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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
1 edit | reply to lengyelc
Re: Not surprising
said by lengyelc  :Comcast certainly preys on customer stupidity. Have you seen their commercials? Those alone were enough to make me puke and change providers! Then do the forum a favor and do that.
Comcast 'preys'... that's stretching it. Considering that Americans have been accustomed to paying $70+ phone bills for years, $50 isn't that bad.
It's clear you are either are too young to have ever experienced real hardship and real phone service, or you(and the others - to be fair) don't find that utilities and other necessities are priorities and would rather have your money to spend on music, over priced clothing, high end TV's and, here's one... OVER PRICED CELLULAR SERVICE. ANYONE here with a cell phone should rethink about bitching at even a $50 unlimited wire-line phone service when cellular service is THE most expensive way to place a call. (Not to mention, about 95% of the people in this site have no real reason to say they "need" a cellular phone.
I think I'd certainly call cell and satellite tv companies that lock customers into inescapable contracts (High EFTs) and no recourse to pour service 'preying' on customers... simply marketing a $50 phone service is not preying. And, simply because Vonage and the likes offer a $25 phone service doesn't devalue the cable offering.
And YES, in this message, I am 100% defending cable/comcast on this point.. because you're simply wrong. | |
Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
 ·North State Commun..
| said by fiberguy :OVER PRICED CELLULAR SERVICE. ANYONE here with a cell phone should rethink about bitching at even a $50 unlimited wire-line phone service when cellular service is THE most expensive way to place a call. (Not to mention, about 95% of the people in this site have no real reason to say they "need" a cellular phone. While I agree with overpriced, I think the rest of your rant is completely unfounded. To me it's worth twice as much to be able to take my phone with me. Even if I'm 8 miles into a long run in the middle of nowhere I can make a call or people can reach me with emergencies. I have TWO phones actually, a main one, and one I run with that I use only for emergencies. | |
lengyelc
join:2005-12-11
Alpharetta, GA
 ·AT&T CallVantage
 ·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to fiberguy
Wow...easy there fiberguy. For the record, I did puke and I did change providers 
Now, regarding your personal attacks, try to keep those off a discussion on technology. I agree with your stance on cell phone charges and I certainly am open minded enough to firmly believe that what works for one does not for another.
Personally, like many on here, I'll stick with my $19.99/mo callvantage, with UPS backup, and try my damndest to build my savings so I can afford to send my kids to college. No time for music or cheap clothing. Though with interest rates being so low and inflation....
Wait, I'm man enough to take that discussion to another board. | |
karlmarx
join:2006-09-18
iraq
·Fairpoint Communic..
| reply to fiberguy
Look at the cell phone this way. I used to pay sprint 59.99 for a 1500 minute plan. BUT, add in the taxes and fees, and the real price was about $82.00 a month. I dumped that when I left, and when I came back I bought a t-mobile prepaid. 10 cents a minute. I am using about 300 minutes a month, and I pay, bingo. $30.00. Period. No taxes, no fees, no early termination fees. The way I see it, if you're not a heavy phone users (i.e. less than 20 minutes a day), then prepay is definitely the way to go. Charge up $100.00, and get a free $50.00 upgrade.
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The happiest countries are the most secular. The struggle AGAINST corporations is the struggle FOR humanity! | |
Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| said by karlmarx :Look at the cell phone this way. I used to pay sprint 59.99 for a 1500 minute plan. BUT, add in the taxes and fees, and the real price was about $82.00 a month. I dumped that when I left, and when I came back I bought a t-mobile prepaid. 10 cents a minute. I am using about 300 minutes a month, and I pay, bingo. $30.00. Period. No taxes, no fees, no early termination fees. The way I see it, if you're not a heavy phone users (i.e. less than 20 minutes a day), then prepay is definitely the way to go. Charge up $100.00, and get a free $50.00 upgrade. Plus the $1 fee for the days you use your phone. Because they don't offer the .10 per minute plan without it. That's the pay as you go plan, which doesn't even have a 300 minute plan.
So if you use your 20 minutes a day, your bill is now $60. | |
lvrdad_45
join:2001-09-18
Fort Worth, TX
·magicjack.com
| Suggest you check your facts....you do not have to pay $1 a day for access with T-mobile...that is ATT. I use a pre paid T mobile phone...purchase 1000 minutes for $100, last me for a year....if I can calculate right, that is 10 cents a minute, with no access charge per day. | |
Medic63
join:2004-02-15
Butler, PA
| T Mobile has a newer plan that does cost $1 a day on days you use the phone, in addition to the pay-as-you-go plan that you have.
