Re: three mini-rants
- From: Jasper Janssen <jasper.janssen@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:03:51 +0200
On Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:36:36 +0100, chris+news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Chris
Suslowicz) wrote:
In article <4c5k64pjrj6np71ashlugfttl5hnc7646h@xxxxxxx>,
Jasper Janssen <jasper.janssen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:48:09 +0100, chris+news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Chris
Suslowicz) wrote:
Presumably that's why it was sold off or renamed?
That's a possibility. It was was sold off to our ILEC/former monopoly
telco, actually, who are currently in the process of merging it with a
similarly acquired mobile operator and making it their 'budget' brand.
I have my Hoots DeMon escape route planned. The only problem is that
they will LLU the house telephone service, which may prove expensive
at a later date - though I doubt I'd choose Brutish Telecon/Phorm for
intertube service.
If you want a reliable landline phone, at least in .nl, POTS or ISDN is
still the way to go.
Ditto in .uk - Brutish Telecon may have a pricing structure that is
a cross between bizarre and Byzantine (with the occasional outbreaks
of surrealism and Lovecraftian horror), but the POTS is still pretty
much based on the General Post Office setup and (mostly) just bloody
works. This cannot be said for Cable "service" - Birmingham Cable Communications^Wntl:^WVirgin - which disappears up its own orifice
if the street power goes off (along with all the local cell towers).
The -48V is still there and I can dial $Powerco and grumble at them.
(Quite what happens when Brutish Telecon roll out their much-vaunted
21CN (which immediately makes me think of spamsources like 163 net),
is anybody's guess. *I* still want central exchanges with Big Battery
Backup pushing -48V to the doorstep, so that 1930-technology phones
can still make emergency calls if it all goes tits-up.
My main personal landline phone is a T65-TDK, which is a tone-dial version
of the New Phone Design of 1965. Pulse-dialing isn't accepted by my local
exchange, AFAIK. Certainly my in-house little PBX doesn't (but on
powerfail it will connect the relay between outside line and internal line
1).
BT's 21CN, would it by any chance involve decentralised FttC VDSL2
gadgetry? They're doing that here too. Rolled out fully by 2010,
allegedly. I sure hope they'll include some sort of power backup...
If you want to dial out cheaply, receive most of your calls on yer
mobile, and are willing to take the risk, then by all means go VoIP.
Not just no, but: Hell, NO!
Well, I dunno. POTS for incoming and VoIP -- which often has national free
calls, given the correct providers even free calls to many international
destinations -- for outgoing, with automatic fallback to the POTS, is not
such a bad setup. Although the ATA probably should sound a warning note
before dialing out on the expensive line.
And using the POTS for incoming (which is free of usage-fees, in european
tariff structures) neatly automates testing the line for function.
Note: Store owners whose telephony service includes the alarm system and
the electronic payment gear... just don't. Poor fellow was told by Sales
that he could just plug his ISDN small business PBX into the back of our
modems-with-integrated-VoIP-ATA. And the greatest thing is, once you
decouple the underlying telephony from a shared line, you *cannot* get a
landline back on the copper -- you have to have a separate line set up for
the new subscription. I hope the poor feller has a spare pair...
Ouch. At that point the Consumer Protection Axe[1] should be deployed to
reduce Sales to a tangled mess - even if the victim *is* a business
customer.
Note, though, that he's signed a contract which states explicitly in the
fine print "If you are a business customer, you use this service at your
own risk. Moreover, if we detect business-related activity on this your
consumer line, we reserve the right to terminate the contract
*immediately*".
Although he would've been a lot better off if, as I presume happened, he
didn't call up to arrange the DSL on top of his existing ISDN and then let
himself be convinced during the call that cheap voip was a good idea.
A Fritz-Box would have allowed him to plug in his ISDN PBX, but the alarm
company probably still takes exception.
My choice for a move is constrained by:
1) Reliability.
2) Speed (reasonable, not dropping to dialup or worse at peak times)
3) Clue, and a contactable helldesk.
Oh. Dear. Better not move to .nl at all, then.
Athe the moment I'm considering a couple of ISPs, but they're
both LLU and I need to see what impact that might have on POTS.
Around here, until a few years back, all DSL was shared-line, then they
introduced DSL-only, but you paid a line rental fee as large as the
cheapest POTS subscription (10E/mo). Currently, several ISPs are offering
20Mb-for-20E including the line rental, so it would seem line rental has
gotten a bit cheaper. Anyway, those will deliver on a shared-line (which
is, after all, pure profit for them, not having to pay the line rental) if
you want to. I would imagine that the UK situation is similar and that
while such ISPs may offer DSL-only, they will also do shared-line if you
prefer to maintain a real phone -- but yeah, better check that.
We also often have 2 pairs running to our home, which helps a little,
hinders a little. My house has 10, because it used to be three apartments
at one point.
Jasper
.
- References:
- Re: three mini-rants
- From: Jasper Janssen
- Re: three mini-rants
- From: Chris Suslowicz
- Re: three mini-rants
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