Voice over Internet challenges telephone Experts have long predicted the death of traditional home telephone service, in large part because of the deployment of wireless services such as the cell phone. Plain old telephone service, as it is known in the industry, will die. But it turns out its executioner will more likely be Voice over Internet Protocol, rather than the cell phone. VoIP is finally beginning to gather steam in the United States. The technology uses a high-speed broadband Internet connection to make telephone calls. The calls travel at least part of the way on an Internet protocol network rather than the public switches that make up the telephone infrastructure. Here
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  JEJE 's BACK BABYPremium
join:2000-12-15
East Orange, NJ |  DEATH To VERIZON!
Landlines are now a thing of the past, except when your VOIP goes out and has no dialtone PERIODICALLY.....LOL
Hollaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!
JE
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BLAZIN' FAST OOL @: 9400/971Can Your ISP Go This FAST? VRoOoOoOoOm!-- I Have: AVG 7.0 | ZA 4.5.538.001 | ICQ: 16705298 |AIM: EdGei365i -- | |
|  | | | Plain old telephone service just doesn't cut it! I love my packet8 service. won't go back to SBC...Packet8 rocks, But it would be way cool if they could ever get fax/data to work so I can hook up my tivo S1...SBC charges to much period. | |
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| | The telcos are rapidly annoying their customers. Yes, the telcos are running scared. I can sympathize, because the landscape is truly charging. Possibly for the first time ever, there is real competition to the telco POTS service.
However, while some of it is just "market pressures", some of it is the years of arrogance that the telcos have engaged in. Being regulated monopolies, they have advanced the "high art" of hitting customers with fees and (pay for) services they don't want. All in the name of making more money now, never mind how much it annoys the customer (and makes them long to go somewhere/anywhere else). As the old "Laugh In" skit goes, "We don't have to care, we are the phone company!".
Having dealt with some truly lousy phone companies from a "customer service" standpoint (such as SBC), CenturyTel (my telco) is relatively mild. However, even they are not above stunts designed to sneakily pry more money from the customer. For example, all CenturyTel phone lines have (unless the customer knows about, and requests the proper "block") many "for pay" services/"features" that are too easy to trip over. Like, what's this BS of "Extended Local Calling Area", where calling a nearby town is dialed with only 7 digits, but the call is still a "toll call"?
I have worked with CenturyTel customer service on many occasions, and they are mostly helpful and polite (unlike some telcos). However, even I am starting to lose my patients, when I have to call customer service every few months, to check up on some "unexpected charge" on my bill (sometimes "cramming" or other "fraud", and sometimes its just some new "regulatory fee" they have gotten the regulators to agree to), or ask them to add yet another "block" to my phone line for some service we don't need or want. Already, we have a "toll call block" (prevents unexpected LD charges, especially those 7 digit LD numbers), a "3rd party billing block" (we have been "crammed" more than once), a "collect call block" (AT&T has tried to bill us for a collect call that we never accepted, or even knew about until we saw the bill). And we now learn that when a neighbor mistakenly tried a *69 (from our phone), our "toll call block" didn't have any effect (and we have that charge on our phone bill). Apparently CenturyTel's attitude is that the "toll call block" obviously wouldn't work, because *69 isn't a "toll call", it's a "Pay per use feature" (sheesh), so we now have a 4th block (blocking "Pay per use features") on our phone line!
It's the result of BS like that, that makes many people long for "honest pricing" of services, and some people want to leave the phone company at almost "any cost". For the time being, I will be sticking with CenturyTel, as I really "need" my DSL (which seems to be the only "broadband" option in the area). However, I have already told my wife that we can ditch the telco anytime she wants, AFTER she can arrange for some other decent broadband option. Yes, VoIP isn't quite up to POTS standards, but it is becoming "good enough" if/when you have some "backup" (such as a cell phone). Between Packet8 and "Free World Dialup" (with cell phone backups), we can easily meet our voice phone needs, without ever having a traditional POTS line. And as to fax (which doesn't run well over VoIP), there are services that will let you receive and/or send faxes via email (for a modest fee). While having the POTS line has some advantages (including working when your ISP is down), it is becoming far from essential. | |
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 ·AT&T DSL Service
 ·Virgin Mobile Br..
| Re: The telcos are rapidly annoying their customer The last poster hits about every annoyance I have with telco's. Pay per use features just kill me having 3 teens with no understanding of bills. Zone calls, as PacBell called them here in California, also are a huge annoyance making you pay a few cents/minute for calls over 8 miles or so from your home even in our metro area. Forcing DSL customers to also have a land line, even if unwanted, is also unfair. Plus the false advertising DSL uses. Only a fraction of people get the advertised rates. Most get the minimum guaranteed rates which is about half the advertised speed and then you're stuck with a 12 month contract which I'm sure was their plan. True, VOIP isn't always 100% reliable but a cell phone with a cell socket is a great backup to VOIP. When my DSL rip-off contract is up in Feb., it's good-bye SBC phone and DSL. Comcasts new Gold Tier (4300/384) sealed SBC's fate as far as I am concerned. | |
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