On 7/15/09 6:25 AM, "LuKreme" <kremels
kreme.com> wrote:
>> Here's the POTS user guide:
>
> 0) Make arrangements with Baby-Bell to get phone service. Sometimes
> this involves waiting several days for someone to come out to your
> house/apartment. You need to be there when they show up. Often you
> don't have to be there, but it will still take 2-3 days (or sometimes,
> like with my step-mom, seven weeks) before phone service is turned on.
> If you're a business, it can take even longer.
Oh lord, here we go. But, since you insist, I can play too.
Figure out which isp will deign to come out to your house and hook you up to
the internet. Wish you had actual choice in either dsl or cable, since both
are going to bend you over.
You'll need to be there when they show up. When will that be? SOMETIME in a
4-8 hour period on a day that is about as reliable as a puppy's memory. If
you're a business, it will take longer, and it will cost you 2-3x as month.
That's just for land-line based service. If you want to go cell only, you
have to figure out which company with service in your area will allow you to
use tethering, or pay $30 to $100 a month *per device* on at least a two
year contract with rather draconian termination fees. Even when you're
showing signal, if the nearest towers are overloaded, you won't get calls or
voicemail. But you still have to pay.
>
> 0.1) Pay anywhere from $15 - $100 a month for service, per line. Maybe
> more if you call people more than a few miles from your house. You are
> not allowed to shop around for a better option either. You get to dal
> with one company at one price and you can only get the features they
> offer, and they can charge you anything they want for anything beyond
> pulse-dial dial-tone.
Pay anywhere from $30-$100 a month and be told that even though DSL
advertises up to 6MB down, you can't actually get that. Discover that
everything costs extra, and if the power is out for more than a few hours,
discover your VOIP doesn't work, (unless you pay for a generator. There's a
few hundred bucks too, plus the charge for a licensed electrician to hook it
to your house power. Live in an apartment? Oh, sorry, no generator for you),
and as it turns out, even removable cell batteries aren't foolproof. But
that's okay, you don't mind sitting in the dark, or having to drive to
somewhere outside of the blackout that will let you charge up so you can
call the power company.
Meanwhile, that neighbor who's so stupid as to pay for pots? He's got a $9
radio shack phone, and is merrily making calls, thanks to the stupidity of
power over the phone line. Maybe he'll forget that you laughed at him for
getting POTS and let you borrow his phone.
>
> 0.2) Make arrangements for a long-distance carrier so you can make
> calls outside of your own state. Sign up for some plan, usually
> involving periodic charges, so that you don't get charged obscene
> rates for calling out of state. Or do what most people do, don't get
> LD at all on your POTS line and use your mobile instead.
Oops...did you call outside of what your cell plan lets you call? Did you
forget Canada is still international? Sucks to be you.
>
>> 1) Hit talk on phone, or, if no talk button, listen for a steady
>> tone. If
>> you hear that, enter the number you have for the person you want to
>> talk to.
>
> Enter 7 digits if the person is living very close to you, enter 10
> digits if the person is a little further away, but close enough for
> the call to be free. Enter 8 digits if the person is in the same
> general area, but far enough away that the phone company is allowed to
> charge you for the call. If they are in a different area code AND the
> phone company will charge you, then enter 11 digits. If the person you
> want to reach is at work, enter a different sequence of numbers
> (again, 7, 8, 10, or 11 digits depending on your location, their
> location, and whether or not the phone company is allowed to charge
> you for the call). Be prepared to have at least three numbers for most
> people, and maybe as many as six.
If only, only, only there were a way to record these numbers. If only the
POTS companies didn't offer unlimited domestic long distance.
Oh wait, there is, and they do.
>
> My Skype account is wherever I am. If I am sitting on my laptop at the
> coffee shop, the same number will reach me. If I am on-site somewhere,
> same number. If I am visiting my in-laws... well, I'm not likely to
> have Skype up on my iPhone or be using my laptop while I'm there, but
> if I am on my laptop then the same number will reach me.
Oh, sorry, was your wireless connection a bit squiffy? You don't mind
static. Was skype having a bad day or a router somewhere misconfigured? You
didn't really need to talk anyway.
>
>> Skype? BAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. It's the EASIEST of
>> the VOIP
>> bunch, and you can't go from zero to reliable calls in 1 step on a
>> bet. But
>> hey, you don't expect skype to be reliable, it just has to be free or
>> stupidly cheap.