»www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/defa···OnsiteAd
There is a whole forum dedicated to it over at Howard forums. | |
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| reply to lengyelc
My main issue, still , over any voip is that there is no accountability for them to have. When ever there are problems, and I'm sure many of us have had them (I'm a vonage sub too) they will always blame your ISP.
It's worth, to me, and many others, to have a company to nail to the wall.
Comcast was accused of failing on a 911 call. At least you can go after them with some luck. If Vonage failed, how are you going to go after them? Your ISP has no accountability for your voice service.
I don't think, in our life time, we will ever see an ISP be help liable for any 3rd party voip service.
Safety is just too important to me, and many others, among other things, to put their full faith in vonage or call vantage.
Does it work? SURE! Is it great? I love mine.. would I put my life in it? NO.. that's why I still have service with other providers.  | |
baj475
join:2004-11-02
Chico, CA
·Future Nine Corpor..
| fiberguy,
For toys my Magicjacks work pretty well as phones!
Why should I care who, if anyone, is overseeing MagicJack? Yes I have read the TOS. If I lease a car, I do not own it but that does not mean I do not have the exclusive right to use it. Why do I need rights to my Magicjack phone numbers? Is there a market for used phone numbers? Why do you think I need someone to protect me from Magicjack? If Magicjack does not perform to my satisfaction they loose me as a customer. This is all the protection I need or want, since I have already saved more than what they cost me. If MagicJack folded tomorrow I would care, but only because I would no longer be saving $50/mo.
I think you are referring to nitzan. If so, he is in Georgia. His company is Future Nine. While I disagreed with nitzan about how long Magicjack will be around, this should not be taken as an adverse personal reflection on him. In addition to my two Magicjacks, I have two Future Nine VOIP lines and can say that nitzan is very knowledgeable and provides excellent service. While a bargain, his service costs more than Magicjack's but provides things Magicjack's does not. Future Nine provided local phone numbers which are not yet available in my area from Magicjack and I can turn my computers off, since my ATA (Linsksy PAP2T) connecting me to Future Nine's servers plugs directly into my router.
We will just have to agree to disagree on whether Magicjack provides real phone service. To me it is real because I can do anything with them that I was doing with my AT&T land lines. If Vonage is not a real phone service under your definition, then I guess that the only thing that would qualify would be an ILEC land line and even those lines can go out in storms and fires.
Wanting to have a company to nail to the wall makes you sound litigious.
Not that safety is not important but you seem paranoid over potential but unlikely safety issues. I never suggested that having an alternative was not a good idea. While my phone service is dependent upon my internet connection, that will not prevent me from using my cell phone. I just do not see 911 service or the ability to yak on the phone whenever the mood strikes me as critical.
With respect to your comment about not having 911 service when the grid goes out, that is not likely to happen, because power to my lights, coffee pot, microwave, computers, modem and router is backed up by battery powered inverters. I do not see that AT&T's telephone lines hanging from poles are any safer from errant motorist than Comcast's cables. Accordingly, I do not think I have given up anything with regard to 911 service and/or safety by relying solely on VOIP. | |
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Our difference is most likely generational, for one, and the fact that I, like so many others, still hold telephone as a life-line service. (as does the government) If Magic Jack works for you, great. For almost the rest of Americans, including myself, it doesn't, and that's cool.
But, in my eyes, it's not phone service. Phone in this country has a reliability factor which MJ doesn't have. And to call me litigious is not accurate. I am realistic. Since phone is a life line, I, again, like so many, have an expectation for a level of service and for it to be there when you need it. Telephone has five 9's in order to be qualified by just about any PUC in the U.S.. Again, MJ doesn't have that, nor does the likes of Vonage and others.
While you and people like you are ok with having monkey rigged phone service, I'm not looking to have alternatives. Again, people want and expect phone service to be there. Paranoid? Use all those terms you want, but the bottom line, it is you who is out of touch on this subject, not me. If I or others weren't worried about having a phone service available for emergencies, why do we have a 911 system in the first place?
