| reply to robbin
Re: Got ISDN covered--IDSL? said by robbin:I have had ISDN for over ten years. The first couple were not trouble free, but once they got all of the line issues fixed it has been. Sorry to hear you are continuing to have problems, but from experience I can state that it can be just as good as any other type of Internet connection. And I had ISDN for a few years at the same location, mostly problem free. Another issue is that not only is it not free of problems, but that even when it is problem free? My mother has never quite been able to understand the concept of "logging in" to ISDN, or making "a dialup connection" with her ISDN router. I'm not kidding. Try as I might, she does not seem to grok the process, and I can't blame her. She doesn't really care how it works, only that it does work, and even when it operates properly, she still doesn't understand it. This hampers her ability to just use it effectively.
To give you a for-instance here, when "her internet is down?" She's never understood that the problem just could be that the local ISP isn't answering the modem line. The fix is easy, just select one of the other numbers I've already set up in the OCLM, I've got four for the same ISP all in there, each a distinct number. But it's a router, not a modem, she never hears a dialtone, or a weird analogue noise as it connects. So I guess she's never assocated the fact that it operates just like dialup, no matter how many ways I've attempted to explain this to her.
This isn't entirely a problem, but it's caused other problems that just shouldn't happen. Like what? Well like her calling AT&T to complain that "my ISDN isn't working!" When the real problem is that the local ISP number it's dialing to is just busy that day. This has also worked in the opposite direction--when she has had a real actual problem with the ISDN line to the point of not having a dial tone on her phones, she didn't call AT&T to complain about it when she should have, because I explained to her last time that it was just a busy day at the ISP. Even though that's got nothing to do with her voice calls.
At the end of the day, with no direct user intervention required to use an always-on IDSL in a similar manner to conventional DSL, she would be in a much better no-nonsense situation. This day-to-day management and the problem solving sensibility that comes with it is just not in her area. |