>
> 1) download skype installer and run it.
>
> 2) setup account or enter existing account info
>
> You can be making calls in 5 minutes, a timeframe POTS can barely come
> within three orders of magnitude of matching. Once Skype is setup,
> it's very much like POTS. Activate Skype, punch in 10 numbers. Always
> 10. Or, select the name of a contact from your address book, or from
> your Skype contacts.
As long as you've correctly configured your router
And your computer isn't doing other things besides waiting for you to make a
skype call
And you have a good set of headsets
And the person on the other end, unless they've wised up and seen home VOIP
like Skype for the garbage it is, and gotten a real phone line, has THEIR
router correctly configured.
Then you MAY get a call sans static and echo.
Or not. Who knows? That's the joy of Skype! It's FREE and you GET WHAT YOU
PAY FOR. So what if the quality of talking to someone a mile away is worse
than a 1950s transatlantic call. You don't' care, it's CLOUD!
>
>> Again, I ONLY need skype to work 1 day a week for < two hours a day.
>> In over
>> 4 months, it has never, not once, ever managed to do this
>
> Your experience is by no means the norm. I, and many other people, use
> Skype everyday (or practically) and use it for many hours at a time.
> The Mac client does have a habit of locking up randomly (especially
> recently) on incoming calls or incoming messages, but I can still
> pickup my cordless and make a call.
BAAAHAHAHAAH...so what if the client locks up. It's CLOUD and VOIP and FREE!
You can't expect RELIABILITY or QUALITY! They haven't worked that magic yet!
> And it's crashing one a week or
> so, not every day or multiple times a day. All domestic calls are
> free, I get instant messaging and voicemail and a phone number that
> anyone on POTS can reach. I can even transfer files. All this for less
> per month than the TAXES on a POTS line.
I don't really care what anyone else's experience is. If Skype can't work
correctly when I need it to work, without endless dinking around and hopping
in a circle, and I just "have to accept" that it will randomly crash and the
quality will suck, then it's garbage. Someone with a clue tell me when Skype
actually cares about quality of software and service.
>
>> POTS just works.
>
> Unless you have, say DLS, where all of a sudden you need to worry
> about the 'ringer equivalency load' of each device on your line and
> install filters at all your phone jacks. Not to mention that you can
> easily spend $0.25 a MINUTE for making an in-state long distance call,
> and you have to pay something for every single call you make that is
> more than a few miles away from you.
You need to pick the right plan, just like you do with a cell phone. All my
domestic long distance is unlimited, and has been since oh, the late 90s.
>
> Yes, POTS does have one huge advantage, although most people don't
> even know about it anymore: If you have an old telephone that doesn't
> have a power-plug, then POTS works when there is no power. However,
> since most people barely remember that phones didn't use to need a
> power cord, this is pretty much moot.
Sorry, but that's still a legitimate benefit, and if you live somewhere that
has a lot of storms, you're rather aware of it, as it lets you make calls
when all your VOIPCLOUDFREE friends are wondering if they can get to where
there's power.
Oh, did we forget to mention that cell coverage isn't perfect? Yeah. It's
not. Oops.
>
> And yes, since POTS doesn't need an Internet connection you are more
> likely to not be able to make a call with Skype simply because the
> underlying connection is less reliable. A savings of 90% or more on
> the monthly phone bill is worth a lot more inconvenience than is
> actually inflicted by Skype, however.
If I can't reliably and clearly talk when I want for as long as I want,
without worrying about router configs on both ends, will the software crash
THIS TIME, then Skype doesn't actually save me anything. I pay for
reliability. I get service for that money. What I get with Skype are
unending excuses and justifications from the fanboys and no real
improvements from the company. When Skype works minute after minute after
hour after day after year, with no excuses and justifications, then I'll
think of it as something besides yet another distraction from the
magically-thinking gadget freaks. I need my services to work reliably and
correctly. Skype as of yet is incapable of doing that.
In the 36 years that I've been old enough to realize what the phone was, the
number of times it's been down, as in non-functional, is probably less than
ten. And one of those was due to the last Cat 5 hurricane to hit the US. The
fact that I am surprised when POTS goes down shows how unusual it is. And,
the fact that it offers me, when all else fails, service over a $9 phone in
a complete blackout, is actually rather comforting.
But your turn. Tell me again why reliability and quality don't count because
Skype is cool, free, and CLOUD.
--
John C. Welch
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