I'm sorry to say this, but I'm going to 'go there' on this next subject. You ARE out of line here. Some things, in life, are deemed so by the greater good of society. In this country, 911 IS critical. Just because you don't doesn't make it right for everyone else, OR, even yourself. In this case, society rules you on this. If you don't think 911 is critical, sorry to say, I'm sure you have family that will. If something major happened to you that put you in a bad spot, or made you a veg and you became a burden on your family because of faulty phone service or lack of 911 in the time of need, I'm CERTAIN your family would try to sue FOR you..
So again, sorry to say this, I don't care if it's "not for you" or not.. this is a case where I can stand back and tell you that you are wrong even for you on your own end. Some things are larger than even one's self and this is one of them.
No matter how many inverters you have/use, or how ever you've "set yourself up".. I still remain on my side that telephone is not designed to need this amount of effort. You're still not convincing me to your side. MJ still isn't "phone service" in my eyes, and others.. it's simply a techs' tool, and a company for someone to make a bunch of money off people before running. I DO still, however, agree that it's a good money savings for as long as you can use it and it's around.. but a phone service..? No. you won't convince me. | |
baj475
join:2004-11-02
Chico, CA
·Future Nine Corpor..
| fiberguy,
Generational? Just how old or young do you think I am?
I do not think it is generational unless you are either so young as to be a whippersnapper or so old to be nearly senile and you do not sound like either. If you recall, I originally asked you for your definition of phone service because it was obviously different than mine. You can define the term phone service anyway you want. The important thing is that we understand that we are ascribing different definitions.
I do not think I called you litigious. What I said is that some of your words made you sound that way. However, one offhand remark is not enough to know if you are truly litigious, so I will accept your representation that you are not.
Monkey rigged? I am out of touch? How? I fully understand the limitations of VOIP. To me those limitations are not critical or even of much importance. To you they are. From my prospective you are excessively worried about minimal possibilities. From your prospective I probably appear naive. If you are not comfortable with what I am that is fine. That is your choice. I am not suggesting that you are out of touch only that we have different priorities and different opinions on how reliable a phone systems needs to be to satisfy our respective needs. | |
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
| reply to fiberguy
I think you're dead on with the 5-nines expectation as being one of the required qualities of telephone service.
I'm personally a bit on the fence.
If the ISPs were required to prioritize or segregate Vonage in the same way that they handle their own VOIP offering, do you think Vonage could hit that level of reliability? Or do the ISPs automatically get a competitive advantage (as it is today) since they're making the investment outlay in the network? Should VOIP providers or VOIP users be allowed to pay an extra fee to get the same level of service and allow the ISPs to recapture their investment?
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| In all honesty, regarding giving the likes of Vonage priority and all, I think Vonage would be just as good as say Comcast or Cox. I have both CDV and Vonage. My CDV runs on Comcast, obviously, and my Vonage runs on a Qwest 1.5/896 line. The Vonage in MY home has been FAR superior to that of Comcast. CDV goes down every time the internet connection goes down. I think the CDV service would work better if I ran it over a Qwest DSL connection (which it won't ) but if I had to give an overall rating of CDV over Vonage in MY experience with the product taking MY application to play, the quality of Vonage is superior to that of Comcast CDV.
What does this tell me? The service is still only as strong as the connection running it.
To date, I've yet had a CDV only outage. It's always been CDV and HSI together.
I don't think I could support ISPs having to be required to prioritize Voip. (And I am not assuming you are or are not either) I say this only because I believe the internet is a compilation of all traffic. The moment you give VoIP any priority, then other video providers will want it, and then others, and others.. etc. I still believe that Video already has a delivery system(s) as does phone.
personally, I'd like to see the internet (last mile plants) be capable of handling at LEAST 10 times more (if not more) traffic than it does now. While I don't think that internet is ready for everything tossed at it now, I DO think that in the somewhat near future it's going to have to evolve. I also believe they know this too (the ISPs) and since so much is coming on the horizon, it's a waiting game to see what the best way to upgrade is in order to save capital. So far, no ISP has been immune to that - even Fios has already performed an upgrade to some of it's fiber networks.
I think it will be inevitable that we're going to pay more for the internet in the near future for the mere fact that we're calling for it to do much much more. As revenue lags from one profit center, another will have to pick up the slack to compensate. I think we're slowly seeing this now. | |
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