well, and they called me back since my
>> street
>> > address does not map well and they confirmed my physical home's location
>> > beyond my satisfaction (although thankfully I've never had to use the
>> > service yet, knock wood).
>> > So what else was missing or less-than-optimal with "normal" VoIP? I
>> have a
>> > strong distaste for comcast's sideband implementation -- obviously it is
>> a
>> > good engineering choice for them, and also serves the vast majority of
>> the
>> > userland market... but I wanted a VoIP service I could use flexibly,
>> > re-route and reconfigure as I saw fit.... as a geek. I *also* wanted
>> > something I could use out of the box, something reliable and not subject
>> to
>> > the mere whims of my late-night software reconfigurations.
>> >
>> > I have only had two or three minor instances of call quality degradation
>> > over the two years of service I've gotten, and my provider [ViaTalk] is
>> also
>> > asterisk-friendly and will allow flexible end-user options like
>> ring-through
>> > to a soft-phone while traveling, and so forth. I'd love to get a
>> referral
>> > if anyone is going to sign up with ViaTalk, please contact me off-list.
>> > They have a free year deal for new customers which is quite a bargain.
>> They
>> > ship a LinkSys Phone adaptor pre-configured, so you only need plug it
>> into
>> > your LAN and your POTS phone when it arrives :)
>> > There are a lot of other providers out there, and most of my info is
>> about 2
>> > years old since dropped my qworst line then, and have beenb happily
>> humming
>> > along ever since.
>> > I do remember seeing a fairly volatile VoIP market then, and suspect
>> that a
>> > big risk with any of many smaller providers is *still* whether they'll
>> be
>> > staying in business... so, points for Comcast and Skype there...
>> >
>> > Skype makes all the people I've suggested it to very happy, although it
>> > seems a bit inter-webby to me; however I've read a few interesting bits
>> > about plugins and re-routing of calls -- looks much easier than even the
>> > bootable gui'ed pbx/telephony distros, although 'doze-centric on the
>> > extensibility end when I had looked (~2 yrs ago?).
>> > For a lot of ("most") computer desktop users, the type of folks who have
>> a
>> > cellphone and either miss their home phone or want to ditch it, I think
>> > Skype with the $25/yr SkypeOut service is a good fit for the low-end...
>> they
>> > can call out to save their cell-plan minutes and/or for discounted
>> > international, and if they can learn to travel with a thumb drive and
>> > headset (I also plug portable firefox a lot).
>> >
>> > ~ben
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 2:38 PM, marbux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 10:47 AM, wes morgan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >> > I have had the phone/internet/cable bundle for about 2 1/2 years and
>> no
>> >> > problems.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> Ditto for approximately the same amount of time, although I recall
>> >> some minor glitches when their Eugene area phone service was new. It
>> >> seems to be pretty stable now.
>> >>
>> >> The big advantages of Comcast telephony or a traditional POTS over
>> >> VOIP telephony are that that service (hopefully) doesn't go down when
>> >> the local electrical power system goes out and the 911 service is way
>> >> better, e.g., an open line can be quickly traced to a street address.
>> >>
>> >> As I understand the situation, VOIP can still leave you in the lurch
>> >> when you need it most, a deciding factor for one who has reached the
>> >> stage of his life when the ability to rapidly summon ambulance service
>> >> at any time is an important consideration.
>> >>
>> >> I've tried Skype, but found it frustrating because of fluctuating
>> >> volume and rapid decay of audio when a friend in Germany I frequently
>> >> need to work with is patched into a 3-way or larger number of
>> >> participating nodes. I have no idea whether such problems are common
>> >> to VOIP in general, but I decided that email or chat were far less
>> >> frustrating to me for such purposes. .
>> >>
>> >> Best regards,
>> >>
>> >> Marbux
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> EUGLUG mailing list
>> >> [email protected]
>> >> http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
>> >>
>> >
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